Christina Baker Kline Quotes & Sayings

Know what a symbol is? ... Shit that stands for shit. — Christina Baker Kline

The people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our most ordinary moments. — Christina Baker Kline

It's a bitter nostalgia from a moment not yet passed. — Christina Baker Kline

There was never a cataclysmic moment in which things might have been, however briefly, etched in relief against memory, against things to come - a moment which, by its sheer magnitude, defined her history and her future. Instead, Kathryn thinks, she has disintegrated slowly over a number of years. — Christina Baker Kline

My mother was one of the most dynamic and brilliant women I have ever known. She was also mercurial and unfocused. — Christina Baker Kline

She has learned that she can control her emotions by thinking of her chest cavity as an enormous box with a chain lock. She opens the box and stuffs in any stray unmanageable feelings, any wayward sadness or regret, and clamps it shut. — Christina Baker Kline

Story. (And anyway, Lori doesn't ask "why" questions. She's only — Christina Baker Kline

With a hardcover, you get two chances, a year apart, for the book to make an impact - often with a new cover featuring artfully crafted snippets of reviews, a new marketing campaign and maybe even a new publisher. — Christina Baker Kline

Pusillanimous. Talisman. — Christina Baker Kline

Stracciatella alla Romana 8 cups chicken broth, preferably homemade 6 ounces fresh spinach, cut into strips 4 eggs, plus 2 tablespoons water ½ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese Salt and pepper Boil the stock and add spinach, cooking until wilted, about 3 minutes. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the water; add grated cheese. Whisk the egg mixture briskly into the boiling broth, and add salt and pepper to taste, then serve. — Christina Baker Kline

notice." The false cheer in her voice is evidence of how — Christina Baker Kline

Time constricts and flattens, you know. It's not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear. — Christina Baker Kline

To get it all done I have to dim my brain, turn it down by notches like the flat-turn knob on a gas lantern, leaving only a nub of flame. — Christina Baker Kline

If you really want to know me, I said, we'll have to start with the witches. — Christina Baker Kline

When something terrible happens, a lifetime of small events and unremarkable decisions, of unresolved anger, and unexplored fears begins to play itself out in ways you least expect. You've been going along from one day to the next, not realizing that all those disparate words and gestures were adding up to something, a conclusion, you didn't anticipate. And later, when you begin to retrace your steps you see that you will need to reach back further than you could have imagined, beyond words and thoughts and even dreams, perhaps to make sense of what happened. — Christina Baker Kline

My mother was a passionate, complicated, sometimes fierce woman. — Christina Baker Kline

This isn't bickering. This is classic mother-daughter communications. I've been reading up on it. — Christina Baker Kline

I like meeting and connecting with readers. — Christina Baker Kline

Something inexorable seeds itself in the place of your origin. You can never escape the bonds of family history, no matter how far you travel. — Christina Baker Kline

Radiation is relentless: my protocol is five days a week, 33 sessions altogether. — Christina Baker Kline

For years I'd understood that publishing in paperback was the kiss of death. — Christina Baker Kline

There were over thirty thousand Wabanakis living on the East Coast in 1600 and that 90 percent of them had died by 1620, almost entirely a result of contact with settlers, who brought foreign diseases and alcohol, drained resources, and fought with the tribes for control of the land. — Christina Baker Kline

I will not serve lunch to anyone in the middle of a workday. I rarely rearrange my furniture or cabinets; once I find a drawer for something, it stays there. I don't garden. And I don't knit. — Christina Baker Kline

Molly is the opposite. So many things have gone wrong for her in her seventeen years that she's come to expect it. When something does go right, she hardly knows what to think. — Christina Baker Kline

I feel myself retreating to someplace deep inside. It is a pitiful kind of childhood, to know that no one loves you or is taking care of you, to always be on the outside looking in. — Christina Baker Kline

I think you're used to being observed but not really ... seen. — Christina Baker Kline

We took away their country and their means of support. It was for this and against this that they made war. Could anyone expect less? — Christina Baker Kline

You are only as interesting as you are useful to someone — Christina Baker Kline

neighborhood, the place I left each — Christina Baker Kline

It's as if she assumes everything will go right, and when it doesn't - which, of course, is pretty often - she is surprised and affronted. — Christina Baker Kline

