“It's a peculiar kind of dissatisfaction, a bittersweet nostalgia for a moment not yet past.” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“My entire life has felt like chance. Random moments of loss and connection. This is the first one that feels, instead, like… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“The time wasted, the energy squandered on meaningless possessions, the compromises...” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“I have found that the biggest moments in life, the ones that change everything, usually catch you by surprise.” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“for the first time since the fire, my worries are gone. I feel a joy so strong it’s almost painful—a knife’s edge… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“I wonder, not for the first time, if shame and pride are merely two sides of the same coin.” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
Time constricts and flattens, you know. It's not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear. — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“...life hinges on small moments and seemingly trivial decisions. ” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Vivian said she wanted to clean out her attic. But I think what she really wanted was to see what was in… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“When you live on a farm, everyone is uncomfortable much of the time. Too cold, too warm, dirty, bone tired, banged up,… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“only link we had to our future was a name scrawled on a piece of paper my father tucked in his shirt… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Each moment of loss, she has come to believe, contains within it the possibility of a new life. When the unimaginable happens,… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Mrs. Scatcherd raps Dutchy's knuckles several times with a long wooden ruler, though it seems to me a halfhearted penalty. He barely… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“You can live for a long time inside the shell you were born in. But one day it'll become too small." "Then… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“I skip down the driveway, hurry up the road, linger on the bridge for a moment, looking down at the reflection of… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“don’t know how much of my memory of this time is affected by my age now and how much is a result… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Wordsworth and Keats and Shelley. Our teacher made us memorize the words to “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and alone in the… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
Do you believe in spirits? Or ghosts?...Yes, I do. I believe in ghosts…They're the ones who haunt us. The ones who have… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“After a few minutes, Mrs. Byrne puts down her fork and says, “Dorothy, it’s time to discuss the rules of the house.… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Time constricts and flattens, you know. It’s not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear. The first twenty-three… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“When she leaves, I inspect my reflection in the mirror—the first time since arriving in Minnesota I’ve looked in a whole piece… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“It's hard to say what's in my head. It's been a long time since anyone cared to ask.” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“In my moments of fevered consciousness I think I am dreaming. Am I really in this warm bed in this clean room?… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“You can live for a long time inside the shell you were born in. But one day it’ll become too small.” “Then” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“ORPHAN TRAIN is a specifically American story of mobility and rootlessness, highlighting a little-known but historically significant moment in our country’s past.… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“At breakfast—lumpy oats with no sugar—when I ask how to get to school and what time I’m expected to be there, Mrs.… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Some memories are realities and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.” Maybe so, I think. Maybe my… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Mrs. Scatcherd says we should make a clean slate,” I say. “Let go of the past.” “I can let go of the… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Molly’s been surprised to find that she looks forward to it. Ninety-one years is a long time to live—there’s a lot of… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“What do you mean?” I ask. “The Children’s Aid—” Mrs. Byrne clasps her hands together and gives me a tight-lipped smile. “You… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Mr. Grote shows me how he grows wild rice in the stream and collects the seeds. The rice is nutty and brown. He plants… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“I try to forget the horror of what happened. Or—perhaps forget is the wrong word. How can I forget? And yet how can I… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“don’t know how much of my memory of this time is affected by my age now and how much is a result of the… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“The stark gray sky and bare tree limbs feel more suited to her than the uncomplicated promise of sunny spring days.” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Sometimes these spirits have been more real to me than people, more real than God. They fill silence with their weight, dense and warm,… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Every Easter she and her mother planted those crocuses near the fence beside the driveway, and soon enough a whole cluster of them, white… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Mr. Kaminski pulled a chain hanging from the pressed-metal kitchen ceiling, and light seeped from a bulb, casting a wan glow over a scarred… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Before we leave the gravesite, Mary sings Mother's favorite gospel hymn ... Mary's lovely voice rises and lingers in the air, and by the… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“for the first time since the fire, my worries are gone. I feel a joy so strong it’s almost painful—a knife’s edge of joy.” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“What was it the teacher in her Legal Issues class said the other day? Never bring up a point you don’t have an answer… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“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… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
