Top 500 Kristin Hannah Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “In the past days, she’d come to understand the importance of upheaval. The tallest mountains were created by violence and chaos; like them, a woman’s independence was born of fire.”

— Kristin Hannah

402. “Hey, Daddy,” she whispered. It was a split second before she realized that she’d expected an answer. But, of course, there wasn’t one. His heart – the one that had loved her so well – had finally given up.”

— Kristin Hannah

403. “You can be anything you want. But you have to take a risk sometimes. Reach out.”

— Kristin Hannah

404. “Up here, in the vastness of Alaska, the words sounded infinitesimal and small. A fist shaken at the gods.”

— Kristin Hannah

405. “There was a parking ticket on her windshield. She rolled down her window and reached out, yanking the paper from beneath the rusted windshield wiper. She wadded it into a ball and tossed it out the window. To her mind, ticketing this rattrap and expecting to get paid was like leaving a bill on the pillow at a homeless shelter.”

— Kristin Hannah

406. “That spring, rain fell in great sweeping gusts that rattled the rooftops. Water found its way into the smallest cracks and undermined the sturdiest foundations. Chunks of land that had been steady for generations fell like slag heaps on the roads below, taking houses and cars and swimming pools down with them.”

— Kristin Hannah

407. “I know I won’t be able to stand on the edge of intimacy. Sooner or later, I will have to dive into those cold, deep waters, and there is no end to the ripples my entrance will make. I.”

— Kristin Hannah

408. “She wanted to be with him, and though the realization frightened her, it also set her heart racing with anticipation. When she was with Nick, she was a different woman. Some of his glitter fell onto her and made her feel beautiful and sparkly and more alive.”

— Kristin Hannah

409. “Fear was a mansion, one room after another, connected by endless hallways.”

— Kristin Hannah

410. “Yelling was like a bomb in the corner: you saw it, watched the fuse burn, and you knew when it would explode and you needed to run for cover. Not speaking was a killer somewhere in your house with a gun when you were sleeping.”

— Kristin Hannah

411. “Shadows crept along the ground like slowly seeping India ink, moved up the sides of the house, and slipped through the slats on the picket fence. Sunset tinted the sky purple and pink.”

— Kristin Hannah

412. “Inside was a library unlike any Leni had ever seen. Row upon row of wooden desks, decorated with green banker’s lamps, were positioned beneath an arched ceiling. Gothic chandeliers hung above the desks. And the books! She’d never seen so many. They whispered to her of unexplored worlds and unmet friends and she realized that she wasn’t alone in this new world. Her friends were here, spine out, waiting for her as they always had.”

— Kristin Hannah

413. “Mama and dad had run off together; theirs was a beautiful, romantic story of love against all odds. Mama had quit high school and “lived on love.” That was how she always put it, the fairy tale. Now Leni was old enough to know that like all fairy tales, theirs was filled with thickets and dark places and broken dreams, and runaway girls.” – pg 23.”

— Kristin Hannah

414. “When you get older, you’ll understand. There’s a certain comfort in the familiar.”

— Kristin Hannah

415. “While they were virtual roller coasters of emotion, you needed to be calm, always.”

— Kristin Hannah

416. “So that was how they would do it, merge back into the driving lane after a blown tire. They would say ordinary things and pretend none of it had happened. Until the next time.”

— Kristin Hannah

417. “White sheets flapped in the breeze and roses tumbled like laughter along the ancient stone wall that hid her property from the road.”

— Kristin Hannah

418. “Nina lowered the camera slowly, feeling naked suddenly, vulnerable. Without that thin layer of a glass lens, she was here instead of there, looking at her father, who was dying.”

— Kristin Hannah

419. “He had the kind of smile that inhabited every part of his face – his eyes, his cheeks; there was even a dimple.”

— Kristin Hannah

420. “Although she hadn’t seen her parents for years, it turned out that a parent’s disapproval was a powerful, lingering voice that shaped and defined one’s self-image.”

— Kristin Hannah

421. “Sometimes a mood changes on its own... Sometimes it needs a shove.”

— Kristin Hannah

422. “Elsa felt a deeply rooted shame in her daughter’s rejection. In her hurt, she did what she’d always done: she disappeared. But all the while, she waited, prayed, that both her husband and her daughter would someday see how much she loved them and they would love her in return. Until then, she dared not push too hard or demand too much.”

— Kristin Hannah

423. “Home is part of us. It’s in the scars we have on our knees and elbows, in the memories that surface when we sleep. I don’t think you can ever really leave.”

