Top 250 Ann Napolitano Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “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

52. “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

53. “He says, “A family that big must have been a lot of work.” “It was. You’re a man, so you’ll never know work that hard. It’s reserved solely for the women.”

— Ann Napolitano

54. “I wish you magic, Edward.”

— Ann Napolitano

55. “He wonders if the scientists who tend to the Large Hadron Collider are hoping to discover not only what happens in the air between two people but how that pressurized air changes those people inside their skin. He hears the science teacher say, The air between us is not empty space.”

— Ann Napolitano

56. “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. Your mother and sisters don’t have that awareness. Not yet, anyway. They believe they’re contained in their bodies, in the biographical facts of their lives.”

— Ann Napolitano

57. “They were dismantling their habits and routines, and it was like pulling up floorboards and finding joy underneath.”

— Ann Napolitano

58. “Stop thinking about who you were when you were living the wrong life, William. You’re built for the life you’re living now.”

— Ann Napolitano

59. “The idea of love in those books – Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina – is that it’s a force that obliterates you. They’re all tragedies, Sylvie.”

— Ann Napolitano

60. “He was her heart. He had changed all the molecules inside her. Sylvie had known love would come for her with the force of a tsunami. She’d dreamed of this.”

— Ann Napolitano

61. “Basketball was the first thing in William’s life that loved him back.”

— Ann Napolitano

62. “When your love for a person is so profound that it’s part of who you are, then the absence of the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, and your skin.”

— Ann Napolitano

63. “She realized that she was most certainly a mammal and had the ability to shake the world apart and create a human when she unleased her power. She was a mother. This identify shuddered through her, welcome like water to a dry riverbed. It felt so elemental and true that Julia must have unknowingly been a mother all along, simply waiting to be joined by her child.”

— Ann Napolitano

64. “You know what Daddy would say when he saw Sylvie,” Julia said in a quiet voice. Emeline and Izzy nodded, and Cecelia said, “Hello beautiful.”

— Ann Napolitano

65. “Intense psychological stress tends to shut down the part of the brain responsible for innovative, creative thought.”

— Ann Napolitano

66. “Kent’s affection for William was too clear and too uncomplicated. It shone on William like the sun. No one had ever loved him unconditionally like this, and that love, when he was the most undeserving he’d ever been in his life, made William feel like he was burning up.”

— Ann Napolitano

67. “The thing was – ” He stopped, looking for the right language. “Yes?” the doctor said. “Alice is a lamp. A bright lamp, from the moment she was born. She kind of shines. Looking at her hurt my eyes, and I was afraid to touch her.” “You were afraid of her light?” “No. I was afraid I was going to put her light out. That my darkness would swamp her light.” “So you felt like you had to stay away from her, to keep her safe.” “I have to stay away from her, yes.”

— Ann Napolitano

68. “Sylvie had always thought that when, if, she wrote, it would have to be perfect. A beautifully crafted novel, ready to hand to the world. But William had shown her she could write for, and to, herself. And Whitman had rewritten, expanded, cut, and reimagined his poems across his life. He’d created not one beautiful book but different attempts at excellence and beauty as he aged and loved and reconsidered everything.”

— Ann Napolitano

69. “You’re depressed, not crazy. It’s not insane to be depressed in this world. It’s more sane than being happy.”

— Ann Napolitano

70. “She’s that magic, shimmering age – he guesses 27 – when a woman has one foot in youth and one in adulthood.”

— Ann Napolitano

71. “She was all of herself with him and even felt there was room for her to become more. When he rested his eyes on her, it was without judgment or expectation, and in that space, Sylvie felt her potential: for bravery, brilliance, kindness, joy. All of these sails rested on the deck of her ship; they were hers, but she hadn’t seen them before.”

— Ann Napolitano

72. “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

73. “She existed outside her own body-she was scattered across this ground-but somehow this made her feel less vulnerable. She was painted into this family, mirrored in her father’s face. She was more abundant than she’d believed possible.”

— Ann Napolitano

74. “She would wait, forever if necessary, for a man who saw the expanse of her, the way her father had.”

— Ann Napolitano

75. “You and your sisters have so many reference points, such a dense history,” William said. “I never get used to it.”

— Ann Napolitano

76. “She was Julia’s wild hair, she was the lake her husband had once been carried out of, and no matter what happened next, she was love.”