I love you," he writes again and again. "I can't bear to live without you. I'm counting the minutes until I see you." The words he uses are the idioms of popular songs and poems in the newspaper. And mine to him are no less cliched. I puzzle over the onionskin, trying to spill my heart onto the page. But I can only come up with the same words, in the same order, and hope the depth of feeling beneath them gives them weight and substance. I love you. I miss you. Be careful. Be safe. — Christina Baker Kline

What I couldn't see is that sometimes the healing is not in the forgetting but in the letting go. — Christina Baker Kline

Servants, men in top hats and morning coats, shop girls in — Christina Baker Kline

He squints at me. "Except for the red hair and freckles, you look okay. You'll be fine and dandy sitting at the table with a napkin on your lap. — Christina Baker Kline

Forgive me if I'm wrong. But are you-were you-did you come here on a train from New York about ten years ago? — Christina Baker Kline

And I know, with the newfuond clarity of being in a relationship myself, that my own parents were never happy together, and probably never would have been, whatever the circumstances — Christina Baker Kline

I can't imagine why you didn't memorize this route on the — Christina Baker Kline

What's the best thing that happened to you in the past ten years?" I ask. "Seeing you again." Smiling, I push back against his chest. "Besides that." "Meeting you the first time. — Christina Baker Kline

In my ideal world, my next novel would have a first printing of, say, 2,500 hardcovers for reviewers, libraries, collectors, and autograph hounds. The publisher could print more copies if they get low. And simultaneously, or six weeks later, the book would be available in paperback. — Christina Baker Kline

So is it just human nature to believe that things happen for a reason - to find some shred of meaning even in the worst experiences? — Christina Baker Kline

When you can type a few words into a search engine and land on your topic - or when you can scan a Shakespeare play for specific words or symbols - what opportunities might you miss to expand your thinking in unexpected ways? — Christina Baker Kline

It is good to test your limits now and then, learn what the body is capable of, what you can endure. — Christina Baker Kline

Maybe it doesn't matter how much gets done. Maybe the value is in the process - in touching each item, in naming and identifying, in acknowledging the significance of a cardigan, a pair of children's boots. "It's — Christina Baker Kline

It's hard to say what's in my head. It's been a long time since anyone cared to ask. — Christina Baker Kline

The most surprising thing, honestly, is that so few Americans know about the orphan trains. I was also surprised at the resilience and fortitude of the riders I met, their pragmatism and grace. I don't know whether this is a Midwestern trait or simply a human one. — Christina Baker Kline

Dina listens to conservative talk radio, belongs to a fundamentalist Christian church, and has a "Guns don't kill people - abortion clinics do" bumper sticker on her car. — Christina Baker Kline

I have come to think that's where Heaven is, a place in the memories of other where our best selves live — Christina Baker Kline

It?" "Friday, April fourth, ma'am." She coughs. Then she doubles over and coughs — Christina Baker Kline

How strange, I think - that I am in a place my parents have never been and will never see. How strange that I am here and they are gone. — Christina Baker Kline

Richard knows a bar that's open until two and they go off in search of it, the two girls tottering on their heels and swaying against the men, who seem all too happy to support them. — Christina Baker Kline

As with Dutchy and Carmine on the train, this little cluster of women has become a kind of family to me. Like an abandoned foal that nestles against cows in the barnyard, maybe I just need to feel the warmth of belonging. And if I'm not going to find that with the Byrnes, I will find it, however partial and illusory, with the women in the sewing room. — Christina Baker Kline

I was stunned to learn that more than 200,000 abandoned, neglected, or orphaned children had been sent from the East Coast to the Midwest on trains between 1854 and 1929. — Christina Baker Kline

EPIGRAPH "There was a very strange connection. One of those odd collisions that happen. We were a little alike; I was an unhealthy child that was kept at home. So there was an unsaid feeling between us that was wonderful, an utter naturalness. We'd sit for hours and not say a word, and then she'd say something, and I'd answer her. A reporter once asked her what we talked about. She said, 'Nothing foolish.'" - Andrew Wyeth — Christina Baker Kline

