When We Believed in Mermaids Quotes

“it’s not about comparison, as my counselor used to say. My pain is my pain.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“There are seasons of darkness, yes? Loss and sadness all around.” He tightens his grip. “But if you are patient, the circle turns, and then there is happiness all around, everything good, everyone happy.” He flings a hand out, palm up, as if scattering glitter. “My friend, he just forgot that happiness is part of living too.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Your quest is powerful. You needn’t apologize for the space it takes.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Resistance will break you. Kill you. The only way to survive is to let go.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“A girl without a mother who protects her is a girl at the mercy of the world.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“When I saw you, I recognized you, like I’ve been waiting, all this time, for you to show up. And there you were.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Every girl needs a mother who protects her with a savage fury.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“There are seasons of darkness, yes? Loss and sadness all around.” He tightens his grip. “But if you are patient, the circle turns, and then there is happiness all around, everything good, everyone happy.” He flings a hand out, palm up, as if scattering glitter.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“I’ve carried a torch of hatred for my mother for so long now that it’s hard to even see beyond the straw woman I’ve made of her.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“That is a little happy. Not big, not the kind that fills you up and makes you want to laugh.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“This happens all the time. Anyone who has lost somebody they love has experienced it—the head in the crowd on a busy street, the person at the grocery store who moves just like her. The rush to catch up, so relieved that she is actually still alive . . . Only to be crushed when the imposter turns around and the face is wrong. The eyes. The lips.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Life is always a mixed bag.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Not everything is a disaster waiting to happen,”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Paris”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Your . . . ?” “My soul mate,” I finish, and a welter of tears swells in my eyes. I have to swallow hard to control them. “Like we’ve known each other always.” “In Spanish, we say alma gemela. Soul twin.” The words sting the raw space of my heart.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Love is not always destructive,” he says quietly, and slides a finger up my shin. “Sometimes love creates.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“problems, however big they might seem at the moment, are dew in an ocean.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“We drank hot chocolate and sat on the beach in our finery, and we were mermaids with our mermaid mother.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Maybe I don’t have to choose between Dylan as a villain and Dylan as my beloved hero. Maybe he was both. Maybe Josie was—is—both too. Heroine and villain. Maybe we all are.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“She was the worst mother of all time. She was the best mother of all time.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“A lifetime of secrets and lies later, I drive through the dark back to my neighborhood.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“I have a million questions, but they’ll be so much easier to answer if I don’t have to answer them alone.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“There are seasons of darkness, yes? Loss and sadness all around.” He tightens his grip. “But if you are patient, the circle turns, and then there is happiness all around, everything good, everyone happy.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“But it’s not about comparison, as my counselor used to say. My pain is my pain.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“I remember when my sister and I thought there were jewels in the ocean, dancing on top of each swell.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Damn, Josie. How did you get so bad?” She lets go of a sad, short laugh. “A day at a time.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“I haven’t had a lot of time to fall in love.” “Psssht. Love does not need time.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Of course I’ll miss him. We can stay in touch through email, and in a few weeks, we’ll forget the urgency of now.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“With adulthood comes discipline, however, so I give the ice cream my full attention, aware that I’m using food to soothe my aching heart and not caring a bit.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids

“Jandals,” I repeat. “Like sandals?” “Japanese sandals.”
― Barbara O'Neal, When We Believed in Mermaids