Sarah Strohmeyer

“Life is too short to listen to a MAN to tell me how to live it.”

“In fact, a case could be made that worrying about a problem actually prevents you from resolving it, because it deceives your mind into thinking that you're doing something when really you're not.”

“Coeur qui soupire n'a pas ce qu'il desire.The heart that sighs does not have what it desires.”

“The most powerful sex organ was the brain, you know what that meansPoor Justin!”

“In fiction, I searched for my favorite authors, women I have trusted to reassure me than not all teenage guys are total ditwads, that the archetype of the noble cute hero who devotes himself to the girl he loves has not gone the way of the rotary phone. That all I had to do was be myself (smart, hardworking, funny) and be patient and kind and he and I would find each other.As Bea would say, this why they call it fiction.”

“I focused on the passing houses filled with couples who’d somehow survived this teenage craziness of ‘he likes her but she likes him and he likes somebody else, you just can’t win.’ How did they do it? How did they end up in their golden, warm and cozy living rooms with their 2.3 children and dogs and cats? Because getting from where I was to where they were seemed millions of light years away.”

“For years, he’s been listening to her complain about being ignored by Justin and assuring it her it was simply a matter of time until his friend saw the light. After all, if Henry was friends with Neerja and Henry was friends with Justin then, logically, Justin would be friends with Neerja. According to Henry, their eventual relationship was dictated by the transitive property.But Neerja didn’t want to be ‘just friends’ with Justin, and she was tired of waiting for the transitive property to jump-start her love life.”

“Maybe we were being a bit unrealistic, but we had this hope that if we could just get into the Ivy League, everything would be set. We dreamed of Gothic libraries and leafy green quads and romantic dorms with fireplaces and guys who were not only cute but also smart and charming, and, quite possibly, British. In college, we believed, we’d finally find our people.”

“This is probably the advantage of being stupid. Stupid people just do. We tend to overthink. If we could eliminate the “over” and just think, then we could do, too. Only we’d be smarter doers because we’d be thinkers.”

“Sometimes if you wait too long, it's too late.”

“Without risk, we are automatons going through our days with no purpose or meaning. We are safer, perhaps, but we are also, ironically, closer to death.”

“Risk is the universe's way of pushing us to become more than what we are. Risk is faith at the edge. Risk is the pulsating nature of life.”

“I think the only answer is to live life to the fullest while you can and collect memories like fools collect money. Because in the end, that's all you have - happy memories.”

“A mother is a mother from the moment her baby is first placed in her arms until eternity. It didn't matter if her child were three, thirteen, or thirty.”

“Love doesn't go anywhere when you die, you know. The person passes on, the body withers, but love, it survives.”

“Life is a lease and God is the landlord.”

“We may not get what we want, when we want. But with a bit of perseverance and a lot of patience, we can get what we need.”

“If it's true love, then it will abide. If it was a fleeting crush, then it will turn to dust. Either way, the truth will out.”

“Like the garlic mustard in my garden and the roses on my fence, love has a funny way of blooming after years of being buried.”

“If I can't read, if I can't make a simple Indian pudding, then I don't see the point in living much more, really. Because aside from a good book, and perhaps, a fresh morning in a dew-covered garden, few things in life give me as much pleasure as magic of making a truly spectacular dessert.”

“He's definitely one of those men you love before you get to know.”

“The imagination is a wonderful thing; it allows for all manner of undiscoverable sins.”

“See that's what people don't get about food. It's never the food, it's the love that goes into making it. That's what's important.”

“The power of women united, I am again reminded, is an invincible thing.”

“That's what dessert means to me: a dollop of sweet love in an otherwise cold world.”

“As my mother says, your forties are when you finally pay for your past mistakes, the cigarettes and sunburns, the Big Macs and smooth-talking men. She may be right.”

“Bruce Springsteen settled down. He used to run around with lots of women and now all he wants to do is hang out with Patty Scialfa and the kids."Patty's from Jersey. You don't mess around on Jersey girls. They're too tough. I'm sorry Bubbles, but being from Pennsylvania, you're no match.”