Under a Veiled Moon Quotes

“The mistakes that feel less forgivable are those that hurt someone you love. Worse still is when you discover your error only years later. Often, there’s nothing to be done. Too much time has passed to make amends. And those mistakes—ach, it’s bloody difficult to forgive yourself when you should’ve known better, should’ve known to pick your head up and cast about to see what might happen as a result of your actions.”
― Karen Odden, Under a Veiled Moon

“This weight, I thought. My pieces. These pieces had a heft that did not ever wholly evaporate into the air of everyday life. My despair over the loss of my mother, my grief over the deaths of Pat and Colin, my regret for my ignorance, my shame for my mistakes, my pain over hurting the people I love—these were ugly, rough-edged shards that cut me sometimes when I touched them. But each shard was also a piece of ballast that lodged inside my heart. Lumped together, perhaps they could guard me from steering once more into the rocks and steady me in the face of the next storm. They were—if nothing else—my own. My hand crept up to land on my chest, as if the ballast were a physical thing that I could hold in place. Let me not lose this, I thought, and my plea was as desperate as any I’d ever made. For I have earned it honestly, and it is mine.”
― Karen Odden, Under a Veiled Moon