Top 200 Ann Napolitano Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “Julia by her side; it made sense that with her sister she would also briefly be allowed her normal taste buds.”

— Ann Napolitano

152. “I knew that if I never found my great love, I would rather be single than settle for a mediocre relationship. I can’t bear to pretend happiness.”

— Ann Napolitano

153. “You know the quote about how the only reason for time is so everything doesn’t happen at once? I.”

— Ann Napolitano

154. “No matter how many minutes remained on the clock, there was no chance of victory.”

— Ann Napolitano

155. “She was her father’s rocket.”

— Ann Napolitano

156. “She could see this possibility and the way grief and depression tangled inside him; Sylvie found that she could accept his choice even if she didn’t fully understand.”

— Ann Napolitano

157. “Rose glared in Sylvie’s direction with an anger she didn’t understand but that made Sylvie’s.”

— Ann Napolitano

158. “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

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

— Ann Napolitano

160. “William was slow-moving and unable to hold a conversation until he’d eaten a thousand calories and the color returned to his face.”

— Ann Napolitano

161. “He never would have reached this point, the middle, without her.”

— Ann Napolitano

162. “Sylvie aced the classes she was interested in but got C’s or D’s in everything else. Julia had operated her determination like a lawn mower and mowed through high school with the next step in her sights.”

— Ann Napolitano

163. “Sylvie would love differently. She would celebrate whoever her beloved happened to be; she would be curious about his distinctiveness and sink into a love that was unblinkingly honest.”

— Ann Napolitano

164. “I’m not going to waste their kindness.”

— Ann Napolitano

165. “Imagine that I’m a house, and when I find my great love, I’ll become the entire world. Our love will show me so much more than I’ll be able to see on my own.”

— Ann Napolitano

166. “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

167. “He’s been sucker-punched by memories of his brother. This happens sometimes, and he knows he has to ride the memories out.”

— Ann Napolitano

168. “Edward spends every night reaching for unconsciousness as if it were a rock in the middle of a river, while a fierce current pulls him away. His fingertips sometimes.”

— Ann Napolitano

169. “People fly despite knowing that a certain percentage of airplanes crash every year.”

— Ann Napolitano

170. “William worked on his passing too, so he could feed the ball to the best players in the park. He wanted to keep his place on the court, and he knew that if he made the other boys better, he had value.”

— Ann Napolitano

171. “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

172. “Some cover themselves with a jacket or blanket; like turtles, they withdraw into their shells.”

— Ann Napolitano

173. “She could feel her friends’ love pushing past her skin, into her body, and she cried too.”

— Ann Napolitano

174. “How Leo Tolstoy had inspired Mahatma Gandhi, who had in turn inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. William.”

— Ann Napolitano

175. “The Taking of MH370.”

— Ann Napolitano

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

— Ann Napolitano

177. “William was her one.”

— Ann Napolitano

178. “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

179. “And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

— Ann Napolitano

180. “Mrs. Cox had also texted him on his birthday to say that.”

— Ann Napolitano

181. “This is why we live. She and William held.”

— Ann Napolitano

182. “She was failing to provide significant comfort to her baby, and she was failing to be the mother that Jordan had always known. The three-year-old gazed at her nursing nightgown and uncombed hair with a combination of fear and sadness. She was also keenly aware that she was failing herself – she’d always believed that she could kick the butt of any situation, and this proved she couldn’t. She was not the woman she’d thought she was, nor the one she’d planned to be.”

— Ann Napolitano

183. “The passage of time, and the details that spun some moments into unforgettable memories and others into thin air, traveled with Sylvie – the swirling atmosphere of her own life – while she walked.”

— Ann Napolitano

184. “This act of generosity – Cecelia and Emeline had nothing to gain from him, personally – still struck him as extraordinary.”

— Ann Napolitano

185. “Julia sought to collect labels like honors student, girlfriend, and wife, but Sylvie steered away from labels. She wanted to be true to herself with every word she uttered, every action she took, and every belief she held.”

— Ann Napolitano

186. “Do you know our chicken schedule? Because we have a chicken schedule. We eat fried chicken on Mondays, roasted chicken on Wednesdays, and barbecued chicken breasts on Fridays. It never varies.”

— Ann Napolitano

187. “He hated that his friend had to resume the duty of standing guard over his depression.”

— Ann Napolitano

188. “No one in his life, except perhaps Kent, had ever accepted him just as he was, and Sylvie had accepted him when he was so broken he was barely a person.”

— Ann Napolitano

189. “The two boys lead the way down the hall. There are windows in this corridor, and the skyscrapers of New York City are visible in the distance – man-made mountains of steel and glass piercing a blue sky. Jane and Bruce can’t help but locate the spot where the Twin Towers used to be, the same way the tongue finds the hole where a tooth was pulled. Their sons, who were both toddlers when the towers fell, accept the skyline as it is.”

— Ann Napolitano

190. “Sylvie thought, This is worth dying for.”

— Ann Napolitano

191. “Then he bites an O in half and wills himself to remember nothing, think nothing, until all that exists is a flatness – a flatness he now identifies as himself.”

— Ann Napolitano

192. “She had screwed up, not him. It made her sad that her vast experience, even her marathon dances with men, hadn’t left her any the wiser.”

— Ann Napolitano

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

— Ann Napolitano

194. “The sky, as if taking a breath, lightens.”

— Ann Napolitano

195. “Julia specialized in answers. From the time she was old enough to speak, she’d bossed her sisters around, pointing out their problems and providing solutions. Sometimes her sisters found this irritating, but they would also admit that having a “master troubleshooter” in their.”

— Ann Napolitano

196. “William, that she had the capacity to raise these giant, beautiful sails and go.”

— Ann Napolitano

197. “What do you want? Sylvie wouldn’t have asked this question before, because she would have been afraid of the answer, but she wanted to be deeply and truly herself and to experience the world in the deepest and truest way.”

— Ann Napolitano

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

— Ann Napolitano

199. “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

200. “He wanted to keep his place on the court, and he knew that if he made the other boys better, he had value.”

— Ann Napolitano