Nicholas Sparks

“I’m stuck babysitting turtle eggs while a volleyball player slash grease monkey slash aquarium volunteer tries to hit on me.” I’m not hitting on you,” he protested.No?”Believe me, you’d know if I was hitting on you. You wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from succumbing to my charms.”

“Wait. Let me guess. You’re giving me the cold shoulder, right?”With that, she sighed. “Shouldn’t you be with your friends, staring at yourselves in the mirror?”He laughed. “That’s funny. I’ll have to remember that.”“I’m not being funny. I’m being serious.”“Oh, because we’re so good-looking”

“In the distance, he could see Molly lying in the tall grass off to the side of the house.”

“Now, she could't help but think he was just a big version of a jealous boy friend.”

“The two of you, there's something uncanny about the way you two are with each other. I mean everything--the way you look at each other, the way she relaxes when you put your hand on her back, the way you both seem to know what the other is always thinking, it's always struck me as extraordinary. That's another reason I keep putting marriage off. I know I want something like what you two share, and I'm not sure I've found it yet. I'm not sure I ever will. And with love like that, they say anything's possible, right?”

“Never forget that God is your friend. And like all friends, He longs to hear what's been happening in your life. Good or bad, whether it's been full of sorrow or anger, or even when you're questioning why terrible things have to happen.”

“So, it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? Thirty years from now, forty years from now? What's it look like? If it's with him- go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again, if I thought that's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out.”

“Friends come and go, clothing is packed and unpacked, households are continually purged of unnecessary items, and as a result, not much sticks. it's hard at times but it makes a kid strongs in ways that most people can't understand. Teaches them that even though people are left behind, new ones will inevitably take their place; that every place has something good and bad to offer. It makes a kid grow up fast.”

“No matter where it is in the sky... No matter where you are in the world... the moon is never bigger than your thumb. -John”

“Being in love, I find myself smiling for no reason at all...”

“The search for God's presence was much of a mystery as God himself, and what was God if not a mystery?”

“‎When she looked up at him, it was suddenly easy for her to imagine that her fears were pointless. That he would love her no matter what she told him, and that he was the kind of man who loved her already and would love her forever.”

“As Confucius once said, 'He who does nothing is the one who does nothing.'"Gabby pondered the words, the furrowed her brow. "did Confucius really say that?"Sunglasses in place, Stephanie managed the tiniest of shrugs. "No, but who cared? The point is, they handled, and most likely they found some sort of self-satisfaction in their industrious-ness. Who am I to deprive them of that?”

“Sometimes we need to be apart to understand just how much we truly love each other .”

“I breathe deeply, taking in the fresh spring air. Though Beaufort has changed and I have changed, the air itself has not. It’s still the air of my childhood, the air of my seventeenth year, and when I finally exhale, I’m fifty-seven once more. But this is okay. I smile slightly, looking towards the sky, knowing there’s one thing I haven’t told you: I now believe, by the way, that miracles can happen.”

“As these images were going through my head, my breathing suddenly went still. I looked at Jamie, then up to the ceiling and around the room, doing my best to keep my composure, then back to Jamie again. She smiled at me and I smiled at her and all I could do was wonder how I’d ever fallen in love with a girl like Jamie Sullivan.”

“He wasn't into one-night stands, he wasn't into scoring just to see if he could, he wasn't into acting just charming enough to get what he wanted before cutting loose in favor of someone new and attractive. He just wasn't like that. He would never be like that. When he met a girl, the first question he asked himself wasn't whether she was good for a few dates; it was whether she was the kind of girl he could imagine spending time with in the long haul.”

“He closed his eyes as she put her hand on his shoulder, and in that instant, nothing else mattered. Not the song, not the place, not the other couples around him. Only this, only her. He gave himself over to the feel of her body as it pressed against him, and they moved slowly in small circles on the sawdust-strewn floor, lost in a world that felt as though it had been created for just the two of them.”

“The past is the past. You cannot change it, but you can learn from it.”

“Frequency of sex – Women sometimes wanted; men always needed.”

“Every couple has ups and downs, every couple argues, and that’s the thing—you’re a couple, and couples can’t function without trust.”

“Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there’s nothing to make it last.”

“I steeled myself to focus only on the present yet remain alert to what might come next.”

“I love you, not just for now, but for always, and I dream of the day that you’ll take me in your arms again.”

“Women are more attuned to feelings than men are, and if they’re not being truthful, more often than not it’s because they think truth might hurt your feelings. But it doesn’t mean they don’t love you.”

“We’d met at a carefree time, a moment full of promise, in its place now were the harsh lessons of the real world.”

“Love should bring joy, it should grant a person peace, but here and not, it was bringing only pain.”

“It’s the same thing. Passion is passion. It’s the excitement between the tedious spaces, and it doesn’t matter where it’s directed.”

“Who did she know in Raleigh who took the time off to fix a house? Or read Whitman or Eliot, finding images in the mind, thoughts of the spirit? Or hunted dawn from the bow of a canoe? These weren't the things that drove society, but she felt they shouldn't be treated as unimportant. They made living worthwhile.”

“In the instant their lips first met, there was a flicker of something almost electrical that made him believe the feeling would last forever.”

“For desert, maybe we can split a couple of crumbs.”

“It's your eyes. They're ... more serious than they used to be. Like they've seen things they shouldn't have.”

“I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it to the earnestness of others.”

“True love means that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.”

“He'd lived long enough to know that everyone handled grief in different ways, and little by little, they all seemed to accept their new lives.”

“Where do I go from here?”

“There were moments when it honestly seemed as if the world were conspiring against her.”

“You gotta know when to be lazy. Done correctly, it's an art form that benefits everyone.”

“That's the thing about being the product of happily marries parents, You grow up thinking the fairy tale is real, and more than that, you think you're entitled to live it. So far, though, it wasn't working out as planned.”

“The key to happiness was achievable dreams.”

“What's your heart telling you to do?I don't know.'Maybe, you're trying too hard to hear it.”

“You feel fine, and then, when your body can't keep fighting, you don't.”

“I'm sorry' I said again. Whenever someone tells you something said, it's the only thing you can think to say, even if you're already said it before.”

“If you're going to sit on someone's tombstone, you might as well know something about them, right?”

“She was, in other words, the kind of girl who made the rest of us look bad, and whenever she glanced my way, I couldn't help but feel guilty, even though I hadn't done anything wrong.”

“Me. A bad boy. For eating boiled peanuts in the graveyard. Go figure.”

“Two cannibals were eating a comedian, and one of them turns to the other and asks, 'Does this taste funny to you?”

“Science only goes so far, then comes God.- Noah Calhoun-”

“Love is Love no matter old you are, and I knew if I gave you enough time, you'd come back to me.”

“It took me a long time to realize that distance can ruin even the best of intentions.”