Stay Quotes

“We’re all just doing our best.’ I left out the second part. ‘Even if it doesn’t look so good from the outside.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“When somebody holds a view that seems to make no sense, know that it makes sense to them, but for reasons you don’t know anything about yet. And I guess in a lot of cases,”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“But some people don’t want you to do what you think is right. Some people want you to do what they think is right.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“You’ve just got to stay out of the outcomes, Lucas. It’s not that you walked Connor out here to meet me that’s weighing you down. It’s the fact that you’re holding yourself responsible for whether it works out or not. You can take your brother to some meetings without turning yourself inside out. Trouble is, you take on the responsibility of being the one who sees to it that he recovers. Want to know why that stuff takes so much out of you? Easy. It’s all stuff that’s out of your control. You’re trying to change things that’re not within your control to change. And whenever you try to do something that’s impossible to do, you’re going to find yourself a little on the tired side. Make sense?” “Yeah,” I said. “It does.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“when you’re thinking bad thoughts about yourself, to remember that they might turn out to be wrong.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“If there’s one thing I learned growing up, it’s that you have to talk to kids a lot, and you have to tell them the damn truth.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“When somebody holds a view that seems to make no sense, know that it makes sense to them, but for reasons you don’t know anything about yet. And I guess in a lot of cases, you never will.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“But the problem was, I tried to get him to do things that would be the right things for me to do. But I don’t think they were the right things for him. I was trying to help him the way I thought he should be helped, but he’s not me.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“If something works, I figure . . . just leave it alone. Let it be a thing that worked. Not everything needs to be picked apart for better understanding. Sometimes it’s okay to just say thank you in the quiet of your head and move along.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“Every night I lie in bed and try to go to sleep. And then the next thing I know, I’m opening my eyes and it’s morning. I never feel myself fall asleep. Ever. Do you?”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“I have no idea if how I feel is what other people would call okay. I’m just the way I’ve always been.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“And in this one perfect but probably fleeting moment . . . nothing in my life has ever been a mistake.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“If you think having and losing is so bad, try never having. Now that’s devastating.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“Well … now I’m starting to think … you don’t know what might be coming next. And it might even be something nice. Something good, even though everything before it wasn’t good at all.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“also had no idea how much of the turmoil inside me running could solve.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“And it’s no small thing to be loved all the same, let me tell you.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“knew not everybody was destined to see it that way. You can’t change the way a person’s going to see a thing. If there’s only one thing I’ve learned in my sixty-four years on the planet, it would be that.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“people want you to do what they think”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“But some people don’t want you to do what you think is right. Some people”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“What I think I should do is more important to me than what you think”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“You’re trying to change things that’re not within your control to change. And whenever you try to do something that’s impossible to do, you’re going to find yourself a little on the tired side. Make sense?”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“What I think I should do is more important to me than what you think I should do. But that doesn’t mean your opinion has no value to me at all.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“Sometimes when a kid’s got nobody really running things in his life, he’ll decide to take over and take charge of everything. Otherwise the world just seems to be spinning out of control.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“Why do I do that?” “Do what?” “Try to take responsibility for everything and fix everybody.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“Chapter One The Tipping Day Is it just me, or does everybody have a day in their life like the one I’m about to retell? I’m talking about those days that act like a fulcrum between everything that came before and your brand-new life after. It”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“People need help with perspective sometimes. If they’re all alone in their own head, they can lose perspective.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“It struck me that she had been a pretty woman, once upon a time. Before she’d decided she didn’t want to be anymore. Before she’d decided she didn’t want to be anything to anybody.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“We’re kids. People keep stuff from kids. They think we’re supposed to stay all pure or something until we grow up, and nothing should upset us. So they whisper about bad stuff behind our backs so we don’t get upset. But it’s so totally useless, because then at the same time they’re always doing stuff that’s really upsetting.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“I just thought maybe if I knew more, I could worry less.” “Oh, I doubt that,” she said. Then, “I can’t really tell you how it’s going, because I don’t really know. He’s talking to me. Talking is better than not talking. But beyond that it’s hard to say.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay

“How would I even know that, Lucas? I have no idea if how I feel is what other people would call okay. I’m just the way I’ve always been.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Stay