Nicholas Sparks

"While she was exceptional, I was average, a man whose major accomplishment in life was to love her without reservation, and that would never change."

"'If there is a heaven, we will find each other again, for there is no heaven without you.'"

"A truth emerges in any long marriage, and the truth is this: Our spouses sometimes know us better than we even know ourselves."

"It was the way you looked at me while I looked at the art that changed me. It is you, in other words, who changed."

"What's your horse's name?""Horse.""Sophia waited for the joke, but it didn't come. "You call your horse 'Horse'?""He doesn't mind.""You should give him a noble name. Like Prince or Chief or something.""It might confuse him now.""Trust me. Anything is better than Horse. It's like naming a dog Dog.""I have a dog named Dog. Australian Cattle Dog." He turned, his expression utterly matter-of-fact. "Great herder.""And your mom didn't complain?""My mom named him."

"I wish I had the talent to paint the way I feel about you, for my words always feel inadequate. I imagine using red for your passion and pale blue for your kindness; forest green to reflect the depth of your empathy and bright yellow for your unflagging optimism. And still I wonder: can even an artist's palette capture the full range of what you mean to me?"

"The words nearly break my heart, and I feel something crumble inside me. The truth is often a terrible thing, and I wish again that I were someone else. But it is too late now, too late to change anything. I am old and alone and I'm dying a little more with each passing hour. I'm tired, more tired than I've ever been."

"I was not meant to be alone. I am not good at it. The years since Ruth's passing have ticked by with the kind of desparate silence known only to the elderly. It is a silence underscored by loneliness and the knowledge that the good years are already in the past, coupled with the complications of old age itself.The body is not meant to survive nearly a century. I speak from experience when I say this..."

"My plea to you is this: despite your sadness, do not forget how happy you have made me; do not forget that I loved a man who loved me in return, and this was the greatest gift I could ever hope to receive."

"In this world, after all, I've become more or less invisible...I've become what the young are afraid of becoming, just another member of the nameless elderly, an old and broken man with nothing left to offer to this world.My days are inconsequential, comprising simple moments and even simpler pleasures. I eat and sleep and think of Ruth; I wander the house and stare the the paintings, and in the mornings, I feed the pigeons that gather in my backyard."

"I sometimes think to myself that I’m the last of my kind."

"...I said everything that matters... Don't take my advice. Or anyone's advice. Trust yourself. For good or for bad, happy or unhappy, it's your life, and what you do with it has always been entirely up to you."

"I had never dreamed of being a soldier; I had never fired a gun. I was not, nor ever had been, a fighter of any sort, but even so, I loved my country, and I spent much of that year trying to imagine a future distorted by war."

"My marriage brought great happiness into my life, but lately there's been nothing but sadness. I understand that love and tragedy go hand in hand, for there can't be one without the other, but nonetheless I find myself wondering whether the tradeoff is fair. A man should die as he had lived, I think; in his final moments, he should be surrounded and comforted by those he's always loved."

"His voice, even now, follows me everywhere on this longest of rides, this thing called life."

"As your father used to say, we shared the longest ride together, this thing called life, and mine has been filled with joy because of you."

"As much as I love her, I admit that she has always remained somewhat of an enigma to me...I liked this about her. I liked the mystery she added to my life. I liked the occasional silence between us, for ours was a comfortable silence. It was a passionate silence, one that had its roots in comfort and desire."

"You are a smart man, Ira, but sometimes I think you do not understand women very well."

"[Written on back of photograph of Ruth and Daniel] "Ruth LevinsonThird grade teacher.She believes in me and I can be anything I want when I grow up.I can even change the world.""

"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."

"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."

"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.""

"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."

"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."

"And don't worry. From wherever I am, I'll watch out for you. I'll be your guardian angel, sweetheart. You can count on me to keep you safe."

"You know me better than anyone, and you're my best friend. I don't think there's anything you could say to me that would lead me to believe that you're doing it just to hurt me. If there's one thing I've come to know about you, it's that you're not even capable of something like that. Why do you think I like spending time with you so much? Because you're a good guy. A nice guy."

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

"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 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."

"...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."

"...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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"...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."

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

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

"If it's over--if it's really over--then don't let it screw up the rest of your life."

"I've come to understand that arguing with her about it has never solved anything. So instead of denying it, I've learned to take her hands, look her in the eyes, and respond with those three magic words that every woman wants to hear: "You're right, sweetheart.""

"It isn't easy living with an author. I know this because my wife has informed me of this fact."

"My wife, I might add, is a saint. Either that, or maybe she is insane."

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

"...the secret of a long lasting marriage is... ...communication. When we talk about issues and really open up to each other, things are great between us. When we keep things to ourselves, grudges and resentments build up and we end up arguing." ..."What good is talking if neither of you are really committed?...marriage comes down to actions. I think people talk too much about the things that bother them, instead of actually doing the little things that keep a marriage strong. You have to know what your spouse needs from you, and then you do it. And you avoid doing the things that harm the relationship. If your spouse acts the same way, your marriage can make it through anything."

"...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."

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

"Standing next to Micah, I realized that there were times when we talked not because we needed to communicate anything important, but simply because we each drew comfort from the other's voice."

"When you chase a dream, you learn about yourself. You learn your capabilities and limitations, and the value of hard work and persistence."

"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."

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