Leaving Blythe River Quotes

“We always say we’ll never get used to change, but then the change happens and we do.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“I’m just advising you to let go of the hate in yourself, because you’re the one swallowing that poison every day, not him.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“People with really good self-worth think they’re the same size as everybody else, and they never make anybody else feel small. Any time somebody tries to act like they’re more than you are, deep down they’re afraid they’re less. Otherwise they’d have nothing to prove.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“Don’t ever say that to me again. It was not nothing. You did an incredible thing for your father. And you always have that. It’s part of who you are now. You stepped up to it, and now you’re up on a higher level than you were before. You gave the man a gift. The fact that he doesn’t know how to value it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a great gift. It just means he has lousy taste in presents.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“Just for a moment, Ethan felt his view of life, of the world, stretched painfully. He had never realized that something so frightening could also be beautiful. That a sight could strike fear into his heart and at the same time make him feel privileged to have seen it.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“The wilderness just has this way of reminding you that you’re powerless. And that what you want doesn’t matter. We always think we’re so smart and strong, but nature always gets the last laugh.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“But it’s a funny thing about your darkest moments. They have a life of their own. They come around because they’ve got you pinned. Because they can. The harder you try to push them back into the shadows, the stronger they grow. They draw power from your resistance.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“It was that ugly moment when you had to back up through time inside your head, and reframe everything you thought you knew about somebody. You had to revise reality after the fact. At least the reality you thought you knew.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“No. That’s not how it works. People with really good self-worth think they’re the same size as everybody else, and they never make anybody else feel small. Any time somebody tries to act like they’re more than you are, deep down they’re afraid they’re less. Otherwise they’d have nothing to prove.” Ethan”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“At least, as much as human nature allows. But it’s a funny thing about your darkest moments. They have a life of their own. They come around because they’ve got you pinned. Because they can. The harder you try to push them back into the shadows, the stronger they grow. They draw power from your resistance.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“it’s a funny thing about your darkest moments. They have a life of their own. They come around because they’ve got you pinned. Because they can. The harder you try to push them back into the shadows, the stronger they grow. They draw power from your resistance.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“not how it works. People with really good self-worth think they’re the same size as everybody else, and they never make anybody else feel small. Any time somebody tries to act like they’re more than you are, deep down they’re afraid they’re less.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“flying”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“Man does not live by wimpy coffee.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“He was different. He didn’t waste his time with crap like that. He had living to do. He knew who he was and he didn’t have anything to prove to anybody. He had no problem saying he made a mistake, or he didn’t know. That’s a sign of confidence in a person. People think it’s the other way around. But it’s only people who don’t have their acts together who work so hard to make you think they do.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“Nature is not what you might call predictable. And it’s not forgiving. It doesn’t care about us. The lightning is gonna go where it wants to go whether you’re about to get fried by it or not. The wilderness just has this way of reminding you that you’re powerless. And that what you want doesn’t matter. We always think we’re so smart and strong, but nature always gets the last laugh.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“He knew then why his voice had abandoned him. Because it takes courage to talk to people.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“But when you’re already swimming in a sea of humiliation deep enough to drown you, it doesn’t matter much if somebody throws in another bucketful. It’s not worth it to stop and pay attention to that when you need to keep paddling.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“Ethan tries not to look back on that night. At least, as much as human nature allows. But it’s a funny thing about your darkest moments. They have a life of their own. They come around because they’ve got you pinned. Because they can. The harder you try to push them back into the shadows, the stronger they grow. They draw power from your resistance.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“Feelings are a funny thing, he realized. They’re always more tangled and contradictory and complex than we want them to be. Than we care to admit.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“We always say we’ll never get used to change, but then the change happens and we do.” “See?”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“I’m not suggesting you need to welcome him back into your life with open arms as the years go by. Some people just plain aren’t worth it. Whether this one is or isn’t, that’s for you to judge. I’m just advising you to let go of the hate in yourself, because you’re the one swallowing that poison every day, not him.” Ethan”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“Ethan wondered if it was the first time any of his emotions had ever felt free.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River

“When he was twenty-four he made it to the top of Mount Everest. There’s this huge blown-up picture of him in our living room. Well, there was. My mom took it down. Since we found them on the couch right underneath it and all. He’d taken his oxygen mask and his goggles off so you could see it was him. He had one of those suits on that make you look like you’re in outer space. And he had all this ice in his beard. He had a beard back then. And his skin was all red. My mom would always look at that picture with me and tell me my dad was this really brave guy. This heroic guy. Now I look back and all I can think about is how I was born while he was gone, and he missed it. He’d been planning the thing for a year, and he wouldn’t reschedule. He left my mom seven months pregnant to go on this expedition. I think at the time the odds were something like one in seven of dying on Everest. Out of all the people who moved up from base camp, for every six who summited, one died. It changes from year to year. But he left my mom home alone to have me and maybe even raise me. Some hero. “And”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leaving Blythe River