"Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone."
— J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)

"You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"An ordinary beginning, something that would have been forgotten had it been anyone but her. But as he shook her hand and met those striking emerald eyes, he knew before he'd taken his next breath that she was the one he could spend the rest of his life looking for but never find again. She seemed that good, that perfect, while a summer wind blew through the trees."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can."
— J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)

"And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I'd probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up."
— J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)

"We laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"It's hard being left behind. (...) It's hard to be the one who stays. "
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"Maybe I'm dreaming you. Maybe you're dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other's dreams and every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"But you know: you know that if I could have stayed, if I could have gone on, that I would have clutched every second: whatever it was, this death, you know that it came and took me, like a child carried away by goblins."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays.

I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.

I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow al winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?

Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?"
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass... Why has he gone where I cannot follow?"
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"I place my hands over her ears and tip her head back, and kiss her, and try to put my heart into hers, for safekeeping, in case I lose it again."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"I love you, always. Time is nothing."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves."
— Anonymous (Holy Bible: The King James Bible)

"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?"
— Mark Twain

"So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me... everyday."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad."
— Aleister Crowley (Magick: Liber ABA)

"When a man cannot chose, he ceases to be a man."
— Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange)

"The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don't listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won't be one of them. Don't listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don't have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers 'someday.' When they are out of high school, when they've finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire . . . That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' It all starts with the writing. "
— Robin Hobb

"Dusk is just an illusion because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are there cannot be one without the other yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel I remember wondering to be always together yet forever apart? "
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"My daddy said, that the first time you fall in love, it changes you forever and no matter how hard you try, that feeling just never goes away."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"Call it a diary--it is less imposing than a journal, which sounds like an end in itself. I steer clear of the word journal--and its spawn, the verb to journal, as in, 'I have been journaling all my life.' If I were to call my notebook a journal I would probably write with the notion that it be published someday, preferably posthumously, and people would marvel. This would make me self-conscious. I would be trying to perfect each sentence before its time. I prefer notes; if I clean it up too fast I lose the spark. Everything goes in: grocery lists, things to do (so I can scratch them off) random observations, knitting patterns, recipes, overheard dialogue, everything. A diary isn't sacred. Think of it as the written equivalent to singing in the shower. I don't care what I'm writing and I don't pay attention to language.. A friend wanted to know what I was working on; she was reading the paper and I was writing in my diary. We were having coffee at Bread Alone.
'Nothing,' I said.
'It can't be nothing,' she said, assuming perhaps that writers were always doing something interesting. She leaned over and read, 'It is taking a long time to get my sandwich.'
Case closed."
— Abigail Thomas

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."
— Oscar Wilde