Ann Brashares

“He had to fight. That's all he had. Not memories, not experiences, not skills. He had a will. And his will was to fight until he couldn't fight anymore.”

“If you didn't have a choice, you had to make a choice. If you didn't have options, you made some. You couldn't just let this world happen to you... he didn't see eternity. He saw this girl and this moment and this one slim chance.”

“Because she was raw and uncertain, and she liked to keep all the messy parts of herself to herself. ... As much as Lena liked to hide the mess and display the finished product, by this point she was all mess and no product.”

“You don't have time, Len. That is the most bitter and the most beautiful piece of advice I can offer. If you don't have what you want now, you don't have what you want.”

“Bridget cried for the leavers and the left. For the people, like herself, grimly forsaking what precious gifts they would ever get.”

“Don't open, don't climb, don't reach, and you will not fall. Try, reach, want, and you may fall. But even if you do, you might be okay anyway. If you don't try, you save nothing, because you might as well be dead.”

“You don't mean it," he said mournfully. Not at all, she thought. "Yes, I do," she said.”

“You forget your victories, but you remember the losses.”

“Even exciting places are boring most of the time. Wars. Movie sets. Emergency rooms.”

“I'm afraid of time. I mean, I'm afraid of not having enough time. Not enough time to understand people, how they really are, or to be understood myself.”

“Sex could be a blissful communion,. But it could also be a weapon, and its absence, sometimes, was required for the establishment of peace.”

“You couldn't erase the past. You couldn't even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.”

“When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.”

“I sometimes think the stronger you feel about someone, the harder it is to picture their face when you are away from them.”

“Don't ask me any questions right now. I'm grumpy and I'll probablly make fun of you.-Effie Kaligaris”

“Show me a girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground and I'll show you a girl who can't put her pants on.-Annik Marchand”

“When your about to criticize someone walk a mile in thier shoes, that way when you criticize them you're a mile away from them and you have their shoes”

“when life gives you lemons, say, "yeah I like lemons, what else ya got"?”

“There were certain qualities you possessed carelessly. And you couldn't retrieve them when they were gone. The very act of caring made them impossible to regain.”

“Live, Laugh, Love”

“Relief is a short-lived emotion, passive and thin. The agony of doubt disappears, leaving little memory of how it really felt. Life aligns behind the new truth.”

“The happiness at getting what you want is not usually commensurate with the worry leading up to it.”

“Please believe him. Keep your heart open to him. He can make you happy. He has always loved you, and you once loved him with all your heart.”

“She spilled rice on my knee, and she smiled. I wanted her to spill a thousand things on me, lava, acid, bricks, anything, and smile each time”

“Daniel?" "Yes.""Did you ever think we were meant not to be together?""No. We are meant to be together. We are just meant to want it very badly.”

“I'm not going anywhere without you. We're swimming to China together. And if the worst happens, I'm dying with you before I'm living without you.”

“You are not going to die, I know I said I'd let you, but I can't.”

“Are you sure were not dead?""I really fucking hope not.”

“What Daniel taketh away, Daniel giveth.”

“I told him, though, that he better be good to you. When you came along, I said I'd share you, but I told him to remember that you're my sister. I loved you first. (Riley to her sister Alice about Paul)”

“One must have a good memory to keep the promises one has made.”

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.”

“One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.”

“There are some people who fall in love over and over.”

“For nine years Paul had not called her by her name. She had always been "Shorty" or "Kid" or "You" to him since she was twelve. It wasn't until her first night working as a waitress at the yacht club that Alice realized this”

“Love didn't necessarily look the way you expected it to.”

“No matter how far back you cut a willow tree, it will never really die.”

“It was wrong. But it was worth it.”

“How many times could you give up on someone you loved?”

“She realized all at once the deeper thing that bothered her, the thing that made him not just irritating but intolerable: how he kept loving her blindly when she deserved it so little.”

“how could he wait until midnight?”

“It was funny how the old practices always came around again. It was the rhythm of human enterprise to invent and worship some new approach, to fully reject it a generation later, to realize the need for it again a generation or two after that and then hastily reinvent it as new, usually without its original elegance. Scientists hated to look backward for anything.”

“Carma,Here are the Pants and a little sketch I made of Leo. From memory, not from life. (And no, I'm not thinging of him day and night. God.)Funny hair, huh?He did not realize I was in his class. I think I'm making a big impression around here.Love you,Len”

“Marnie hated to see her spend so much of herself on someone who didn't care.”

“Bouncing is for balls.-Tibby Rollins”

“Honesty was a tough customer... Once you started allowing yourself some honesty, it couldn't easily be contained or limited to one part of your life. It was like poison ivy or a bossy houseguest. Once it was there, you couldn't tell it what to do. You had to really fight to keep it from taking over. ”

“His distress and pleasure mixed and married, giving birth to several anxious children.”

“Riley was quiet for a minute. She gathered her blanket all around her. "Paul always loved you, Alice. He knows I know that. I know he loves me, too. But it's different."Alice opened her mouth, but nothing came out at first. "He loved me once. But I think that part is over," she said slowly."No, it's not. It hasn't even begun." Riley took Alice's bare foot in her hand and squeezed it. "I told him, though, that he better be good to you. When you came along, I said I'd share you, but I told him to remember that you're my sister. I loved you first."”

“Maybe, sometimes, it's easier to be mad at the people you trust because you know they'll always love you, no matter what.”

“She was sad about what happened to Kostos. And someplace under that, she was sad that people like Bee and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who'd lost nothing, was not.”