The Atlas of Love Quotes

“Yeah, but you’re lucky, Janey, he said. You have so many good friends. You have people to do stuff with. You have more friends than time to hang out with them, and they’re all near you. Finding love is easy- it’s fate- you just sit back and let it happen, have faith that if it hasn’t yet, it will soon, but then that’s done, and you realize you’re on your own for the rest of your life. It’s up to you to make the rest of it happen because destiny is done with you, at least as far as your social life goes”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love

“intricate motives, and complicated plots intimately. You live a book for weeks at a time, carrying it around in your bag, thinking about its characters like friends, worrying about their worries as your own. Not so short stories because as soon as you get to know the characters and voices and plots and complications, they’re over. Resolved or unresolved, clear or still completely obfuscated, either way, there’s nothing more . . . unless you’re”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love: A Novel

“Feminist narrative theory notes that for most of literary history there's been an imbalance between men's and women's stories. Male characters go out into a world of infinite possibilities. Female characters either get married or die. This makes enlightened female readers such as ourselves pissed off. But however much we deconstruct the narrative, however vigilantly we plow and apply the theory and read with our skeptical, over-educated eyes, still some lessons are hard to fully internalize, and the dream of happily-ever-after love, in real life and in literature, dies hardest of all.”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love

“Part of dedicating your life to studying literature is realizing that storytelling is more than just make-believe and that make-believe is far more important that we all pretend -- make believe -- it is. One way or another books tell the stories of their readers. But telling our lives is not the same as shaping them, whittling them away. Suddenly Jill had lost control. Her books had taken over and were in charge.”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love

“I had to remember about open, blind, knowing, unreserved, unambiguous, unconditional love—naked love—before any of it could make sense again. I had to find it the many places it hid, drag it out in the open and wrap it all around me,”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love: A Novel

“firm believer in knowing people by knowing what they read, holding their favorite words in your mouth, running curious fingers along the spines of their books.”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love: A Novel

“Poems are surmountable. They have rhymes and rhythms to help you make meaning. They're short enough. . . to read and reread until you've made some sense of them. Short stories are a different ballgame. You read them and understand the words completely. You know what happens in each sentence. You follow the dialogue and action. at the end, you know exactly what's happened. And also you have no idea.”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love

“But there was a catalyst, an event, a moment which changed everything and not just for us. This is good for storytelling but bad for decision making, and it is frightening to look back and realize, were it not for that moment, all of our lives would have been so different. maybe that's revisionist history. Maybe it's me making origin myths. But I can't shake the conviction that Jason's boyfriend's friend's ex-boyfriend's girlfriend changed the world.”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love

“for me, this wisdom extends to a further important truth—I’ll never do anything if I have to decide. Decision making is not my strong suit.”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love: A Novel

“I love you and will always love you,” I whispered to his hair. “I will never let you go. It may seem like I’m not there, but I am there. I will always be there. I am always there. You are mine. You are always mine. We are always family, you and I.” Atlas did not seem to mind my hysteria or his newly sodden shirt. Atlas was entirely distracted by his yellow rabbit whom he’d evidently missed. Atlas seemed wholly healthy and well, happy, eating, repaired, and well.”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love: A Novel

“Fiction is much more true than history. History is about other people. Fiction is about you.”
― Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love: A Novel