Top 200 Ann Napolitano Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Humans need community, for our emotional health. We need connection, a sense of belonging. We are not built to thrive in isolation.”

— Ann Napolitano

2. “You are special. You are meant to survive, to go on and do great things.”

— Ann Napolitano

3. “You’re depressed, not crazy. It’s not insane to be depressed in this world. It’s more sane than being happy. I never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what’s going on. Those are the ones with a screw loose, if you ask me.”

— Ann Napolitano

4. “What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?”

— Ann Napolitano

5. “She wondered if dying was simply going to be an exercise in letting go of one thing after another.”

— Ann Napolitano

6. “We’re not separated from the world by our own edges.” Charlie set down his beer glass, empty now, and rubbed his hand up and down his arm, as an example of one of his edges. “We’re part of the sky, and the rocks in your mother’s garden, and that old man who sleeps by the train station. We’re all interconnected, and when you see that, you see how beautiful life is.”

— Ann Napolitano

7. “We’re all interconnected, and when you see that, you see how beautiful life is.”

— Ann Napolitano

8. “Popular Mechanics article entitled “What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447.”

— Ann Napolitano

9. “It’s like she raised you to be a Navy SEAL or something, with a completely unusual skill set.”

— Ann Napolitano

10. “Mark Twain quote about how the only reason for time is so everything doesn’t happen at once? I feel like everything that’s ever happened in my life is happening.”

— Ann Napolitano

11. “What happened is baked into your bones, Edward. It lives under your skin. It’s not going away. It’s part of you and will be part of you every moment until you die. What you’ve been working on, since the first time I met you, is learning to live with that.”

— Ann Napolitano

12. “Everything ends,” she says. “That’s nothing to be sad about. What matters is what starts in that moment.”

— Ann Napolitano

13. “The air between us is not empty space.”

— Ann Napolitano

14. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Linda says. Florida smiles at the girl. “Everything ends,” she says. “That’s nothing to be sad about. What matters is what starts in that moment.”

— Ann Napolitano

15. “Moonlight beams through his eyelids and he can see, as if it’s the lake in front of him, the pain and loss he’s been swimming in for years. In the moonlight, though, the pain is revealed to be love. The emotions are entwined; they are the two sides of the same gleaming coin.”

— Ann Napolitano

16. “I wouldn’t have done that to you” – Edward looks at his uncle and then over at Shay; this applies to her too – “because I know what it’s like to be left behind.”

— Ann Napolitano

17. “This was not a tragedy. Dying on your couch watching TV by yourself is a tragedy. Dying while doing something you love with every part of your body is magic. I wish you magic, Edward.”

— Ann Napolitano

18. “Take stock of who we are, and what we have, and then use it for good.”

— Ann Napolitano

19. “There was no reason for what happened to you, Eddie. You could have died; you just didn’t. It was dumb luck. Nobody chose you for anything. Which means, truly, that you can do anything.”

— Ann Napolitano

20. “I’ll do this,” John says. “I’ll let you know what’s out there, within limits. But I want you to understand that there can’t be information about you – that is true – that you don’t already know. Your life takes place in your skin. No one else knows a goddamn thing, and the Internet is full of cowboys and sad people making stuff up.” He pauses. “I love the Internet, or at least I used to, but it’s not where you go for the truth.”

— Ann Napolitano

21. “I want you to understand that there can’t be information about you – that is true – that you don’t already know. Your life takes place in your skin. No one else knows a goddamn thing, and the Internet is full of cowboys and sad people making stuff up.”

— Ann Napolitano

22. “Eddie was leaning against his father’s chest, and the sensation of that weight – the complete trust and lack of inhibition with which the boy relaxed every ounce of his body into his father’s – was one of the things that made parenthood unmissable.”

— Ann Napolitano

23. “It feels unkind that they are shoving their emotions at him when his own sadness and fear are so vast that he has to hide from them.”

— Ann Napolitano

24. “We contain the other, hopelessly and forever.”

— Ann Napolitano

25. “All motivators are valid if they produce good work, son. And frustration can be a powerful motivator.”

— Ann Napolitano

26. “So much could be solved, she thinks, if we simply held hands with each other more often.”

— Ann Napolitano

27. “He’s winded by the sentence, as if the truth has taken something from him.”

