Top 250 Ann Napolitano Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “I could be mad at you. I could scream at you. But I won’t. You raised me to take care of myself, and I will.”

— Ann Napolitano

102. “I want to know what to do,” he hears himself say, and, like the decision to write to the co-pilot’s wife, the statement is a relief. He wants to know what to do. She taps the center of his hand. “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

103. “His body was now more or less irrelevant. Arash studied him. “I heard you’re.”

— Ann Napolitano

104. “Since the diagnosis, Sylvie had returned to Leaves of Grass. She wanted to absorb Whitman’s optimistic take on death; she wanted to share the poet’s open mind about what came next. Whenever Sylvie felt a quiver of fear, she repeated to herself the line: And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

— Ann Napolitano

105. “The stories and the people in them did sound remarkable, Sylvie thought, when spoken aloud. She and the twins had rarely talked about what happened. They’d lived through it, after all, and the loss of Julia had made them quiet. But Josie’s wonder at the stories, and Izzy’s clear enjoyment of what she saw as a soap opera in which she played a small role, took the sting out of the grief woven through those times. When Sylvie spoke their family history into the air, all she heard was love.”

— Ann Napolitano

106. “Sylvie reached out for the notebook. Like him, she’d grown up going to confession in church. Entering the dark booth and lowering herself to the kneeler. Confessing her sins to the screen that separated her from the priest. 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

107. “Julia by her side; it made sense that with her sister she would also briefly be allowed her normal taste buds.”

— Ann Napolitano

108. “Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it. I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. – Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Verse 7.”

— Ann Napolitano

109. “When he woke up in the hospital, dry, and saw Sylvie on a chair next to him, his first thought was that he’d failed. The fact that he had failed meant he had to continue to walk forward with his life history – his mistakes – slung over his shoulders like a heavy backpack. This fact exhausted him, but he was too tired to reject it.”

— Ann Napolitano

110. “Each letter feels like a page in a book that he won’t fully understand until he reaches the end. It feels imperative – in a way nothing else in his life has – that he read every word. The attention he brings to the letters seems to be changing him; Edward can feel strands inside himself gathering, trying to find a shape in which he will be able to meet the eyes of the people in the photographs.”

— Ann Napolitano

111. “He’d always assumed openness was synonymous with danger and that if he wasn’t holding on tight to the new life he’d built, it would blow away. But with the barriers down, he’d discovered that life became bigger.”

— Ann Napolitano

112. “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.” William was silent, considering this. “Do you not get it?” Arash had said, exasperated. William started to respond, but the older man cut him off: “It doesn’t matter if you get it, actually. It’s true.”

— Ann Napolitano

113. “She was her father’s rocket.”

— Ann Napolitano

114. “The past is the same as the present to her, as precious and as close at hand. After all, if you think about one memory for most of a day, is that not your present? Some people live in the now; some people prefer to reside in the past – either choice is valid.”

— Ann Napolitano

115. “But you built us an infrastructure of kindness.”

— Ann Napolitano

116. “When she’s anxious, she replays moments from her life, perhaps to convince herself that she has a history.”

— Ann Napolitano

117. “Edward swallows. Like a dutiful student, he follows her train of thought. Voldemort equals plane crash. Dead parents equal dead parents. Harry equals him.”

— Ann Napolitano

118. “This is worth dying for. A driver with a firm jawline.”

— Ann Napolitano

119. “Later that night, Sylvie sat in bed with a book open in her lap. She was too sleepy to read, but the proximity of the book was comforting. Telling.”

— Ann Napolitano

120. “We look out the window, or into ourselves, for something more.”

— Ann Napolitano

121. “He wanted to know where the ice was weakest beneath their feet so he could keep them from falling through.”

— Ann Napolitano

122. “She knew what mattered. She knew, at a deeper level each time, that what mattered was love. But love was what she had misread, mistaken, and misplaced in this life.”

— Ann Napolitano

123. “When Sylvie was a child, she’d watched in amazement when friends, upset about a bad day at school or a slight from a boy they had a crush on, burst into tears at the sight of their mother. Their mother was their safe space, and so, with her, they felt every iota of their feelings.”

— Ann Napolitano

124. “No one had ever wanted him before. He wished he could take her in his arms, in front of her sisters.”

— Ann Napolitano

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

— Ann Napolitano

126. “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

127. “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

128. “I always thought that I wanted that dream because I was romantic and destined to live a big life, but that wasn’t true. I created that dream because real life scared me, and that dream seemed so far-fetched I didn’t think it would ever happen. I’d never seen that kind of love in person. My parents loved each other, but badly, and they were miserable.”

— Ann Napolitano

129. “In the dream, William was swimming away from his mother and father, while they swam away from him. And he had told his wife and daughter to go away. So many people leaving each other. There had been a claustrophobic atmosphere in the dream, a foreboding, as if they were all about to find out they were swimming in a fishbowl. They were trying to get away from one another, and they were doomed to fail.”

— Ann Napolitano

130. “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

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

— Ann Napolitano

132. “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

133. “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

134. “Sylvie had almost missed this life with this man, and because of this near-miss, she appreciated their moments together, even as they accumulated.”

— Ann Napolitano

135. “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

136. “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

137. “When I’m with you, I feel fixed.”

— Ann Napolitano

138. “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

139. “Sylvie was being punished for the choice she’d made twenty-five years earlier. Even.”

— Ann Napolitano

140. “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

141. “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

142. “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

143. “She’s one of those people who live way too much in their heads and are too invested in their careful plans.”

— Ann Napolitano

144. “She’d carried a hesitation inside her ever since he’d met her at his basketball game when she was fourteen. Emeline had always seemed occupied with watching everyone else and trying to be helpful, but she’d stayed on the sidelines, as if it weren’t her turn to live.”

— Ann Napolitano

145. “The four sisters looked like different versions of the same person: They were parts of a whole.”

— Ann Napolitano

146. “He’d known his wife was dying, but he hadn’t expected her to die.”

— Ann Napolitano

147. “John gestures with his hand again, this time seeming to refer to everything: the photographs, the letters, middle age, marriage. “If you live long enough, everything is complicated.”

— Ann Napolitano

148. “The physical jolt shifts something inside Jordan, and a new truth yawns open: I do need them. I need all three of them. And while the plane hesitates, as if deciding its next move, his apartment now has a bunk bed to share with his brother and another bedroom, for his parents.”

— Ann Napolitano

149. “The fact that he had failed meant he had to continue to walk forward with his life history – his mistakes – slung over his shoulders like a heavy backpack. This fact exhausted him, but he was too tired to reject it.”

— Ann Napolitano

150. “Julia decided to deep-clean the apartment.”

— Ann Napolitano