— Kristin Hannah

424. “But how did you do that? How did two people move backward through time and untie a knot that had tangled through every moment of their lives?”

— Kristin Hannah

425. “The truth was that her photographs were an extension of who she was, what she thought, how she felt. It took perfect concentration to capture the exquisite pain of personal tragedy on film. You had to be there one hundred percent, in the moment – but it had to be their moment.”

— Kristin Hannah

426. “For a magnificent moment, the world fell away and she was somewhere else, before now, or long from now, and she wasn’t hungry or tired or scared or angry. She simply was. She closed her eyes and felt at peace for the first time in years. Safe.”

— Kristin Hannah

427. “Sometimes you have to fight for the thing that will complete you.”

— Kristin Hannah

428. “Those are exactly the kind of memories I try to avoid, but they’re like abestos: invisible and deadly. You need special gear to get rid of them.”

— Kristin Hannah

429. “Time and again, she had returned to God, pleading for help, promising her faith. She wanted to believe that she was neither alone nor in charge, but rather that her life was unfolding according to His plan, even if she couldn’t see it.”

— Kristin Hannah

430. “The true voyage of self-discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. – MARCEL PROUST.”

— Kristin Hannah

431. “She looked at Vianne, and the universe of their friendship was in her eyes – the secrets they’d shared, the promises they’d made and kept, the dreams for their children that bound them as neatly as sisters.”

— Kristin Hannah

432. “He was trying to make it up to her, asking for forgiveness and seeking redemption all at once, sacrificing himself for her. It was a glimpse of who he’d once been, the poet her maman had fallen in love with. That man, the one before the war, might have known another way, might have found the perfect words to heal their fractured past.”

— Kristin Hannah

433. “Now, darlin’, you know that social etiquette is bred into us Southern girls.” “Oh, please. You’re as Southern as Tony Soprano.” Mama sniffed. “I swear, I should have left you by the side of the road in Wheeling, West Virginia.” “You did leave me there.”

— Kristin Hannah

434. “How can we call ourselves the land of the free when people are living on the streets and dying of hunger?”

— Kristin Hannah

435. “We have always been the witnesses of each other’s lives. Isn’t that what family is? Even broken and betrayed and bleeding, we are connected.”

— Kristin Hannah

436. “Apparently you couldn’t stop loving some people, or needing their love, even when you knew better.”

— Kristin Hannah

437. “For years, she’d mistaken habit and affection for true love. She had assumed that the love she gave her husband was a reflection of the love he felt for her, and now, because of her blindness, she was alone.”

— Kristin Hannah

438. “Her beauty had always made it easy for her to break rules without reprisal.”

— Kristin Hannah

439. “Annie had made so many mistakes, and most of them had been because she’d planted herself firmly in the middle of the road. But now she knew that life without risk was impossible, and if by chance you stumbled across a safe, serene existence, it was because you’d never really reached for anything in the first place.”

— Kristin Hannah

440. “Who you mom is and how she lives her life isn’t a reflection of you. You can make your own choices. And there’s nothing for you to be ashamed of. But you’ll have to dream big, Tully.”

— Kristin Hannah

441. “In her hurt, she did what she’d always done: she disappeared. But all the while, she waited, prayed, that both her husband and her daughter would someday see how much she loved them and they would love her in return.”

— Kristin Hannah

442. “But he wasn’t that man anymore. He had lost too much, and in his loss, he’d thrown more away.”

— Kristin Hannah

443. “Men are stupid. You might as well learn that now. Look at bull moose. They ram into each other at full speed. Same with Dall sheep. This will be a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

— Kristin Hannah

444. “Claire knew she loved her daughter too much; it was dangerous to need another human being so desperately, but Claire had never known any other way to love.”

— Kristin Hannah

445. “I think you stand by the people you love. That was what he’d said, and it was what she would do.”

— Kristin Hannah

446. “They were at war. Time was the one luxury no one had anymore. Tomorrow felt as ephemeral as a kiss in the dark. She.”

— Kristin Hannah

447. “Love doesn’t fade or die.”

— Kristin Hannah

448. “It’s too bad we don’t live life backward. I think it was Kierkegaard who said that.”

— Kristin Hannah

449. “Don’t take peace for granted, he’d said to her often. It can shatter like glass.”

— Kristin Hannah

450. “Here’s what I want you to know: I loved my life. For so long I was waiting for it to start, waiting for more. It seemed like all I did was drive and shop and wait. But you know what? I didn’t miss a thing with my family. Not a moment. I was there for all of it. That’s what I’ll remember, and they’ll have each other.”

— Kristin Hannah