Nicholas Sparks

“Strange, what being forced to slow down could do to a person.”

“If pinpointing God's presence were really that simple, then he supposed the beaches would be more crowded in the mornings. They would be filled with people on their own quests, instead of people jogging or walking their dogs or fishing in the surf.”

“I don't care if your dad is the Sultan of Brunei. You happened to be born into a privileged family. What you do with that truth is completely up to you. I'm here because I want to be with you. But if I didn't, all the money in the world wouldn't have changed my feelings for you.”

“There are guys who grow up thinking they'll settle down some distant time in the future, and there are guys who are ready for marriage as soon as they meet the right person. The former bore me, mainly because they're pathetic; and the latter, frankly are hard to find.”

“More than anything, he wanted to return to the house with the same look of peace that he'd seen on Pastor Harris's face, but he trudged through the sand, he couldn't help feeling like an amateur, someone searching for God's truths like a child searching for seashells.”

“Change not only was inevitable, but usually brought its own rewards.”

“She'd always believed that people come in two varieties: those who look out the windshield and those who stare in the rearview mirror. She'd(Julie) always been the windshield type: gotta focus on the future, not the past, because that's the only part that's still up for grabs. Mom throws me out? Gotta get some food and find a place to live. Husband dies? Gotta keep working, or I'll end up going crazy. Got some guy stalking me? Gotta figure out a way to stop it.”

“A sad smile crossed her face, and I knew right then what she was trying to tell me. Her eyes never left mine as she finally said the words that numbed my soul.I'm dying, Landon.”

“Life, I've learned, is never fair. If they teach anything in schools, that should be it.”

“I do not use profanity in my novels. My characters all go to church.”

“Regrets about the journey, maybe, but not the destination.”

“I know, but no matter what I choose I have to live with it. Forever. I have to be able to go forward and not look back anymore. Can you understand that?”

“In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that.”

“My first thoughts after waking are – and always have been – of you.”

“Dusk is just an illusion because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are there cannot be one without the other yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel I remember wondering to be always together yet forever apart?”

“Dear John, tell me everything. Write it all down, that way, we’ll be with each other all the time, even if we’re not with each other at all.”

“In the end, people should be judged by their actions, since in the end, it was actions that defined everyone.”

“i'm sorry she never got her miracle. she did get her miracle, Landon, her miracle was you.”

“If it came down to that, I'd protect you in a heartbeat.”

“I'll be anything you want, just tell me what you want and I'll be that.”

“Before we met, I was as lost as a person could be and yet you saw something in me that somehow gave me direction again.”

“What are we, after all, without our memories … without our dreams?”

“Poetry, she thought, wasn't written to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch without understanding.”

“I've learned that we're all entitled to have our secrets.”

“The secret is to know how to lie" he used to say, " and to know when someone's lying to you". His father, Steve eventually decided, must have known how to lie.”

“He finally understood that God's presence was everywhere, at all times, and was experienced by everyone at one time or another.”

“How far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?”

“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it...”

“It's funny, but have you ever noticed that the more special something is, the more people seem to take it for granted? It's like they think it won't ever change. Just like this house here. All it ever needed was a little attention, and it would never have ended up like this in the first place.”

“Every time I read to her, it was like I was courting her, because sometimes, just sometimes, she would fall in love with me again, just like she had a long time ago. And that's the most wonderful feeling in the world. How many people are ever given that chance? To have someone you love fall in love with you over and over?”

“Constellations shine with light that was emitted aeons ago, and I wait for something to come to me, words that a poet might use to illuminate life's mysteries. But there is nothing.”

“He wanted to hear her concerns and alleviate them, he wanted to hold her and kiss her and convince her that he would find a way to make their relationship work, no matter how hard that might be. He wanted to to make her hear his words: that he couldn't imagine a life without her,that his feelings for her were real. But most of all, he wanted to reassure himself that she felt the same way about him.”

“Nothing is really lost or can be lost, No birth, identity, form, no object of the world, Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing..”

“I think that enduring, committed love between a married couple, along with raising children, is the most noble act anyone can aspire to. It is not written about very much.”

