Nicholas Sparks

"...he realized that the same thing that made women initially attractive to him--their need to be taken care of--was the very thing that eventually signaled he end of the relationship. How did that old saying go? If you've been divorced once, you might be right in thinking your ex was the problem. If you've been divorced three times? Well, folks, the problem is most definitely you. Granted, he hadn't been divorced, but the point was well taken."

"Finding a woman with a sense of humor had been the one piece of advice his father had given him when he'd first begun to get serious about dating, and he finally understood why his dad had considered it important. If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale."

"But would she do it differently if she could? She doubted it. Her experiences growing up ad formed her into the woman that she'd become, just as his experiences had formed him, and she didn't regret them. And yet...she knew that wasn't the question that mattered. ...she realized the choice before her was this: Where do I go from here? It is never too late to change things."

"How far should a person go in the name of true love?"

"Thinking back, he recalled events he wished he could change, tears he wished had never been shed, time that could have been better spent, and frustrations he should have shrugged off. Life, it seemed, was full of regret, and he yearned to turn back the clock so he could live parts of his live over again. One thing was certain: He should have been a better husband."

"...people always said that parenting and worrying were synonymous..."

"...he often wondered when exactly her feeling for him finally overwhelmed those she'd had for Kevin... He wasn't sure; capturing a specific instant like that was no more possible than locating a specific drop of water in the ocean."

"These days, it seemed that the only thing he was certain about was the knowledge that he wouldn't trade his years with Gabby for anything. Without her, his life had little meaning. He was a small-town husband with a small-town occupation and his cares were no different from anyone else's. He'd been neither a leader nor a follower, nor had he been someone who would be remembered long after he passed away. He was the most ordinary of men with only one exception: He'd fallen in love with a woman named Gabby, his love deepening in the years they'd been married. But fate had conspired to ruin all that, and now he spent long periods of his days wondering whether it was humanly possible to fix things between them."

"Marriage, each of them realized intuitively, was about compromise and forgiveness. It was about balance, where one person complemented the other."

"You're doing the best you can, right? Isn't that what we always tell each other?"

"He loved his wife but hated what life with her had become, cursing himself for even thinking this way."

"The past was gone and the future had yet to unfold, and he knew he should focus his life on the present...yet his day-to-day existence suddenly struck him as endless and unbearable."

"...He was with the woman and daughters he loved, and who could ever need or want anything more than that?...It was just a normal day, a day like any other. But most of all, it was a day in which everything was exactly the way it should be."

"...There is a greater purpose to all this. It is your destiny."

"...she was struck by the simple truth that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people."

"Life, he realized, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it's in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile."

"That's what courage is. If she weren't scared, she wouldn't need courage in the first place."

"...people who are grieving have to want to move on--that first step, that motivating spark, has to come from within them. And when it does, it opens the door to the unexpected."

"Love doesn't mean anything if you're not willing to make a commitment, and you have to think not only about what you want, but about what he wants. Not just now, but in the future."

"I just tell people what they already know but are afraid to admit to themselves."

"I'm not sure anyone's life turns out exactly the way they imagine. All we can do is to try to make the best of it. Even when it seems impossible."

"Maybe I don't want to be defined by what I do. Maybe I'd like to be defined by what I am."

"Long-term relationships--the ones that matter--are all about weathering the peaks and valleys."

"Dying is a strange business, and I'm not going to bore you with the details. I might have weeks or I might have months and though it's a cliche, it's true that so many of the things I once believed to be important no longer are. ...I find myself reflecting on the essential moments of my life."

"Katie eventually realizes that she must choose between a life of transient safety and one of riskier rewards...and that in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven."

"He knew that Amanda would always be the very best part of him, the self he would always long to know."

"It was a life, she eventually concluded, that had been lived in the middle ground, where contentment and love were found in the smallest details of people's lives. It was a life of dignity and honor, not without sorrows yet fulfilling in a way that few experiences ever were. She knew Tuck understood that more than anyone."

"...he had the sense that they were both lonely, albeit in different ways. He was a solitary figure in a vast landscape while she was a face in a nameless crowd."

"In the end, everything came down to money. It came down to what a person actually did, as opposed to who they thought they were,..."

"...the grass isn't always greener on the other side. What the younger generation didn't understand was that the grass was greener where it's watered, which meant that both Frank and Amanda had to get out their hoses if they wanted to make things better."

"...even then I knew that I was fortunate. Because you were the first guy who wasn't constantly trying to impress me. You accepted who you were, but more than that, you accepted me for me."

"You have to understand that I'm not the girl I used to be. I'm a wife and a mother now, and like everyone else I'm not perfect. I struggle with the choices I've made and I make mistakes, and half the time I wonder who I really am or what I'm doing or whether my life means anything at all. I'm not special at all, Dawson, and you need to know that. You have to understand that I'm just...ordinary."

"Love, after all, always said more about those who felt it than it did about the ones they loved."

"The past was gone, after all, and the future was the only thing they had left."

"...there'd also been an unvarnished honestly in what they'd said. There were no hidden meanings, no secret attempts to pass judgment; as quickly as their disagreements had flared up, they'd pass."

"I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough."

"But trust me when I say that memories are funny things. Sometimes they're real, but other times they change into what we want them to be... But like I said, she's hurting, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that people in pain don't always see things as clearly as they should... And if it somehow doesn't work out between you, then you've got to understand that you can't look back anymore. It'll destroy you in the end, and destroy her as well. Neither one of you can keep living with regret, because it drains the life right out of you, and the very idea is enough to break my heart."

"I know we've had our differences, Allie, and that we haven't seen eye to eye on everything. I'm not perfect, but I did the best I could with raising you. I'm your mother and I always will be. That means I'll always love you." Allie was silent for a moment, then: "What should I do?" "I don't know, Allie. That's up to you. But I would think about it. Think about what you really want."

"I can't make this decision for you, Allie, this one's all yours. I want you to know, though, that I love you. And I always will. I know that doesn't help, but it's all I can do."

"Follow your heart,"

"I lead a simple life now, I am foolish, an old man in love, a dreamer who dreams of nothing but reading to Allie and holding her whenever I can. I am a sinner with many faults and a man who believes in magic, but I am too old to change and too old to care."

"My Dearest Catherine, I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together."

"Deanna's voice softened. "Theresa, I know there's a part of you that believes you can change someone, but the reality is that you can't. You can change yourself, and Garrett can change himself, but you can't do it for him." "I know that--" "But you don't," Deanna said, gently cutting her off. "Or if you do, you don't want to see it that way. Your vision, as they say, has become clouded.""

"Oh, Garrett, who do you think it was that brought the bottle to her?"

"It was...the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember."

"I can no more give Jamie away than I can give away my heart. But what I can do is let another share in the joy that she has always given me."

"Youth offers the promise of happiness, but life offers the realities of grief."

"Even now, not a day goes by when I don't wish I could turn back the clock and change what happened."

"So many people these days, it seemed, believed that these things (personal fulfillment and self-esteem) could come only from work, not from parenting, and many people believed that having children had nothing to do with raising them."

"Her mother had once told her that there were men who kept secrets bottled up inside and that it spelled trouble for the women who loved them."