Quotes From "Orphan Train" By Christina Baker Kline

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

I learned long ago that loss is not only probable but inevitable. I know what it means to lose everything, to let go of one life and find another. And now I feel, with a strange, deep certainty, that it must be my lot in life to be taught that lesson over and over again. Christina Baker Kline

The smallest things get to her. 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

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?" Molly asks when Vivian reads some of these stories aloud." It certainly helps, " Vivian says. Christina Baker Kline

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

She is so white-hot furious she can barely see. She stokes the fire of her hatred, feeding it tidbits about bigoted Dina and spineless mushmouth Ralph, because she knows that just beyond the rage is a sorrow so enervating it could render her immobile. She needs to keep moving, flickering around the room. She needs o fill her bags and get the hell out of here. Christina Baker Kline

She has never tried to find out what happened to her family – her mother or her relatives in Ireland. But over and over, Molly begins to understand as she listens to the tapes, 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. . Christina Baker Kline

It is marvelous to be young on a big city street. Christina Baker Kline

Molly learned long ago that a lot of the heartbreak and betrayal that other people fear their entire lives, she has already faced. Father dead. Mother off the deep end. Shuttled around and rejected time and time again. And still she breathes and sleeps and grows taller. She wakes up every morning and puts on clothes. So when she says it's okay, what she means is that she knows she can survive just about anything. . Christina Baker Kline

He reaches over and touches my necklace. "You still have it. That gives me faith." "Faith in what?"" God, I suppose. No, I don't know. Survival. 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

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'll play your fucking game. But I don't have to play by your rules. 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