Summerland Quotes
"Nantucket: it was the land of wealth and privilege, a summer playground for those with a certain prep-school, old-money, I-used-to-row-with-him-on-the-Charles type of pedigree."
"Like anywhere else, it was home to doctors and taxi drivers and a police chief and plumbers and dishwashers and insurance agents."
"They were the real Nantucket: the ministers and the garbage collectors and the housewives and the members of the crew that filled in the potholes on Surfside Road."
"Hers was the voice of Nantucket, her tone so pure and ethereal that she didn’t need any accompaniment."
"Who among us didn’t remember Patrick Loom in his Boy Scout uniform, collecting money in a mayonnaise jar for the victims of Hurricane Katrina?"
"These were our kids, Nantucket’s kids. This graduation, like other graduations, was part of our collective experience, our collective success."
"They were on intimate terms with Nor’easters and fog. They knew that north was marked by the Congregationalists, and south by the Unitarians."
"The electric buzz they had felt the last four autumns during the first Friday-night football game under the lights, when they ran out onto the field or led the crowd in cheering—those moments were gone forever."
"The world wanted the Nantucket that resided in its imagination: the one with the icy gin and tonic resting on the porch railing, the sails billowing in the wind, the ripe tomatoes nestled in the back of the farm truck."
"The Chief and her father were friends; they were in Rotary together. They passed the basket in church together."
"Rasha’s first report from the hospital was that Zoe seemed to be disappearing."
"But at that moment Rasha decided there would be one change, at least: Zoe was going to eat something."
"Zoe smoothed the hair off of her son’s face."
"Rasha had heard people say less-than-generous things about Zoe Alistair, but at that moment she saw nothing in her but strength and grace."
"You would have to be a mother to understand. But how many mothers really could?"
"Penny was dead, but Zoe had done some mental yoga and put that information aside for now so that she could focus on Hobby."
"Only a mother could be so single-minded."
"She should have taken them to church, Zoe thought. She should have given them something to believe in."
"As grateful as Zoe was for the sensitive Buckley presence, she was relieved that in the evenings, when she went in to sit with Hobby, it was just the two of them alone."
"She wouldn’t lose her chance with Hobby."
"In the days following the accident, there had been room for only one thought: she wished it had been her who died."
"She was a criminal. A thief and a murderer."
"Demeter vacillated between telling the hideous truth and keeping the truth sheltered and secret inside of her."
"He never printed a word about the accident. People criticized him for this."
"He hadn’t reported the story, and this mere fact had changed the way he felt about the newspaper."
"Zoe’s children were, in so many ways, like his own children, but they weren’t his own children."
"On the day that Jordan Randolph and his wife and son left for Perth, Australia, Zoe stood on her deck, which faced the mighty ocean, and she screamed at every plane that crossed the horizon."
"He hadn’t printed a word about the accident."
"She’s the mother, Jake. You have to respect her wishes."
"I love you twice as much as any other mother loves her child."
"She existed for more than just me, for more than me and Hobby."
"I’m not going to lie to you. I wanted an abortion. I had a life to live. A career to pursue. I was too young to have a baby."
"Thank God I kept those babies. They are so precious to me. They are all I have, sure, but they’re also all I want."
"You need real sleep," Dr. Field said. "I’ll have the nurses give you something."
"We’re not poor, you could buy yourself a full-length mirror."
"If I can’t kiss him at school and I can’t kiss him in the car, where am I going to kiss him?"
"Sometimes the heart pumps black blood. And that is exactly how I feel. I am poisoned with something, this evil sickness, this lethargy, the inability to care."
"A says that sometimes the heart pumps black blood."
"It's like the rest of the world doesn't realize that everything that happens is random."
"I am poisoned with something, this evil sickness, this lethargy, the inability to care."
"A woman kills her two teenagers, she shoots them. She'd had it, she says. They were mouthy."
"God gave me this voice for a reason, Z says."
"A says she’s felt alone ever since Ernie died; her loneliness is a shroud and a shield."
"I feel like I'm being eaten away from the inside, but I don't have a Reason."
"I wish there was a way that we could all be happy at the same time, in the same place."
"What is it you want? More than anything else, what do you want?"
"We hurt the people we care about, intentionally and unintentionally."
"It's impossible to do right by someone all the time."
"I think you'll have to ask Demeter that."
"I'm sorry I didn’t die in the accident instead of Penny."
"Is there anything I can do for you before you go?"
"I saw them... well, I saw them having sex."
"We’re the ones who survived. We have to be grateful for that."
"You aren’t responsible for Penny’s death any more than I am responsible."
"The only person who was responsible for Penny’s death was the person who was driving the car that night, and that was Penny herself."
"We would all of us persevere. We would keep going. We would move in the only direction we could move, and that was forward."