The Half Moon Quotes
"In himself, in his town, in these people, in life, in destiny, in following one’s intuition."
"There was joy in the air. People making themselves at home."
"Jess had warned him about making changes, but how could he have guessed the depth of love people had for broken-down, sticky barstools?"
"The warmth, the feeling of camaraderie, even the night sky swollen with snow—it was like chemistry between people—surprising, impossible to predict—but once the charge was in the air, there was no force more powerful."
"She was entirely herself, she never looked left or right to figure out how to be."
"If Jess so much as drove down our street, I'd feel a chord struck deep in my chest."
"She kept rereading it like she was dowsing for water, going around with her rod, poking surfaces."
"You act like that's superficial or something but people like us—people like you and me—we can't afford multiple big dreams."
"She had one miscarriage of a baby that was in the right place, a robust seven weeks along, floating in there exactly as it should have been, but then its heart simply slowed to a stop, like it had shown up at the wrong house, the wrong party, and then turned around and left."
"I've loved you since the first second I saw you. This is just something I always expected for us. It's hard."
"There's you, and there's me. That's enough for me. I just want you to know that."
"Pretend I’m someone else," she said, hoping that would ignite something in him, throw him out of his routine."
"Her youth was streaming out of her as if from a puncture she couldn’t find, couldn’t patch."
"Her body had become a cage. That something sick was taking root, she could feel it."
"She wanted a cure for grief and she wanted someone to tell her where to find it."
"Thirty-nine is too young to give up on trying for a baby, the Facebook groups told her."
"Are you happy? I mean, you always seem upbeat but are you really? Do you ever want something else?"
"What a prude she was turning out to be. Everyone knew boundaries shifted on New Year’s."
"How lonely he must be. How much courage it must have taken to break his life open and change it."
"It was now, she knew. It was now. She had a decision to make."
"People don’t realize they’ll bring their exact same problems to a new place, new relationship, new career—whatever it is they think will solve their problems."
"It’s not one or the other. You know? There’s a third choice. You can just be alone for a while."
"We’re wasting time. We have one life, and it’s a miracle when you think about it. I want to stop messing it up."
The fire department will know there’s no one inside. They won’t go into a dangerous situation for no reason. I’ll meet you at our house in"—she looked at her phone—"at three o’clock. We’ll take one car. It’s probably best yours stays in your driveway. The snow will be coming down hard by then, and people will be home, hunkered down.
"And we’d be free. You could do whatever you want. Take everything you learned here and start from scratch."
"One drink and then they’d begin the plan."
"Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not talk about anything until later. Okay? For this morning let’s just pretend nothing’s wrong and then maybe something will come to us."
"If I go see about Roddy. Will you be here when I get back?"
"He’d lost the Half Moon, but he’d regained Jess."
"No one had heard from Roddy, and Malcolm decided no news was good news."
"Thank God he’s leaving. You won’t have to worry about running into him."
"I don’t want to look down the barrel of the same routine for the next forty years."
"Can’t a person want two things at once?"
"It’s unreal how cocky you are. You know that, right?"