Nicholas Sparks
Nicholas Sparks is one of the world’s most beloved storytellers. All of his books have been New York Times bestsellers, with over 105 million copies sold worldwide, in more than 50 languages, including over 75 million copies in the United States alone.
Sparks wrote one of his best-known stories, The Notebook, over a period of six months at age 28. It was published in 1996 and he followed with the novels Message in a Bottle (1998), A Walk to Remember (1999), The Rescue (2000), A Bend in the Road (2001), Nights in Rodanthe (2002), The Guardian (2003), The Wedding (2003), True Believer (2005) and its sequel, At First Sight (2005), Dear John (2006), The Choice (2007), The Lucky One (2008), The Last Song (2009), Safe Haven (2010), The Best of Me (2011), The Longest Ride (2013), See Me (2015), Two by Two (2016), Every Breath (2018), The Return (2020), and The Wish (2021) as well as the 2004 non-fiction memoir Three Weeks With My Brother, co-written with his brother Micah. His twenty-third novel, Dreamland, was published on September 20, 2022.
Film adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels, including The Choice, The Longest Ride, The Best of Me, Safe Haven (on all of which he served as a producer), The Lucky One, Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John and The Last Song, have had a cumulative worldwide gross of over three-quarters of a billion dollars. The Notebook has also been adapted into a musical, featuring music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson.
Sparks lives in North Carolina. He contributes to a variety of local and national charities, and is a major contributor to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame, where he provides scholarships, internships, and a fellowship annually. He co-founded The Epiphany School in New Bern, North Carolina in 2006. As a former full scholarship athlete (he still holds a track and field record at the University of Notre Dame) he also spent four years coaching track and field athletes at the local public high school. In 2009, the team he coached at New Bern High School set a World Junior Indoor Record in the 4×400 meters, as well as US High School National Records in the 800 Medley and 1600 Medley. Click to watch the Runner’s World video with Nicholas.
The Nicholas Sparks Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, was founded in 2011, to provide scholarships and fund educational programs for underprivileged and disadvantaged youth. Between the foundation, and the personal gifts of the Sparks family, more than $15 million dollars have been distributed to deserving charities, scholarship programs, and projects. Because the Sparks family covers all operational expenses of the foundation, 100% of donations are devoted to programs.
“Say I'm a bird! Say it! Say it now!""You're a bird.""Now say you're a bird too.""If you're a bird, I'm a bird.”
“I sold the collection because I finally understood what true love really meant. Tim had told me-and shown me-that love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be." - John Tyree”
“The emotions attached to them were like sand castles in the tide, slowly washing out to sea.”
“He received a phone call, And memories of the past rose anew.”
“Nuestro amor es como el viento no podemos verlo pero podemos sentirlo”
“If people don't like you, or they think you're strange, then that's their problem.”
“She liked to sit on the front porch in the afternoons and read books she'd checked out from the library. Aside from coffee, reading was her only indulgence.”
“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.”
“I know what it's like to be day and night now; always together, forever apart.”
“I got the sense that he was the kind of person who couldn't hold anger for more than a few minutes, because it just wasn't in him. It could never grow into resentment or bitterness, and I knew then that he was the kind of man who would be married forever. And I decided then and there that I should be the one to marry him.”
“Being with him was like toast and butter from the very beginning.”
“Jamie saved my life. She taught me everything. About life, hope and the long journey ahead. I'll always miss her. But our love is like the wind. I can't see it, but I can feel it.”
“Our love is like the wind... I cant see it, but I sure can feel it.”
“There's so much I wish for these days, but most of all, I wish you were here. It's strange, but before I met you, I couldn't remember the last time that I cried. Now, it seems that tears come easily to me...but you have a way of making my sorrows seem worthwhile, of explaining things in a way that lessens my ache. You are a treasure, a gift, and when we're together again, I intend to hold you until my arms are weak and I can do it no longer. My thoughts of you are sometimes the only things that keep me going.”
“When I write to you, I feel your breath; when you read them, I imagine you feel mine. Is it that way with you too? These letters are part of us now, part of our history, a reminder forever that we made it through this time. Thank you for helping me survive this year, but more than that, thank you in advance for all the years to come.”
“When I sleep, I dream of you, and when I wake, I long to hold you in my arms.If anything, our time apart has only made me more certain that I want to spend my nights by your side, and my days with your heart.”
“Men are like that sometimes - if they meet someone and fall in love, it's real, no matter how fast it happened. But if someone falls for a woman they happen to care about, all they do is question the man's intentions.”
“Love is the essence of a full and wonderful life.”
“In my thoughts forever.”
“I'll be the light in the window.”
“It would be like describing colors to someone blind from birth: The words might be understood, but the concept would remain mysterious and private.”
“There was something transporting about the act of creating something from nothing.”
“without music he felt aimless and adrift.”
“Why did you come here?To find you.”
“People hide the truth because they're afraid.”
“Halfway down the aisle, Jamie suddenly seemed to tire, and they stopped while she caught her breath...It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember.”
“You know, the smallest thing can change a life. In the blink of an eye, something happens by chance - and when you least expect it - since we’re on a course that you could have never planned, into a future you never imagined. Where will it take you? That’s the journey of our lives: our search for the light. But sometimes, finding the light means you must past through the deepest darkness.”
“It's a full moon here tonight, which makes me think of you. Because, I know that no matter what I am doing or where I am, this moon will always be the same size as yours, half a world away.”
“But growing up hadn’t been all cupcakes and parties, and he could remember wishing for a different life.”
“As he lay on the couch, he reflected that he wanted to be the same kind of father someday.”
“and there had been times when he wished he'd been born into a different family.”
“Did you ever realize you have more opinions about my life than your own life?”
“Some things were beyond understanding.”
“It was inevitable for people to try to create a sense of normalcy in a place where nothing was normal. It helped one get through the day, to add predictability to a life that was inherently unpredictable.”
“Marriage, each of them realized intuitively, was about compromise and forgiveness. It was about balance, where one person complemented the other.”
“One of the things I've learned in my life is that sometimes you've got to take a chance.”
“I know you loved her, but it's okay to let it go now. You know that, don't you? You've got to be able to let it go.”
“It's probably not going to lead to anything. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. If everyone who thought they might fail didn't even try, where would we be today?”
“Life doesn't often turn out the way we think it will, does it?”
“You live long enough, you lose enough people, you learn to appreciate the memories you have.”
“Thank you for trusting me.”
“How can I tell them that I love them if I'm no longer there?”
“Then we'll find a way to work through all this together because I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Not everything," he said. "Not the important things. My kids are safe. You're safe. That's all I really care about. This" - he said motioning - "is just stuff. Most of it can be replaced. It just takes time.”
“You are staring at me like you were going to eat me up.”
“It is but it's also true. Long term relationships - the ones that matter - are all about weathering the peaks and the valleys. And you are still thinking long term, right?”
“You know the real me," she said, stopping to peer up at him. "More than anyone else.”
“I love you," he finally whispered. She leaned forward and touched his face. "I know. And I love you, too.”
“Do you ever sit back and wonder what it all means? Whether this is it or if there's something greater out there? Or if you were meant for something better?”
“A good man is hard to find," she said wistfully. "Not everyone is as lucky as you are.”