The Forever Bridge Quotes

“And, she thinks, as she looks around this sun-filled room, colored leaves pressing against the window like bits of colored glass inside a kaleidoscope, that maybe finding home is as simple, and as difficult, as finding hope.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“Because the world sometimes conspires against us even as we embrace it. And sometimes the world embraces us, even as we forsake it. Maybe this is God, she thinks. This quiet, easy truth. And religion, the acceptance of it.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“How do you not believe in fate? How do you ever think that you are the one in control? How could she have been so foolish as to think that she had any authority over her future? How could she have been so brazen as to think that this had anything at all to do with her?”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“get”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“The people you trust the most are sometimes the ones who betray you the worst. And the people you love more than anything are the ones who will break your heart.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“But there’s no pause in real life. There’s also no rewind. And there’s definitely no delete. There’s just now running on and on, and you can’t ever stop it, no matter what you do.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“Her grandmother’s pistol passed down, like a recipe for strudel.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“By the time she climbs into her bed at night, her limbs ache with the exhaustion of another day, though as she turns out the light and closes her eyes, her body rests but her mind races. Like a car long after the ignition has been turned off, the engine ticking, ticking. The hood still hot to the touch. Because while her days are predictable, as an ascetic’s grim routine will be, her nights are capricious. Sleep is like the river. Changeable. Sometimes it is still, harmless, and sleep is nothing but a simple shutting down. But other times it is a violent thing, which pulls her into its current. On nights like these there is nothing to do but to surrender to its sway.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“She hears a zipper, and when she closes her eyes, she can almost see Ruby’s hand reaching into her backpack, finding whatever book she is reading. She wonders what world she will slip into tonight and knows this ability is something she has given her: a genetic inheritance like her dark hair and Robert’s green eyes. Because the only time Sylvie leaves the house anymore is through the paper portals of her novels.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“For years now, she’s bought into that lie. Believed in the hollow promise of communion. Trusting that two bodies could forge an alliance. That it was as simple as flesh. As simple as whispers skipped across skin like a pebble across water. She’s wanted so desperately to believe that attention (to lips, to hips) was the same as home. But people lie. And people steal. And people leave. This is something else her mother taught her. People always leave. But she is not running away anymore. She will prove her mother wrong. She will make all of this right.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“How do you not believe in fate? How do you ever think that you are the one in control? How could she have been so foolish as to think that she had any authority over her future? How could she have been so brazen as to think that this had anything at all to do with her? And so instead of rage, she is suddenly filled with a sense of thankfulness. Her chest inflates with a sense of kinship she hasn’t felt before. This girl is not to blame. No one really is to blame. Even the man, Declan she says, is culpable only of cowardice. Because the world sometimes conspires against us even as we embrace it. And sometimes the world embraces us, even as we forsake it. Maybe this is God, she thinks. This quiet, easy truth. And religion, the acceptance of it.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“But even then, even all those years when she was never physically by herself, she was beginning to feel the chasm growing between her and the rest of the world. It was like a small tear in the seam of a dress, a certain pulling away. A ripping. And once it started, there was no stopping it. Of course, she tried so hard to keep it together, to tether herself to this world. She filled her life with people. With friends and family. But even then she knew that mere presence of people in one's life cannot eliminate the terrifying sense of one's aloneness in the world. Being surrounded by people is not the same as connection. As friendship. As love. When Robert came along, she believed for a little while she had found the answer, the bridge that crossed the deep canyon. And children too became links between herself and normalcy. The accident didn't start it, it just proved the faultiness, the tenuousness of these connections.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge

“But Ruby understands now, this inclination. This desire to slip away. To seclude herself. She understands how it feels to be an island, separate from everyone else, surrounded by nothing but water. Even when she is with people (at school, at Izzy's house, at the pool), she is aware of how alone she is. Nobody can reach her, not really. She and her mother are more similar than different, but she doesn't know how to tell her mom this. What words might explain she understands.”
― T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge