While My Sister Sleeps Quotes

“Choices are easy when you have nothing to lose.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“When the dust settled, they talked reasonably about the inevitability of change, the idea that they had to let go what might have been and accept what was.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“Mothering is precarious. You try to do the right thing—you think you have—then wham.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“Letting go wasn't a betrayal, but rather a pure form of love. But letting go entailed acceptance of reality”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“Some say life is a roller coaster. I see it as riding a wave. You're out there on your board and everything is calm—” “Excuse me,” she broke in. “You never surfed.” “I did,” he insisted, all innocence. “Well, I tried. I was never particularly good at it, but I did get the drift. You're out there in a huge ocean, straddling that board. The water is smooth, but deceptive. You know the waves are moving, and you watch and wait, and suddenly you feel that little shift underneath. You stand up. You totter, but regain your balance, then give yourself to something far bigger than you are. You have no control . You're just along for the ride, swept downwater so fast it takes your breath. Then it's done. Smooth water again.” Molly still wasn't sure he had ever surfed, but the analogy cleared her mind. The ocean, like the earth, was soothing.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“he didn't look as much like a user as a man who had lost someone near and dear. She let it go. Wasn't that the lesson of the week? Anger accomplished nothing. Denial was a crutch.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“Turning off the machines is a technicality. Her mind is already gone. Her spirit lingers, but it's tied to her bed because we are. If we want it free, we have to do this for her.” Molly heard an echo of her father and saw no inconsistency. Yes, Robin's soul was in heaven. Her spirit, though, was different. It was the part of her that lived on in everyone she left behind. In that regard, what Kathryn said made sense.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“Love was love.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“No mother loves her children the same. Each one is different.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“No, I don't need to do this, she thought. This isn't what I want. I want my mother. The thought startled her, but she couldn't shake it. She wanted Marjorie—wanted to pour out her heart and cry in the arms of the one person whose job it was to listen. It didn't matter how old or how independent Kathryn was. She needed her mother.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“Organ donation is the stuff of which dreams are made,” he began. “Literally. In a given year, there may be 4,000 people waiting for 2,000 donated hearts, and 4,000 people waiting for 1,000 donated lungs. Livers? Probably 18,000 people will wait, 6,000 will get, and another 2,000 will die waiting. And the numbers are even higher when we talk about kidneys—60,000 people waiting, 15,000 getting, 4,000 dying while they wait. By the way, the survival rate for these transplants is impressive, often up in the 85 percent range.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“Remember my mother—how much she suffered before she died, how thin and gray she seemed after so much surgery? I don't picture her that way anymore. I picture her as she was before she got sick.”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps

“That's the dilemma with family. When it comes to our parents, we're always children. At what point do we grow up? They raise us to function as individuals, but when do they allow us to act independently?”
― Barbara Delinsky, While My Sister Sleeps