Emily Giffin

“there is always something comforting about knowing that you are not alone. Thatother people feel the way you do. That you are a bit screwed up, but still normal.”

“It's heartbreaking when you love a book that fails. And it alwaysseems to happen to the nicest authors.”

“There is no grief like heartbreak.”

“No matter what thecircumstances. I am more like most men in this regard. No second chances. It'snot so much about morality, but about my inability to forgive. I'm a championgrudge holder, and I don't think I could change this about myself even if Iwanted to.”

“Whenever you make a big decision in life, at least any decisionwhere you have a viable alternative, there is an inevitable uneasy aftermath.Anxiety is merely a sign that you're taking something seriously.”

“I will find the good in this loss. I will make somethinghappen that wouldn't have happened otherwise.”

“Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blameand hate. Focus my energy on something other than the ache in my heart.”

“I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad.”

“Sorrow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, yourdenial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You alsohave the old standby catchall—the blind belief in fate, the whole "thingshappening for a reason" drill.”

“I subscribe to the notion that if you worry about something, it is somehowless likely to happen.”

“Love is seldom—almost never—an even proposition. Someone alwaysloves more.”

“You can't quantify love, and if you try,you can wind up focusing on misleading factors.”

“The whole "misery loves company"thing never applies more than when you're breaking up. The thought that theother person is doing fine is simply too much to bear.”

“Throughout the ordeal, I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus my energy on something than the ache in my heart.”

“As everyone applauds and sips champagne, I smile back at Rachel, thinking she got it just right. Love and friendship. They are what makes us who we are and what can change us, if we let them.”

“You don't have to talk to someone to think about them and check up on them now and again.”

“I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to explain to Zoe one of the very saddest notions in love and life: sometimes the timing is wrong--and sometimes you realize the heart of the matter way to late in the game.”

“I decided that giving a girl a ring when you're not in a serious relationship is sort of like giving a guy a blow job when you have no real feelings for him. It makes everything feel a little cheap.It cheapens the giver and the recipient.”

“There are two kinds of women--those who eat in a crisis and those who lose their appetite in a crisis.”

“I still think I love him more. It's one of those things you never know for certain because there's no way to enter all the relationship data in a computer and have it spit out a definitive answer. You can't quantify love, and if you try, you wind up focusing on misleading factors.”

“Although I'm sure there are plenty of tall, gorgeous, life-of-the-party guys who are also true to their wives, I happen to believe that a disproportionate number of them are cheaters.”

“I was aware that we were both silently making those inevitable comparisons, putting our relationship in context. She is more this and less that. He is better or worse in these ways. It is human nature to do this--unless its your first relationship, which might be the very reason that your first relationship feels special and remains forever sacred. But the older you get, the more cynical you become, and the more complicated and convoluted the exercise is. You begin to realize that nothing is perfect, that there are trade-offs and sacrifices. The worst is when someone in your past trumps the person in the present, and you think to yourself: if I'd known this, then maybe I wouldn't have let him go.”

“It was the same night I gave myself to him completely, knowing that I would belong to him for as long as he wanted to keep me. And, as it turned out, even longer than that.”

“In the final seconds before sleep, I wish I could go back and undo everything, give those little girls another chance.”

“You theoretically have so much more time at home, but you fill it with the minutiae that you somehow managed to avoid when you were working.”

“...it has crossed my mind that the key to happiness should not be found in a man. That an independent, strong woman should feel fulfilled and whole on her own. Those things might be true. And without Dex in my life, I like to think I could have somehow found contentment. But the truth is, I feel freer with Dex than I ever did when I was single. I feel more myself with him than without. Maybe true love does that.”

“I don't break up, I trade up”

“I nod, thinking of how difficult marriage can be, how much effort is required to sustain a feeling between two people - a feeling that you can't imagine will ever fade in the beginning when everything comes so easily. I think of how each person in a marriage owes it to the other to find individual happiness, even in a shared life. That is the only real way to grow together, instead of apart.”

“My wants are simple: a job that I like and a guy whom I love.”

“Evident in every small act of kindness, it was love as a verb. Love that made me feel more complete than I had ever felt in my glamorous, Jimmy Choo filled past.”

“It always takes two. For relationships to work, for them to break apart, for them to be fixed.”

“Life's not black-and-white. Sometimes the ends justifies the means.”

“We are in love and meant to be together.”

“There is no better audience for someone in love than someone in love.”

“But I have learned that you can't just create your own timetable and will it to come true.”

“What if two people want to be your partner, then what?”

“Sometimes there are no happy endings, No matter what, I'll be losing something, someone. But maybe that's what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.”

“I miss us, too. I always have, and probably always will”

“He threw in the towel before we were tested. Maybe because he didn't want to be tested. Maybe because he assumed we would fail. Maybe because, at the time, he just didn't love me enough.”

“One way isn't better than the other; they're just different.”

“Change can be good but its always tough to let go of the past”

“When you are in a relationship, you are aware that it might end. You might grow apart, find someone else, simply fall out of love. But a friendship isn't a zero-sum game, and as such, you assume that it will last forever, especially an old friendship. You take its permanence for grandted, whuch might be the very thing so dear about it.”

“But I am learning that perfection isn't what matters. In fact, it's the very thing that can destroy you if you let it.”

“I think to myself that when you're in love, sometimes you have to swallow your pride, and sometimes you have to fight to keep your pride. It's a balance. But when the relationship is right, you find that balance.”

“It's like when someone dies, the initial stages of grief seem to be the worst. But in some ways, it's sadder as time goes by and you consider how much they've missed in your life. In the world.”

“Buried beneath disappointment and fear, anger and pride, I just might find it in my heart to forgive.”

“After all, I think, isn't it always about a boy?”

“My head spins as I glance away, refusing to get sucked back into his gaze when so much is at risk.”

“Despite the fact that I have no regrets about how things turned out in my life, I still can't help wanting to understand my intense relationship with Leo, as well as that turbulent time between adolescence and adulthood when everything feels raw and invigorating and scary-and why those feelings are all coming back to me now.”

“He nods, as if to acknowledge that endings are almost always a little sad, even when there is something to look forward to on the other side.”