Top 150 Catherine Ryan Hyde Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If nothing changes, nothing changes. If you always do what you always did, then you’ll always get what you always got. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and every time expecting a different result.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

2. “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

3. “I keep telling you the future isn’t set in stone. It’s not all decided yet. The future is just what’s down the road we decided to walk on today. You can change roads anytime. And that changes where you end up.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

4. “Things are so easy to do, so hard to undo.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

5. “There is no wrong way to perform an act of kindness.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

6. “Changing the laws of a country is not the same as changing its hearts and minds.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

7. “If it takes you apart, that’s not love. Love puts you back together.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

8. “The world is a tough place, my friend. I’m not ready to change my mind about that. And yet we’re called upon to be grateful that we’re in it. That seems to be our challenge.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

9. “People laugh at things they don’t understand. It makes them feel safe. But it’s a false feeling. They are no safer. They just feel as if they are. The world is full of people too foolish to judge the difference.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

10. “I decided that not talking is like a litmus test for a real friend. You can just sit there and be. Not always be filling up the air with words.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

11. “Nobody said it was a beautiful world with no scars.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

12. “We should all be much more careful with each other’s hearts.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

13. “Everybody is a good person and a bad person at the same time. The only real variation is in the balance. How much good to how much bad. When a person has a bigger good side, we call him a good person. But it’s never absolute.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

14. “You’re supposed to make mistakes. You’re just starting out. Mistakes are a good thing. They mean you were brave enough to try something hard.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

15. “Everybody goes around missing all the best stuff because they don’t want anything bad to happen. But then when something bad wants to happen it just does. Anyway. No matter how careful you’re being.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

16. “If you think having and losing is so bad, try never having. Now that’s devastating.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

17. “Don’t you dare give up on me.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

18. “Because it proves that you don’t need much to change the entire world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingredients. You can start with the world you’ve got.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

19. “The fact that you don’t grasp the meaning of something doesn’t mean it has none.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

20. “Life gives us nothing outright. It only lends. Nothing is ours to keep. Absolutely nothing. Not even our bodies, our brains.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

21. “You don’t fall down to love, you climb up to it. There’s hard work involved. That’s why I believe you can’t love someone you don’t know. Loving someone is knowing them.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

22. “Living long is a gift denied to many, and so it comes with a responsibility to make the most of it. At very least to appreciate it. People gripe about growing older – their aches and pains, how much harder everything is – as if they had forgotten that the alternative is dying young.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

23. “Every life matters. Even if it’s “them.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

24. “I think it’s the things we don’t talk about that make us old before out time.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

25. “But you can’t change the world on the honor system. Shoot, anybody knows that. Leave people on the honor system, they don’t do it. As soon as you look away, they just don’t. I mean, look what happened.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

26. “Do you know what forever love is? Pearl taught me. It’s when you love somebody so much that no matter what happens that’ll never change. Like even if you’re gone. It’s still the same. Even if you die. You die, but not the love. Not forever love. Know what I mean?”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

27. “The closer you get to heaven, the less air there is, because when you get to heaven for real, you don’t need to breathe anymore.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

28. “Never be afraid to look, Raymond. It’s always better to look. Whatever you’re afraid of, turn toward it, not away. Once you’re willing to do that, it loses all its power over you. Trust me. I know this. I don’t always do it. But I really, truly know.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

29. “People come into our lives, she thought, and it’s not always a forever kind of thing, and not always meant to be. Not every deal is for keeps.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

30. “The most important thing I can add from my own observations is this: knowing it started from unremarkable circumstances should be a comfort to us all. Because it proves that you don’t need much to change the entire world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingredients. You can start with the world you’ve got.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

31. “She learned so much from these little talks with her son. He always swore he’d learned it from her and was only mirroring it back, but somehow the wisdom of her own advice surprised her as it came out of his mouth, and left her wondering if she was wise enough to heed it.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

32. “People remember what they want to remember and forget what they want to forget.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

33. “But sometimes things happen that shouldn’t happen. And sometimes there’s not a damn thing we can do to stop them. But it’s not definite yet. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

34. “If you want to see a man come to his senses, try something like, Do you happen to carry a rubber in your wallet? Did I mention I’m not on the pill?”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

35. “The moon shows it all. Thank god the moon is on my side. I’ll need a piece of that, a piece of Sarah, all of myself and all of Simon.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

36. “There are some things it doesn’t feel good to do, but there shouldn’t be things you can’t do. It gives the world too much power over you.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

37. “After all, the only thing that hurts more than tears shed is tears unshed.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

38. “Sometimes when things happen you just let them go, one by one, because it’s easier. You pretend they don’t mean as much as they do. I should’ve had my eyes open about that, but you can’t go back and second-guess things. It’s just that when we sat around and thought about the things we really loved, which you do when you’re away at war, mostly what came to me were experiences.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

39. “It shouldn’t matter whether you understand it or not, August. Or whether it would be enough of a challenge for you or not. It’s Seth’s dream. Not yours.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

40. “Smart is overrated. Most of the harm done in this world is done by people who fancy themselves smart. And they are – book smart. But most really smart people have no sense. They value their brains too highly. I’d rather have someone with sense. And a little heart.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

41. “This darkness doesn’t belong to the night. It belongs to me.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

42. “I mean you can’t change his mind. You can’t change anybody’s mind. No matter what you say to them. The sooner you figure that out, the happier your life will be.” “But.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

43. “You think passion is enough. That it’s all you really need. You think if something’s just really, really important to you, it’ll magically appear. Well, passion is all well and good. You won’t get nowhere without it. But it’s not the whole enchilada. You still gotta go step-by-step like everybody else.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

44. “That’s stupid. What about a gun? A gun can kill you dead.” “Only your body,” Billy said. “It can’t kill your soul. Words can kill your soul.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

45. “Since we all know for a fact that we’re all going to die, why don’t we all treat each other like we could lose each other at any minute?”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

46. “Love always looks nice. I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t enjoy it when they see it. Anyone who doesn’t, I don’t really want to know them.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

47. “Life gives us nothing outright. It only lends. Nothing is ours to keep.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

48. “Luis comes along and decides that his definition of a man is someone who is not afraid to be kind. That takes courage.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

49. “My daughter was mentally ill,” I said. “So I know. It’s an illness, just like it says in the phrase. It’s not a moral failing. It’s funny how people have empathy for a physical illness. They see it as bad luck, and they never question whether you can help it.”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde

50. “Why the remarkable commitment?” “Why not?” Nathan asked. “What else have I done with my life that’s remarkable?”

— Catherine Ryan Hyde