The Five-Star Weekend Quotes

“You can be more than one kind of person in your life,” he says.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“There was the golden age, the years our children were nine, ten, eleven. Fourth and fifth grade....of course you never realize it's the golden age until it's over.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“She hangs up just as a text from Sofia comes in. Are you on the phone with Isaac? A chill rolls up Caroline’s spine. The loneliest place in the world, she realizes, is between two other people.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“The thing I love best about reading fiction is that it gives you a way to connect the experiences of your own life to the larger world.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“cilantro-and-lime-marinated swordfish with avocado sauce, a summer squash tart with goat cheese and mint, a large green salad, and homemade baguettes with black pepper butter that, yes, her mother churned herself like a pioneer woman. This will be followed by peach cobbler with a hot sugar crust topped with fresh whipped cream, and tiny squares of Japanese chocolate.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“The loneliest place in the world, she realizes, is between two other people.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“(Motherhood, she has come to realize, requires a lot of math: How much space is enough; how much is too much?)”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“Jack chuckles. “You can be more than one kind of person in your life,” he says. “But I’ve always been a person who loves Hollis Shaw.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“Hollis was raised by Tom Shaw; she can start a fire with a pile of dry leaves and a dirty look.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“She weighs the decision for a moment, then butters the baguette and pops it in her mouth. It's so delicious that she doesn't care if they have to roll her off the island in a wheelbarrow.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“Your generation is both fragile and entitled”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“There’s no term Dru-Ann loathes more than safe space. First of all, it’s a complete fantasy; no space in life is safe unless you live in bubble wrap. People will disagree with you; people will attack you; people will lie right to your face! In Dru-Ann’s line of work, every single day is a competition—someone wins, a lot of people lose. There is no safety.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“speed; her Fitbit can barely keep up. She wants each bed to be as luscious as a bakery confection. She stuffs the duvet covers with two down inserts for extra fluffiness. She arranges an assortment of pillows—some feather, some firm—at the head of each bed and places a farm bouquet on each nightstand next to a water carafe and a stack of new magazines. Hollis uses a TikTok hack to arrange the flowers: She crosshatches tape across the top of the vase so the flowers stand up straight, and she adds vinegar, sugar, and ice to the water to keep the flowers fresh. She recognizes this absurd attention to detail for what it is: a way to control the few things she can control.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“You weren’t even related to him! You’ll find another husband but I will never, ever have another father.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“always felt insecure in the group, insecure in my life—and that affected how I acted. I tried too hard, I lacked confidence.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“called”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“(Dru-Ann can’t remember what a group of Chads is called. It’s either a privilege or an inheritance.)”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“There’s only one acceptable shot,” Dru-Ann says. “Tequila,” Caroline and Dylan say together”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“I wanted to be surrounded by the people who knew me best, Moira wrote, even though a couple of the women I hadn’t seen or talked to in years. Even though our common ground had shrunk. Even though these women didn’t know one another well—or at all. I wanted to celebrate the friendships that had made me who I was.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“When someone was engaging with the website, a pinprick of light appeared on the map so that visitors to the site could imagine another cook in, say, Spokane, Washington, or Grand Island, Nebraska, standing in her or his kitchen mincing chives and parsley for Hollis’s tortellini salad.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“My wife doesn’t need to be part of this cougar committee,” he says to Hollis. “You’re all… Wiccans!”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“I want to go back, she thinks. Back to the days of sleepovers and fancy birthday breakfasts.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“this weekend she’s determined not to be a bother or require special attention. She won’t talk too much or apologize for things that aren’t her fault, and she won’t get on anyone’s nerves.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“In her senior year of high school, Hollis wrote what her English teacher Ms. Fox called “the best college essay I’ve read in thirty-one years.” It took the form of a letter to Hollis’s deceased mother, Charlotte. Dear Mom, it started, I think you would be proud of the way I turned out. Here are some of the reasons why. It”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“Practice” by DaBaby,”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“Hollis was her every day. Hollis was her unconditional. How had Hollis known how to be a mom? Thinking about it now, Caroline finds it sort of amazing.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“after they’ve”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“but now she exudes self-possession. It’s as though she took a Brené Brown seminar in her sleep.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“attract Hollis’s attention when she’s one of millions? Well, she has inside information. Matthew tells her that Hollis lost her mother when she was a baby—and as it happens, Gigi’s mother died when she was only twelve. Gigi gets on the Corkboard and messages Hollis that she’s grateful for the cooking demos because my own mum passed away before she could teach me her favorite Cantonese”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend

“well. They find Brooke—okay, wow—in the center of a circle of Chads. (Dru-Ann can’t remember what a group of Chads is called. It’s either a privilege or an inheritance.) These boys are wearing white pants, pastel polos, belts needlepointed for them by their rich, idle mothers, and loafers without socks. They’re sloshing their vodka sodas around, cheering on their new mascot, Brooke.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, The Five-Star Weekend