Risotto with Seafood 2 bay leaves 1 carrot, chopped 2 small onions: 1 chopped, 1 minced 3 (1-pound) lobsters 1/3 cup olive oil 3 tablespoons tomato paste 2 cups Arborio rice 1½ cups white wine (dry) 2 tablespoons butter 2 pounds medium shrimp, peeled 1 pound scallops Fill pot with water sufficient to cover 3 lobsters. Add bay leaves, carrot, chopped onion. Bring to a boil, add lobsters, and cook 10 minutes. Reserve water the lobsters were cooked in. Cool lobsters and remove meat. Cook minced onion in olive oil until translucent; add tomato paste until blended. Then add rice. Slowly add white wine and an equal amount of lobster water. Continue stirring and adding liquid as rice cooks, 20 minutes or so. Melt butter in a separate pan. Add shrimp; cook until pink. Remove shrimp and add scallops; sear until golden. Add shrimp and lobster to the risotto pan. Fold in. Season to taste. — Christina Baker Kline

I did love him. But I did not love him like I loved Dutchy: beyond reason. Maybe you only get one of those in a lifetime, I don't know. But it was all right. It was enough. — Christina Baker Kline

Irish lace, hanging in the windows, filters the afternoon light, softening the lines on her face. — Christina Baker Kline

See the interlaced strands?' She touched the raised pattern with a knobby finger. 'These trace a never-ending path, leading away from home and circling back. When you wear this, you'll never be far from the place you started. — Christina Baker Kline

Remember: eye contact," he says. "And be sure to smile."
"You are such a mom."
"You know what your problem is?"
"That my boyfriend is acting like a mom? — Christina Baker Kline

I often work and write in coffee shops, observing the baristas and eavesdropping on interesting conversations. — Christina Baker Kline

We are headed toward the unknown, and we have no choice but to sit quietly in our hard seats and let ourselves be taken there. — Christina Baker Kline

I remember her words to me when I left school: Your mind will be your comfort. It is, sometimes. And sometimes it isn't. — Christina Baker Kline

I don't think that trauma is an illusion; there is no question in my mind that circumstances beyond our control can shape and define us. But ultimately, we make choices about letting ourselves be defined by our pasts. — Christina Baker Kline

The twists and turns of your life can be so unexpected, and that's a good thing to learn. — Christina Baker Kline

She feels like a circus clown who wakes up one morning and no longer wants to glue on the red rubber nose. — Christina Baker Kline

No substitute for the living, perhaps, but I wasn't given a choice. I could take solace in their presence or I could fall down in a heap, lamenting what I'd lost. The ghosts whispered to me, telling me to go on. — Christina Baker Kline

out and folding it against — Christina Baker Kline

Vivian has come back to the idea that the people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our most ordinary moments. They're with us in the grocery store, as we turn a corner, chat with a friend. They rise up through the pavement; we absorb them through our soles. Vivian — Christina Baker Kline

I want to say, Christina, that you are ... unusual. And somehow..." her voice trails off. "Your mind-- your curiosity-- will be your comfort. — Christina Baker Kline

I feel a joy so strong it's almost painful - a knife's edge of joy. — Christina Baker Kline

After about half an hour, Mr. Sorenson turns onto a narrow unpaved road. Dirt rises around us as we drive, coating the windshield and side windows. We pass more fields and then a copse of birch tree skeletons, cross through a dilapidated covered bridge over a murky stream still sheeted with ice, turn down a bumpy dirt road bordered by pine trees. Mr. Sorenson is holding a card with what looks like directions on it. He slows the truck, pulls to a stop, looks back toward the bridge. Then he peers out the grimy windshield at the trees ahead. "No goldarn signs," he mutters. He puts his foot on the pedal and inches forward. Out — Christina Baker Kline

I am acutely aware that like a slip of paper in the wind, something in his nature eludes my grasp. — Christina Baker Kline

Mrs. Scatcherd raps Dutchy's knuckles several times with a long wooden ruler, though it seems to me a halfhearted penalty. He barely winces, then shakes his hands twice in the air and winks at me. Truly , there isn't much more she can do. Stripped of family and identity, fed meager rations, consigned to hard wooden seats until we are to be, as Slobbery Jack suggested, sold into slavery - our mere existence is punishment enough. — Christina Baker Kline

This is like telling a person who has leapt off a cliff to be careful. I am already in midair. — Christina Baker Kline

If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead. — Christina Baker Kline

