Home > Work > Beach Read
81 " But people aren’t math problems.” I gave a heavy shrug. “I can miss my dad and hate him at the same time. I can be worried about this book and torn up about my family and sick over the house I’m living in, and still look out at Lake Michigan and feel overwhelmed by how big it is. I spent all last summer thinking I’d never be happy again, and now, a year later, I still feel sick and worried and angry, but at moments, I’m also happy. Bad things don’t dig down through your life until the pit’s so deep that nothing good will ever be big enough to make you happy again. No matter how much shit, there will always be wildflowers. There will always be Petes and Maggies and rainstorms in forests and sun on waves. "
― Emily Henry , Beach Read
82 " Happy for now.” I tasted the words, rolled them over the back of my tongue like wine. The only promise you ever had in life was the one moment you were living. And I was. Happy for now. "
83 " Mom's first diagnosis taught me that love was an escape rope. But it was her second diagnosis that taught me love could be a life vest when you were drowning. "
84 " You never get the paper umbrellas you were promised in this world. "
85 " Gus touched the side of my face. “I don’t need snowflakes.” He kissed me. “As long as I have January. "
86 " I was a wound, half-healed-over and scraped raw again. "Everybody Hurts" was running through my mind. I could see the consolation of it, the idea that your pain wasn't unique. Something about that made it seem both bigger and smaller. Smaller because all the world was aching. Bigger because I could finally admit that every other feeling I'd been focusing on had been a distraction from the deepest hurt. My father was gone. And I would always miss him. "
87 " Everybody's got shit, January. Sometimes, thinking about someone else's is almost a relief. "
88 " I don’t think I’ve ever loved the world like you do. I remember being afraid of it. And then angry with it. "
89 " In books, I'd always felt like the Happily Ever After appeared as a new beginning, but for me, it didn't feel like that. My Happily Ever After was a strand of strung-together happy-for-nows, extending back not just to a year ago, but to thirty years before. Mine had already begun, and so this day was neither an ending nor a beginning. It was just another good day. A perfect day. A happy-for-now, so vast and deep that I knew — or rather believed — I didn't have to worry about tomorrow. "
90 " We can never fully know the people we love. When we lose them, there will always be more we could have seen, but that's what I'm trying to tell you. "
91 " Every single person on the planet had to take turns hurting. Sometimes all you could do was hold on to each other tight until the dark spat you back out. "
92 " Maybe, for example, you didn’t have much control over your life as a kid. So, to avoid disappointment, you learned never to ask yourself what you truly wanted. "
93 " And other times, we’d sit in silence, not quite together but definitely not alone. "
94 " It will - hopefully - be a place you can imagine existing, characters you believe could be real. And if we're lucky, maybe it will help someone. To feel known and understood, like their story matters. "
95 " See,” Gus said. “It’s shit like this that makes it impossible for me to believe in happy endings.You never get the paper umbrellas you were promised in this world. "
96 " As usual, the blank document was staring accusingly at me, refusing to fill itself with words or characters, no matter how long I stare back "
97 " Gus still thought he was missing something, some special piece other people had, the thing that made people stay... "
98 " When you love someone,” he said haltingly, “. . . you want to make this world look different for them. To give all the ugly stuff meaning, and amplify the good. That’s what you do. For your readers. For me. You make beautiful things, because you love the world, and maybe the world doesn’t always look how it does in your books, but . . . I think putting them out there, that changes the world a little bit. And the world can’t afford to lose that. "
99 " She learned to let it out, bit by bit, and that sometimes, it was okay to let a little ugliness into your story. That it would never rob you of all the beauty. "
100 " ... true love had seemed like the grand prize, the one thing that could weather any storm, save you from both drudgery and fear, and writing about it had felt like the single most meaningful gift I could ever give. And even if that part of my worldview was taking a brief sabbatical, it had to be true that sometimes, heartbroken women found their happy endings, their rain-falling, music-swelling moments of pure happiness. "