— Ann Napolitano

77. “Stop thinking about who you were when you were living the wrong life, William. You’re built for the life you’re living now. You have a gift for seeing what’s wrong with these boys. And besides, you can’t fail when you’re doing what you love.”

— Ann Napolitano

78. “She fits her hand over his and presses. Her skin is soft, and the pressure makes his mouth form a smile. He can be furious with her and still be aware that he loves her at the same time. It took years for him to be able to accept the absence of logic in their love. Frustration plus a bad mood plus a particular smile of hers equaled a shot of joy in his belly.”

— Ann Napolitano

79. “Make sure you live a meaningful life.”

— Ann Napolitano

80. “Julia had accepted a job far away from her sisters and home. That collection of weeks had pulled her life out from under her like a rug. Julia had devoted herself to not losing control of her circumstances like that ever again, and she hadn’t, until recently.”

— Ann Napolitano

81. “But perhaps what felt impossible was leaving that person behind. When your love for a person is so profound that it’s part of who you are, then the absence of the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, and your skin. Charlie’s and.”

— Ann Napolitano

82. “He was vast, and beautiful, and more present in the gift of baby formula to a young mother than in any.”

— Ann Napolitano

83. “My camp counselor won’t even let me read during lunch. She says it’s because reading is antisocial, but I think it’s because she’s actually Joseph Goebbels.” “Who’s that?” “Nazi. Burned books.”

— Ann Napolitano

84. “It felt like a piece of punctuation in a run-on sentence.”

— Ann Napolitano

85. “The dream was now in the air at risk of the elements beyond her grasp.”

— Ann Napolitano

86. “The onset of grief bore no resemblance to his experience with depression. Depression meant disconnection, shutting down, a dangerous quiet. Now William’s feelings whipped around inside him like a flailing water hose.”

— Ann Napolitano

87. “I’m either becoming Zen or more depressed, he thinks.”

— Ann Napolitano

88. “Sylvie and her sisters had known themselves under their father’s gaze. And with that gaze gone, the threads that had tied their family so tightly together had loosened.”

— Ann Napolitano

89. “But Carrie had told her friend once, during high school, not to model herself on Julia. “I like your mom a lot,” Carrie had said, “but anyone that dresses and does their hair as carefully as your mom does every single day is unhappy on the inside. She’s trying to hide all her messiness, and I want better than that for you.”

— Ann Napolitano

90. “Her father had called Julia his rocket ever since she was a little girl – I can’t wait to watch you fly, he’d say – and she was the one who fixed problems.”

— Ann Napolitano

91. “Linda’s uptight too, but in a disheveled way. Her wires are crossed and split and her energy flow is a mess.”

— Ann Napolitano

92. “I’m not ready for this,” she says. “This,” Florida says. She thinks: This is the subject that defines women. Having babies. Will you have them? Can you have them? Do you want to have them?”

— Ann Napolitano

93. “I’d never seen that kind of love in person. My parents loved each other, but badly, and they were miserable. So were all the other couples in my neighborhood. Have you ever actually seen that kind of love?” William shook his head. He had married out of fear, because he didn’t think he was capable of steering himself into adulthood. He’d needed Julia to be his parent more than his.”

— Ann Napolitano

94. “I’m a writer,” Jane says. “I have a habit, I guess, where I see all the possibilities in a situation. No matter what, there’s always at least one that’s terrifying.”

— Ann Napolitano

95. “I’m not saying you have to be vegan,” Jordan says, perhaps picking up on his father’s melancholy. “If you want to continue to make animals suffer unnecessarily, be my guest.”

— Ann Napolitano

96. “To be the rocket, she had to be with her sisters, and she had to set her daughter free.”

— Ann Napolitano

97. “William thought of that sacrament now and felt bad for all the children who were forced to divide their ordinary lives into sins and not-sins so they would have something to say to a cassocked stranger.”

— Ann Napolitano

98. “God damn it, Emeline,” Sylvie said. She knew Emeline didn’t like it when she swore. “Why do you have to be so wise?” “I’m the only one without my own personal life, so I have time to watch you all.”

— Ann Napolitano

99. “He’d convinced himself something between them was broken, when in truth the broken thing was him. Edward’s cheeks grow hot. He, alone, had almost destroyed the most important part of his life.”

— Ann Napolitano

100. “He closes his eyes for a second, and Edward sees the lines of pain on Gary’s face; they’re the same lines – carved by loss – that engrave Edward’s whole self, and the boy shudders in recognition.”

— Ann Napolitano