— Ann Napolitano

28. “When in doubt, read books,” Principal Arundhi says. He speaks quickly, as if worried this might be his last opportunity to share his thoughts. “Educate yourself. Education has always saved me, Edward. Learn about the mysteries.” The boy looks at him, and believes him. Believes that education saved him, believes that he had once been a person who needed to be saved.”

— Ann Napolitano

29. “It was hard for me to accept the fact that we don’t choose who we love, because who you love changes everything.”

— Ann Napolitano

30. “There is a monotony to time in the air. Consistent air quality and temperature, limited collection of sounds, circumscribed range of motion for the passengers. Some people thrive within these restrictions and relax in the sky in a way they rarely do at home. They have powered down their phones and packed their computers in their luggage; they delight in being unreachable, and read novels, or giggle at sitcoms on the in-seat monitor.”

— Ann Napolitano

31. “Fatherhood, is for him, one jolt of terror after another.”

— Ann Napolitano

32. “I miss you, Daddy. I wish you could have seen me as a mother. It would have made you smile.”

— Ann Napolitano

33. “Different locations have different energies, and for her, New York is glittering eye shadow, Basquiat graffiti, and strangers with bold dreams. She sees herself dancing in bars, slow-walking across cacophonous streets while men hoot at her womanly goods, wringing all the life she can out of her days in that snap-crackle-pop city.”

— Ann Napolitano

34. “When frazzled, people tend to revert to the familiar and the well rehearsed.”

— Ann Napolitano

35. “There is a note of relief. They have somewhere to start, even if it is the worst place imaginable.”

— Ann Napolitano

36. “My wife is pregnant, and her physician told her that physiologically and medically speaking, there are three different kinds of humans: men, women, and pregnant women. I think the same idea applies to you, Edward. There are grown-ups, children, and then you. You don’t feel like a kid anymore, right?” Edward nods. “But you won’t be an adult for years. You’re something else, and we need to figure out what you are, so we can figure out how to help you.”

— Ann Napolitano

37. “That’s easy. The same thing we all must do. Take stock of who we are, and what we have, and then use it for good.”

— Ann Napolitano

38. “Since death is certain, but the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?”

— Ann Napolitano

39. “She was no longer who she used to be, and she wasn’t yet whoever she was becoming.”

— Ann Napolitano

40. “When in doubt, read books. Educate yourself. Education has always saved me Edward. Learn about the mysteries.”

— Ann Napolitano

41. “They want to share something extraordinary about themselves, because you’ve experienced something extraordinary.”

— Ann Napolitano

42. “I love the Internet, or at least I used to, but it’s not where you go for the truth.”

— Ann Napolitano

43. “He pictures the nursery, with its baby books and rocking chair. His body had jerked backward when he’d entered on the first day. He’d wanted to leave immediately, somehow knowing that those four walls couldn’t bear both Lacey’s grief and his own.”

— Ann Napolitano

44. “Arts and crafts turn out to be surprisingly enjoyable; there’s something calming about sitting next to Shay in front of an assortment of glue sticks, pipe cleaners, markers, and googly eyes, with the freedom to create something ugly.”

— Ann Napolitano

45. “Because there are so many kids, they run schools like factories, or dare I say, jails. You’re put into lines and rows and moved when a bell rings. None of this is conducive to deep thinking or creativity. You start to go deep into a subject, and a bell rings to pull you out of it.”

— Ann Napolitano

46. “We are not contained between our hats and boots.”

— Ann Napolitano

47. “Edward wasn’t supposed to leave Jordan, though. They were meant to age together. That loss continues to be spiked with pain; it will never be soothed. And he can see, objectively, that Shay’s life without him would have been woven with different moments, friends or lack of friends, different fights with Besa, different books and different struggles.”

— Ann Napolitano

48. “Charlie had seen and loved each of them for who they were. When any of his girls – including Rose – had come into view, he’d always given them the same welcome, calling out, Hello beautiful!”

— Ann Napolitano

49. “Why is it,” an old news anchor growls, “that out of all the terrible news in this terrible world, we care so much about this one downed plane and this one little boy?”

— Ann Napolitano

50. “It was the reason neither Florida nor any of her friends could afford health insurance – the industry had nothing to do with providing healthcare; it was designed to extract the maximum amount of money from each person.”

— Ann Napolitano