When We Were Worthy Quotes

“In Worthy, truth lived right next door to perception, but they weren’t exactly friendly neighbors.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Do the next thing, her mother always advised. It will get you through.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“I didn’t have to be scared of you showing love to someone else, of you helping other people. Because love is a renewable resource. The more you give, the more you have.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“But it was rare that anyone got what he or she deserved in this life, for better or for worse. Which was what made it so awful and amazing at the very same time.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Wasn't that what marriage was? A permanent place next to someone, a place always reserved for you right by his side?”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Everything was something lovely once, something to behold. It was only after the world got to it that it became too worn to appreciate anymore.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.—Carl Jung”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Sympathy, the woman explained, meant you knew exactly what the other person was feeling because you’d felt it before. “I always remember it like this,” the sub had said. “Sympathy means same. Now empathy, on the other hand, means you have never experienced it, but you can imagine how it would feel.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul / And sings the tune without the words / And never stops—at all.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“She had to figure out how to feel good about herself apart from what a man thought of her.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Maybe that’s what everyone in the world was searching for—someone who, when they felt vulnerable and exposed and afraid, would meet them in the doorway with a look of love so pure it made all that other stuff fall away.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“I didn’t have to be scared of you showing love to someone else, of you helping other people. Because love is a renewable resource. The more you give, the more you have.” Her smile widened. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Leah tried to give her her brightest smile and exude sunshine, channeling someone deep inside her, the girl she used to be at ten years old, back when smiling came easy.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“On Fridays they had pizza from Tomasina’s and on Saturdays they grilled steaks and on Sundays it was always Chinese takeout. But then the Chinese place closed down, and Tommy took up with Angie, and .”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become. —Carl Jung”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Both of them with eyes closed, both of them seeming to have mentally left the room. Where they'd gone she didn't know, but it was a place no one could follow. She knew that kind of leaving; she'd done it herself, but not in a good way.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“All her rules and sermons could not protect her anymore. They never could; she knew this now. The thought filled her with two opposite emotions at the same time-- fear and exhilaration.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Clay had lied to her, or told her his version of the truth, one he could live with. Wasn’t that what everyone did when push came to shove? Create a truth they could live with? Hadn’t she done the same with Graham? She didn’t know which man to believe. She realized it didn’t matter.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“Now all the balls had fallen and rolled just out of her grasp.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“In the hazy bubble of suburbia and domesticity, Ava had forgotten how much she liked playing with fire, how instead of burning it merely warmed her skin.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“We were Worthy, a town and a team. The town was small, just 4,162 souls calling it home. And we knew just about all of them in one way or another. Small as the town was, we had at least one of every kind of church, and it didn’t matter whether you were a good person or a straight-up heathen; you showed up in one of them on Sunday morning. If you didn’t, we would talk about you.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“help but think that perhaps the girls had somehow contributed”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“for better or for worse. Which was what made it so awful and amazing at the very same time.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy

“growing up meant growing more uncertain, not less.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, When We Were Worthy