Family Tree Quotes
"I can’t believe we’re arguing about a water buffalo."
"Married couples fought about the dumbest things."
"Remember the love. When times get hard and you start wondering why you got married in the first place, remember the love."
"All arguments, at their core, were about power. Who had it. Who wanted it. Who would surrender. Who would prevail."
"Every recipe had a key ingredient. That’s the ingredient that defines the dish."
"I used to picture Gran as Mary Ann Esposito, teaching the world to cook."
"One pink line meant not pregnant. Two lines meant pregnant."
"The moment was made of something fragile and delicate, yet it possessed the power to last forever."
"She felt a swift chill despite the muggy air. She had to be careful now. She was pregnant. The idea filled her with wonder and joy. And the tiniest frisson of fear."
"One day there would be a car seat back there. For a baby. Maybe they’d name her Saffron."
"L.A. was so charmless and overbuilt. Maybe that was the reason so much imaginative work was produced here."
"We’re going to have to move, thought Annie. No way we’re raising a child in this filthy air."
"She’d known about the pregnancy all of five minutes and she was already planning the baby’s life."
"Because she was so ready. At last, they were going to have a family. A family. It was the most important thing in the world to her. It always had been."
"A baby. It eclipsed any work emergency at the studio. Everything else could wait."
"Because it was one of those moments. A key moment. One that spins you around and points you in a new direction."
"There was no such thing as smog, just fresh, cool air, sweet with the scent of the mountains and trout streams."
"Yet every moment of every day, he was the center of Fletcher’s universe."
"The water buffalo is a remarkable feat of nature’s engineering."
"The only thing missing was the one person who had shared the dream with him."
"She had to pee. And then she didn’t have to pee."
"The feeling of betrayal swept through her. She was bombarded by everything. Disbelief. Disappointment. Horror. Revulsion."
"He’s bad for you. Mom had been adamant about that."
"Did Ethan remember those moments? Did certain songs give rise to indelible memories within him?"
"The quiet winter woods turned into a hive of activity."
"Gran always brought along something fresh from her kitchen—donuts, hot coffee, warm biscuits."
"The sugarhouse was warm and steamy and fragrant."
"It was so elemental—the water, the fire, the billows of fragrant steam shooting up through the roof vents."
"No one could quite explain how such a troublesome kid didn’t really seem to get into trouble."
"I’ve been on swim team since the third grade. Plus, I work like a rented mule around here."
"I want everything in the world to happen to me."
"It’s not just the food. I feel really greedy admitting this, but I want everything."
"My dad’s a mechanic, specializes in foreign imports, but he can fix anything."
"Most people looked forward to Friday nights. Fridays were for decompressing, kicking back, activating weekend mode."
"Life was better since he and Celia had split up."
"Despite the passage of time, the memories and feelings had never completely faded."
"Making a relationship last didn’t appear to be one of them."
"I don’t have the baking skills of my mother or my daughter, but I find that if you use enough butter and maple syrup in a recipe, you don’t need much skill."
"Enough with this Fletcher kid, Caroline had said to Annie, when her daughter was teetering on the verge of changing her mind about college."
"He hadn’t looked at all. Her problem with Fletcher Wyndham had nothing to do with Fletcher Wyndham."
"There were only so many lies a person could tell herself before she had to let in the truth."
"Believe me, you weren’t the cause of our breakup—not the first time, or the second."
"He brought her here from L.A. via medical transport, as if she were a piece of defective merchandise, can you imagine?"
"After my divorce, people told me I should look at it as a chance to learn and grow."
"This might be stating the obvious, but I’ll say it anyway—it happens to the best of us."
"What just happened? What day issst? Still malformed, running together."
"You’ve been gone for a year. That’s what we’re trying to explain. You lost a whole year."
"Despite all this, Annie’s limbs were noodles. Her brain, popcorn."
"Mom dabbed at her cheeks with a tissue. "I read books to you," she said, "the way I used to when you were little. No one could say whether or not you heard me.""
"Through to where? Where did you end up when you got through something? What happened at the end of through?"