I've come to think that's what heaven is- a place in the memory of others where our best selves live on. — Christina Baker Kline

Most people are remarkably resilient. Even those who have been through war or great loss often find reservoirs of strength. But the legacy of trauma is a heavy burden to bear. — Christina Baker Kline

I think of what Mamey told me long ago: there are many ways to love and be loved. Too bad it's taken most of a lifetime for me to understand what that means. — Christina Baker Kline

My parents are a bedrock. And I have three complex, strong, and funny sisters who inspire and sustain me. — Christina Baker Kline

And anyway, how do you talk about losing everything? — Christina Baker Kline

And so it is that you learn how to pass, if you're lucky, to look like everyone else, even though you're broken inside. — Christina Baker Kline

I count a hundred steps and start again. My da used to say it's good to test your limits now and then, learn what the body is capable of, what you can endure. He said this when we were in the throes of sickness on the Agnes Pauline, and again in the bitter first winter in New York, when four of us, including Mam, came down with pneumonia. Test your limits. Learn what you can endure. I am doing that. — Christina Baker Kline

The reading part of her feels private, between her and the characters in a book. — Christina Baker Kline

look at the painting again. Despite the obvious differences, this girl is deeply, achingly familiar. In her I see myself at twelve years old, on a rare afternoon away from my chores. In my twenties, seeking refuge from a broken heart. Only a few days ago, visiting my parents' graves in the family cemetery, halfway between the dory in the haymow and the wheelchair in the sea. From the recesses of my brain a word floats up: synecdoche. A part that stands in for the whole. Christina's World. The — Christina Baker Kline

Turtles carry their homes on their backs." Running her finger over the tattoo, she tells him what her dad told her: "They're exposed and hidden at the same time. They're a symbol of strength and perseverance. — Christina Baker Kline

I read once that the act of observing changes the nature of what is observed. — Christina Baker Kline

The stark gray sky and bare tree limbs feel more suited to her than the uncomplicated promise of sunny spring days. — Christina Baker Kline

Mamey said that in her day a woman who had not married by the age of thirty was called a thornback, named after a flat, spiny, prehistoric-looking fish. — Christina Baker Kline

You got to learn to take what people are willing to give. — Christina Baker Kline

Eighty-two years later, the sound of her crying still haunts me. If only I had paid closer attention to why she was crying instead of simply trying to quiet her. If only I had paid closer attention. — Christina Baker Kline

It's human nature to want to think the best of others, but if you listen carefully, people will always tell you who they are. — Christina Baker Kline

ORPHAN TRAIN is a specifically American story of mobility and rootlessness, highlighting a little-known but historically significant moment in our country's past. Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains transported more than two hundred thousand orphaned, abandoned, and homeless children - many — Christina Baker Kline

A man whose mother won't let him lift a finger is ruined for a wife." The — Christina Baker Kline

Hardcovers will never completely disappear. They are delightful to hold; they feel weighty and substantial. But my anecdotal evidence suggests that the world is changing. — Christina Baker Kline

She knows from experience that tough and weird is preferable to pathetic and vulnerable, and she wears her Goth persona like armor. — Christina Baker Kline

When I start a new novel and find myself diverted by domestic activities, many of which I genuinely enjoy, I panic that I will never write another word. — Christina Baker Kline

I think a lot of readers are looking for a book they can talk about. — Christina Baker Kline

You can't find peace until you find all the pieces. She wants to help Vivian find some kind of peace, elusive and fleeting as it may be. — Christina Baker Kline

There's no question that my son is better prepared for college than I was. He manages his time better, is more efficient and more directed, and spends less time in lines and more time doing exactly what he sets out to do. — Christina Baker Kline

Let's make a promise," he says. "To find each other." "How can we? We'll probably end up in different places." "I know." "And my name will be changed." "Mine too, maybe. But we can try." Carmine flops over, tucking his legs beneath him and stretching his arms, and both of us shift to accommodate him. "Do you believe in fate?" I ask. "What's that again?" "That everything is decided. You're just - you know - living it out." "God has it all planned in advance." I nod. "I dunno. I don't like the plan much so far." "Me either." We both laugh. — Christina Baker Kline

My entire life has felt like chance. Random moments of loss and connection. This is the first one that feels, instead, like fate. — Christina Baker Kline