No Two Persons Quotes

“but that was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“We're all caretakers of the stories, Alice. Writers are just the lucky ones that get to know them first.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Picking up a book was a decision: I’m going to go away. The exciting possibility: I may not come back the same.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“No two persons ever read the same book, or saw the same picture. The Writings of Madame Swetchine, 1860”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“She'd be okay, he told himself, and he needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere so completely else that the grief wouldn't find him. Ignoring the fact that grief is not a stalker but a stowaway, always there and up for any journey.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Books spoke to specific people for specific reasons, and it had everything to do with where they were in their lives.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Historians say a war started on such and such a day, but that war really started years before—when a man got on the wrong train and met a stranger, or a boy wasn’t loved by his mother, or a girl said no. And that war didn’t stop on its end date, either. Its effects kept going, down through the children and grandchildren, but they didn’t understand where it all was coming from because historians care more about the rocks than the river.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“When Nola was young, her mother used to tell her that books were like a giant neighborhood where every family was different, and every door was open.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“People didn’t see reality because they didn’t want to, not because it wasn’t there.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“I'm just saying that a character can be as real as a person. Or teach you as much anyway.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“...maybe that's what writing was, in the end - To search out the possible. What humans are willing to do to, and for, each other.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Did you know that otters sleep holding hands? All night long, so they don't lose each other.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Guilt is easier to drown in than any sorrow. pg. 245”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“All that matters is that we try. pg. 79”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“grief is not a stalker but a stowaway, always there and up for any journey.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Because wasn’t that what art was all about, in the end? Mentally shoplifting your way through the world around you, the thoughts inside you? Looking for the thing that makes it all click. Makes it all start. Makes it all worthwhile and whole and good again. That could take a while. You might have to wander, but that didn’t mean you were lost.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Your first read of an extraordinary book is something you can only experience once”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Maybe not consciously, but that was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“You didn't come to a story; it came to you, a million little things that fell together like cells turning into a body. You just needed the image. The question. The door to set it free. Where are you? she'd ask the air. Why are you waiting?”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“You weren't supposed to pick up the rocks, but sea glass wasn't natural. It was man-made, improved by nature, a reminder that anything can be broken. All rough edges made smooth.
pg. 90”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“It was a small thing, but wasn’t that what marriages were, in the end? The ability to hear love in an exhalation, to see frustration in the twitch of a finger, forgiveness in a single letter of the alphabet.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“You can just go on in,” she’d tell Nola. “Try on a new life. See how it fits.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Anyone can love their mirror image; it’s the easiest thing in the world to love what you already know. But how do you love difference as if it’s a part of you?”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“It was astonishing, Lara thought, the sheer outpouring of human desire. The need to record, to create, to be acknowledged. Read me read me read me. The queries tsunamied her inbox, twenty to thirty a day. Girl-meets-boy. Poor-kid-gets-rich. Rich-kids-go-bad. Boy-saves-the-world. Boy-writes-a-bestseller-then-gets-writer’s-block-but-lives-in-a-gorgeous-condo-while-his-girlfriend-helps-him-figure-it-out. Girl-meets-girl. Dog dies. First love. First fuck. Bad parents. Bad husbands. Bad habits. War. War. War. Robots. Fairies. Vampires. Dragons. Change centuries. Tell-alls. Tell-nothings. Pride and Prejudice on a ranch, at a mall; swap out the sisters for men, dogs, parakeets. Change countries. Add zombies. Repeat.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“When Juliet was young and declared that she no longer needed to sleep in the afternoons, her mother had instituted a tradition that she called a “reading rest,” which meant that who the hell cared if you slept but you still had to go to your room for an hour and be quiet. What her mother did during that time Juliet never knew. She also didn’t think about it because she actually was reading, and it was magical, leaving her life for an hour in the middle of everything, going someplace else.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Nola had read that when a female bat gives birth, she does it hanging upside down, catching the baby in her wings as it falls. Reality has plenty of miracles.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“I guess I just like the idea of possibility. Like an invitation, not an answer, you know? It gives you something to think about later.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“It was more than that, however-because the thing the experts didn't talk about when giving you advice on breastfeeding or bottle-cleaning or sleep training was how fundamentally motherhood changed your vision of human relationships. A child could make you love bone-deep, make you try to see further into another person than you ever thought possible, to understand who they were, what they needed, wanted. But with that astonishing depth of love came the realization that no one was doing the same for you. And that could be lonely.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“Always start with words. Words last.

Tell me a secret from your day.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

“WANDERING IS A GIFT GIVEN ONLY TO THE LOST.”
― Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons