"I finally understood what true love meant...love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

"And for the briefest instant, it almost feels like we're together again."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

"I held him close to me with my eyes closed, wondering if anything in my life had ever been this perfect and knowing at the same time it didn't."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable, but her story and mine are different now. It wasn't easy for me to accept this simple truth, because there was a time when our stories were the same, but that was six years and two lifetimes ago."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

"The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds..

The Notebook"
— Nicholas Sparks

"I've been burdened by questions I've asked myself a thousand times since the last time we were together.
Why did I do it? And would I do it again?
It was I, you see, who ended it."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

"In times of grief and sorrow I will hold you and rock you, and take your grief and make it my own. When you cry, I cry, and when you hurt, I hurt. And together we will try to hold back the floods of tears and despair and make it through the potholed streets of life."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"'When someone has been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?' 'You wouldn't want to. That's what makes it hard. You do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.' --People of sparks--"
— Jeanne DuPrau

"Distance can ruin even the best of intentions.

But I suppose it depends on how you look at it.

Distance just adds a richness you would not otherwise get.

People come. People go. They will drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book.

When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their stories and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures. Then you find yourself focusing on the new ones. Not the ones from the past."
— Nicholas Sparks The Rescue

"Now Doon seemed to care for his new friends more than he did for her. Every time she thought about him she felt a thud of pain, like a bruised place inside her. --People of Sparks--"
— Jeanne DuPrau

"There was a lot about Kim and J.P. he didn't get.... he was confused by their lack of romance. As a father, he was at times grateful for that missing intensity, but as a man who liked to surprise his wife with flowers, it baffled him. Maybe he was old-fashioned, but to him a couple meant a strong bond, with positive and negative charges constantly arcing between them. He'd never seen Kim and J.P. kiss, let alone argue."
— Stewart O'Nan (Songs for the Missing: A Novel)