“A good marriage, like any partnership, meant subordinating one's own needs to that of the other's, in the expectation that the other will do the same.”

“But because they didn't see each other very often, their relationship had more ups and downs than either of them had experienced before. Since everything felt right when they were together, everything felt wrong when they weren't. ”

“You might not believe it...but you make the world a better place when you smile.”

“If you come back; I'll marry you. If you break your promise, you'll break my heart”

“Gossip is one thing, hurtful gossip is completely another, and even in high school we weren't THAT mean.”

“leaning in he kissed her gently, first on the cheek then on her lips. When he met her eyes, she saw the young man shed loved last summer and the young man she still loved now."I never stopped loving you, Ronnie. and I never stopped thinking about you. even if summers do come and end" she smiled knowing he was telling the truth. "I love you too, Will Blakelee" she wispered, leaning in to kiss him again. ”

“What problems?" "Well for starters.. you're an evil duck killer.”

“It is the possibility that keeps me going, and though you may call me a dreamer or a fool or any other thing, I believe that anything is possible.”

“She squinted up at him. "But I haven't always made good decisions." Pastor Harris smiled. "All that shows is that you're human.”

“When I think of you and me and what we shared, I know it would be easy for others to dismiss our time together as simply a by-product of the days and nights we spent by the sea, a "fling" that, in the long run, would mean absolutely nothing. Thats why I don't tell people about us. They wouldn't understand, and I don't feel the need to explain, simply becasue I know in my heart how real it was... how real this is. When I think of you I cant help smiling, knowing that you've completed me somehow. 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”

“Life passes by now like the scenery outside a car window. I breathe and eat and sleep as I always did, but there seems to be no great purpose in my life that requires active participation on my part...I do not know where I am going or when I will get there.”

“I have come to realize that destiny can hurt a person as much as it can bless them, and I find myself wondering why--out of all the people in all the world I could ever have loved--I had to fall in love with someone who was taken away from me.”

“It is at moments like these that I know my what my purpose is in life. I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return.I am here because there is no other place to be.”

“At night, when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a way to return to me.”

“She wondered when her daughter would realise that for the most part, people weren't that different. Young and old, male or female, pretty much everyone she knew wanted the same things: The wanted to feel peace in their hearts, they wanted a life without turmoil, they wanted to be happy. The difference, she thought, was that most young people seemed to think that those things lay somewhere in the future. While most older people believed that they lay in the past.”

“Do you love me?' I asked her. She smiled. 'Yes.' 'Do you want me to be happy?' as I asked her this I felt my heart beginning to race. 'Of course I do.' 'Will you do something for me then?' She looked away, sadness crossing her features. 'I don't know if I can anymore.' she said. 'but if you could, would you?' I cannot adequately describe the intensity of what I was feeling at that moment. Love, anger, sadness, hope, and fear, whirling together sharpened by the nervousness I was feeling. Jamie looked at me curiously and my breaths became shallower. Suddenly I knew that I'd never felt as strongly for another person as I did at that moment. As I returned her gaze, this simple realization made me wish for the millionth time that I could make all this go away. Had it been possible, I would have traded my life for hers. I wanted to tell her my thoughts, but the sound of her voice suddenly silenced the emotions inside me. 'yes' she finally said, her voice weak yet somehow still full of promise. 'I would.' Finally getting control of myself I kissed her again, then brought my hand to her face, gently running my fingers over her cheek. I marveled at the softness of her skin, the gentleness I saw in her eyes. even now she was perfect. My throat began to tighten again, but as I said, I knew what I had to do. Since I had to accept that it was not within my power to cure her, what I wanted to do was give her something that she'd wanted. It was what my heart had been telling me to do all along. Jamie, I understood then, had already given me the answer I'd been searching for, the answer my heart needed to find. She'd told me outside Mr. Jenkins office, the night we'd asked him about doing the play. I smiled softly, and she returned my affection with a slight squeeze of my hand, as if trusting me in what I was about to do. Encouraged, I leaned closer and took a deep breath. When I exhaled, these were the words that flowed with my breath. 'Will you marry me?”