""I’m here for you," he said. "I’ll stay as long as I’m needed.""
""I don’t like to be the kind of person who worries others," Annie said."
"Memories flitted and disappeared, impossible to grasp and hang on to."
"Eating was a multifaceted, sensual act involving not just taste, but scent and texture, temperature and flavor."
"Everything was a revelation. The chirp of a bird in the garden. The scent of Jergens lotion."
"Gratitude. Yes, she was grateful. For what, exactly, she couldn’t be certain."
"Closing her eyes, she let a smile unfurl on her lips. "Tastes like heaven," she said."
""I might want to, now that I see what they did to my hair," Annie said."
"The days flowed together, moments strung one after the other like wooden beads."
""It means you know more than you think you know. Listen to your inner voice instead of someone else.""
"How could she be exhausted when all she had accomplished was a set of word-association games?"
"I feel unstuck from the world. Unstuck in time."
"Memories are strange things, aren't they? You can't touch them and hold them in your hands, but they have incredible power."
"Don’t you get it? I don’t want your help, I don’t want you leaving school, and I don’t want you coming home to Switchback."
"One moment, the best part of life had lain in front of him like a vast, undiscovered country. The next moment, his options had narrowed down to one—sticking by his father."
"His chest ached as if he’d been shot. Yesterday when he’d seen her getting off the train, his heart had nearly exploded, and it had taken all his strength not to hold her close and never let go."
"What part of "good-bye" did she not understand?"
"Nobody says cheeky anymore. I don’t even know what it means. But if it means I’m bringing you a Thanksgiving feast and the pleasure of my company, then yeah. I’m cheeky."
"Paperwork has no business on the dining table. Gran always says you shouldn’t work where you eat."
"Today, for your dining pleasure, we have turkey that was brined overnight in salt water flavored with maple syrup."
"I don’t want to ruin my appetite. I have another feast to attend."
"The goal is to get you well enough to come home."
"Eating a solitary meal from a rolling tray made her feel lame, so she resolved to get moving and sit at a table."
"We’re on a special diet. What’s it called? The disgusting-food-weight-loss program?"
"Don’t tell me what’s important or influential or groundbreaking. I want to know what you love. What moves you. What makes you want this path."
"Nice to meet you, Annie. I’ll try to pretend, but I’m not in the habit of ignoring pretty girls."
"There’s no secret. I just use the best ingredients I can get my hands on."
"These choices aren’t always easy, but the answers will come. Be patient with yourself. Listen to yourself."
"You don’t have to worry about remembering every little thing. The past you is gone."
"Your life is going to be amazing. The next move is up to you."
"That’s the moment when everything changes. There’s before, and then after. And once a key moment occurs, there’s no going back to before."
"You simply have to know yourself and know what you need. And what you want. And how to get there."
"If you do, then we both lose. Because it means I failed to teach you anything."
"You don’t have to recognize what is in front of you, not yet. In time, everything will come into focus."
"It’s so damned hard. When Gran leaves us, the world will be totally different."
"Being next to Fletcher was like putting on her softest, most comfortable sweater."
"All I know is that I want to be with you. All the time."
"This hurt she felt was the price of loving with her whole heart."
"This wrenching sadness showed her how important Fletcher was, how vital."
"The only time she felt normal was when she was in Fletcher’s arms."
"You’ve got nothing to worry about. It looked perfect to me."
"The inevitable phone call came. Gran was gone."
"It’s a chore like any other. A labor of love."
"You’re amazing, Mom. You’ve had this incredible gift all your life, but you’ve spent your time devoted to us."
"If staying together is important, you’ll make it work."
"That kiss. It was too gentle. It felt like sadness and regret. It was the kind of kiss that meant good-bye."
"Men left. That was what they did. The only way to keep that from happening was to leave first."
"With Annie, the sex was something more than sex. It was a kind of closeness he could only ever feel for her."
"This is what it takes to launch a show, she reminded herself. If it was easy, everyone would have a show."
"Being away from Fletcher created such emotional pain that she couldn’t eat or sleep. Sometimes she thought she couldn’t even breathe."