The Printed Letter Bookshop Quotes
"Almost twenty years. That's how long since I spoke to my sister before last month, but she didn't tell me. She said she was calling to say she loved me."
"My daughter is about to make partner, the youngest partner I might add, at one of Chicago's top law firms. That's worth celebrating."
"Don't assume God's role or presume you understand his ways or the depth of his love."
"It's important to celebrate, to mark occasions, dear. Don't forget that."
"I haven’t been okay in a very long time, and now I feel like the ground’s fallen out beneath me. It all shifted too fast, too far."
"Once I pay off all my loans and help my sister through school, I’ll lift my head and let you know."
"Rarely. Sometimes. Not often. Maybe only today."
"The church was packed today. Standing room only. That says something, right? You can’t fool a whole town."
"It’s more surprising that, after the past two years, there are any left."
"Here’s to you, Maddie, and to me. I wish you were here."
"I want to be valued for my work. I’ve earned this."
"You’ve been weighed. You’ve been measured. And you’ve been found wanting."
"It was never about the partnership. That’s not what I’m about even now."
"Coming west to Chicago for law school was the best decision I’d made."
"What was the point of owning anything if it had no use?"
"If it comes to that, you decide who gets orphaned out."
"I’d tell my story in third person with little self-awareness."
"The silence stole the last of Claire’s breath."
"We’re happy to stay on staff until the sale."
"I hadn’t saved one percent, much less ten each paycheck."
"It felt wrong, almost dishonest, destroying her legacy like that."
"We became good friends. I think she enjoyed mothering me."
"We both had a dish for keys by the front door."
"It felt like everything could be made new and all might end well."
"I remember Aunt Maddie saying you could lose yourself in a book and, paradoxically, find yourself as well."
"May I offer a suggestion? It’s three days before Christmas, and I think we should run a sale."
"Words flow from my lips easily today and, as that customer leaves, I find that I want to know what a young mom at the back of the shop thinks and needs."
"No one wants a first date on Valentine’s Day."
"The business changes, what’s wanted changes, our customers, our store has its own personality."
"Books are a conversation, and introduce us to ourselves and to others."
"It was a tough concept, and it kept Claire chewing Lewis’s words and thoughts late into the night."
"Could the love become enabling, unhelpful, and unhealthy?"
"Success in that quarter was not so easy to quantify, and the quarrel had left her unsettled."
"We smell Claire’s gardenia perfume before we hear her or feel her presence across the counter."
"It absolutely could be a first date, or they could be friends, both feeling lonely tonight."
"I’ve made a decision, that’s all. About dating."
"It was the best of both worlds most days."
"Because until you know the truth, you shouldn’t judge people."
"Every relationship has to have trust. It makes you vulnerable, without a doubt, but every relationship has to have it."
"Who said forgiveness was supposed to be easy?"
"In the real world, and that was a place he knew very little about."
"She was in San Francisco, and when he decided to take you with him, I suspected it was the beginning of the end."
"I’m sorry about the kids at school, but no adult blamed your dad."
"I thought that’s what made life tough for you too."
"I love you too. Why don’t I fly out and we spend a few days together?"
"I love that line. I’d laughed out loud when I stumbled across it and read it at least five times to commit it to memory. It was so true. It applied to work and it applied to life. So much did not call for rational opposition."
"That generosity, I suspect, was not based on our past friendship but rather sprang from a love and respect for Maddie and for the Printed Letter."
"I thought, at first, it was the end—my security wrenched away piece by piece. But rather than break me, the cracks opened spaces that had never existed before."
"It was Luke’s hand on top of my head, the way my father used to do when I was very young, and again I felt safe and warm. I felt loved."
"I wanted every aspect of that woman to be within me."
"To say I’d experienced an awakening as real and significant as my current read would be an understatement."
"The truth was I liked it there. I liked me there."
"I did have a household. My concerns involved a family of sorts—Aunt Maddie’s legacy had come with more than a shop, a house, a car, a storage unit in Waukegan, and debt. It came with family and a community, who had, in some ways, become my own."
"I pushed it away, convincing myself she felt guilty, not sorry; that she wanted to keep her job, not offer true help; that she was a good actress, not a good person. I misjudged her."
"Don’t diminish what you do. Yes, I will lose a job I love—or, as you called it, a hobby."
"How often it is a small, almost unconscious event that marks a turning point."
"I won’t tell your dad. You will. And then you will tell the police."
"It’s like you live in those classics you love, in some odd third-person narration, as if you aren’t in charge of your own story. Who is, if not you, for goodness’ sake?"
"Love in action is a hard and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams."
"I love hugging Chris. He probably lets me because I don’t get to hug my own kids. I’m grateful for that."
"The best we could, within each moment we had. Isn’t that all we can?"
"We don’t need to go today. We do. Canvassing it again will not change the outcome. I won’t dwell in the past, and I refuse to be scared of the future."
"She’ll pay for it for the rest of her life. Everything she’s worked for will be over. She’ll be through."
"It is the choices we make within those events we carry all our days."
"Tell me it's going to be okay. You don't have to know it or believe it, but I'd love to hear it."
"Eternity only reaches us in the present. We can't revisit the past and we can't assume a future, so I guess I'd say don't dwell on what's done and don't try to answer tomorrow's questions. Deal with today."
"Reality trashed my idealized version of saving the world, and I caved."
"Thinking of your life and your work in a new way is hard. And just because no one was shooting at you doesn't mean you didn't need to heal."
"The care behind two bags of groceries—almost brought tears."
"Let’s simply trust we’re where we need to be."