People From Omaha

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"Mitch...was the kind of man who added something to everything he touched and everyone he came in contact with. I was envious of his view on life. He saw it all as a big game, where the only way to win was to be good to other people, to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and like what you see."

"...feeling her helplessness. There was nothing worse. Most people lived under the illusion that they were in control of their lives, but that wasn't completely true. Yeah, you could decide what to have for breakfast and what to wear and all those little things, but as soon as you stepped out into the world, you were pretty much at the mercy of everyone else around you, and all you could do was hope that if they were having a bad day, they wouldn't decide to take it out on you."

"In other words, when the going get tough, the tough get going."

"I don't want to be a grown-up. … Because grown-ups always say that things are complicated."

"Follow your heart,"

"Where does a story truly start? In life, there are seldom clear-cut beginnings, those moments when we can, in looking back, say that everything started. Yet these are moments when fate intersects with our daily lives, setting in motion a sequence of events whose outcome we could never have foreseen"

"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."

"My point is simply that kids turn out okay as long as the parents are involved, no matter where they live. It's not like small towns have a monopoly on values. I mean, I'm sure if I did some digging, I'd find lots of kids that were in trouble here, too. Kids are kids, no matter where they live."

"...The greater the love, the greater the tragedy when it's over. Those two elements always go together. … The best we can hope for in life is that it doesn't happen for a long, long time."

"No," his father replied, "you ran for you. I just hope you're running toward something, not away from something."

"Love is a wonderful thing. It makes life worthwhile. I love being in love." "Spoken like a man with plenty of experience. But keep in mind that true love lasts forever." "Poets would say that true love always ends in tragedy."

"My mom used to tell me that whatever you do, marry someone who loves you more than you love him."

"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."

"Nowadays, she thought, it was the little things in life that mattered. If the highlights in her past set the tone, it was the day-by-day events that now defined who she was."

"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."

"...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."

"...it was in her refusal to allow any of us to indulge in self-pity of any kind...through a maddening style of argument, in which the following three statements were repeated in various sequences: A. It's your life + social commentary. B. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things. C. No one ever said that life was fair."

"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."

"...when two people live together, the stress flows both ways. This, I come to believe, is both the blessing and the curse of marriage. It's a blessing because there's an outlet for the everyday strains of life; it's a curse because the outlet is someone you care deeply about."

"No, there's no experience quite like having children, and despite the challenges we once faced, I've considered myself blessed because of the family we created."

"...there is the fact that having a child transforms the basic marriage relationship. No longer are you simply husband and wife, you are mother and father as well, and all spontaneity vanishes immediately."

"I've come to believe that children live for the satisfaction of surprising their parents..."

"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."

"...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."

"The events of the past year have taught me much about myself, and a few universal truths. I learned, for instance, that while wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it's often much more difficult to heal them. Yet the process of healing those wounds provided the richest experience of my life, leading me to believe that while I've often overestimated what I could accomplish in a day, I had underestimated what I could do in a year. But most of all, I learned that it's possible for two people to fall in love all over again, even when there's been a lifetime of disappointment between them."

"Marriage is about compromise, it's about doing something for the other person, even when you don't want to."

"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,..."

"Denial is an ugly thing, Nicky." "I'm not in denial.""See what I mean? That's denial."

"Like I said, you're in this together. Men have certain needs, women have different needs; that's the way it was hundreds of years ago, and that's the way it's going to be hundreds of years from now. If you both realize that, and you both work on meeting each other's needs, you'll have a good marriage. And part of that, for both of you, is trust. In the end, it's that simple."

"Writing is easy. It's just the typing that's hard."

"...What's going on with you two, all this stress you're both under...that's called life. And life has a tendency to throw curveballs when you least expect them. 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. You have to trust him, and he's got to trust you."

"Kids are people, too, and once they start getting older, they make their own decisions. There's only so much you can do."

"Relationships are the most important thing in life, and friends are part of that."

"We'd been raised to survive, to meet challenges, and to chase our dreams. … And we don't only love each other, but like each other as well."

"...The one thing you've got to remember is to see the big picture. When things get tough, remind yourself why you fell in love with her in the first place. She's a special woman, and you were lucky to find her, just as she was lucky to find you. She's got a heart of gold, and you can't fake something like that."

"Work, spirituality, family, friendships, health--you can't ignore any of them or it'll get you in the end."

"Well, then I'd say it takes two to tango. My guess is that both of you are right and both of you are wrong. That's the way most arguments go, anyway. People are who they are and no one is perfect, but marriage is about becoming a team. You're going to spend the rest of your life learning about each other, and every now and then, things blow up. But the beauty of marriage is that if you picked the right person and you both love each other, you'll alway figure out a way to get through it."

"Dreams are funny like that. You want something so desperately, you somehow get it, then just as suddenly it's over. Like running races--all that training for a couple of minutes on the track. The secret, I've learned, is to appreciate the process."

"...once she becomes a teenager...well, sometimes there's nothing you can do. With or without you, in the end, children grow up to become the people they were meant to be."

"...but what I eventually came to understand was that if a woman truly loves you, you can't always expect her to tell the truth. You see, 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 the truth might hurt your feelings. But it doesn't mean they don't love you."

"Our stories are funny because we lived them, and we survived them. The worse the incident was when it was happening, the funnier the story had become to us over the years."

"Is love at first sight truly possible?"