Amy McNamara Quotes

“I came here because it's pine-dark and the ocean is wild. The kind of quiet-noise you need when there's too much going on in your head. Like the water and the woods are doing all the feeling, and I can hang out, quiet as a headstone, in a between place. A blank I can bear.”

— Amy McNamara

So this is life. Love. We spend all this time reaching for each other and mostly we end up hurting each other until it's over.

— Amy McNamara

“I wish I believed him. He's looking at me like he can see where I begin.”

— Amy McNamara

“It's too much to be trusted with someone else's heart. I don't think it ever ends well.”

— Amy McNamara

“The real gift is time. Now. Each other, this night, and the wide, wide moon-silvered sea.”

— Amy McNamara

“I'm starting to feel a little like I might fly away. Like everyone else has solid lives, and I'm just a particle, passing through.”

— Amy McNamara

“Wren, come back, please come back. Don't disappear again. I want you here. Stay here.”

— Amy McNamara

“And that's just it. This is how it is. Always. To pay attention to things. People. It's too easy to fail other people. And the good-byes. You never have the time you think. It brings tears to my eyes. I blink them away.”

— Amy McNamara

“Things are changing. Life is like that.”

— Amy McNamara

“Too many people are expecting me to do things. I don't want to meet anyone's expectations. Be expected. I just want to-be. No explanations necessary. Me. Quiet. Anything more is too risky.”

— Amy McNamara

“I'm lost again, inside myself. Somewhere that's not nowhere. Disoriented. I've let everything go.”

— Amy McNamara

“How did I not see it? Pain is everywhere. I'm just another sorry story. All these people wearing smiles, dragging themselves around
do they all know already? Do they realize how fast the world can change?”

— Amy McNamara

“Larkin gets it, got it, the lies we live just to tread through time.”

— Amy McNamara

There are points in time when you grow older than your parents. Or come up on them at least. I look at my father, who's shrinking before my eyes, and realize no one will save me. No one can save me.

— Amy McNamara

“What I wanted wasn't hidden, it was just messy. Uncertain. In my heart it could have been anything less prescribed, something open, different. Something that got me out into the larger world, watching people, the secrets playing on their faces. Something true. I wanted to see something true. Collect as many stories as my heart could hold.
My stupid heart.”

— Amy McNamara

“Something falls inside me. Sinks down deep. I look at my lap. A terrible leaden loneliness. Try to breathe under the weight of it.”

— Amy McNamara

Up near the top, the view pierces me so totally I have one of those flash thoughts about tossing myself into the ocean. Surrender to the enormous wildness, the water's churning gray force, the solid rocks. It doesn't seem so scary. The idea. It seems like it could bring a lot of quiet. Endless quiet.

— Amy McNamara

“You can't make anything if you're lost to yourself. You'll want to again, it's who you are. Wren, grieving is hard. Complex. Takes its own time.”

— Amy McNamara

“Something has to be beautiful.”

— Amy McNamara