Ann Brashares Quotes - Page 2

You know what the secret is? It's so simple. We love one another. We're nice to one another. Do you know how rare that is? - Carmen

You carry your past with you even if you don't remember any of it.

Your problem isn't the problem, it's your attitude about the problem.

I always interpret coincidences as little clues to our destiny

She thought she was independent and strong, but she got one small taste of love and she was hungrier than anyone. She was ravenous.

People sometimes talk about the power of first impressions, and believe me, there is truth to it.

I did the searching and remembering, she did the disappearing and the forgetting.

We aren't in high school. We aren't really in our families and we aren't in our houses. Those are the places we grew up and the times we spent together, but they aren't us. If think they are, then we're lost, because times end and places are lost. We aren't any place or any time . . . We are everywhere.

Besides being asked why I write about young characters, I am often asked how I write about young characters. How do I throw myself across the chasm of full adulthood to relive that period? I guess I don’t, really. Age is not so much a feature of your character, as the spot where you stand for a pretty fleeting time on the arc of your life.

Love is like war; easy to begin, hard to end.

I hated motorcycles. I said to my mother, 'I'll never get a motorcycle.' And she said, 'You never know what you'll want when you are older.' After that, the thing that scared me was not so much the motorcycle itself, but that I could turn into a person who would want one. I was scared of the idea that I could become an entirely different person, a stranger to myself.

You forget your victories, but you remember the losses.

People left a lot of things behind when they went in the water. Their clothes, their stuff, their makeup, their fixed-up hair, their voices, their hearing, their sight--at least as they normally experienced them....Some people lost their individuality in the water, but Riley always felt most herself. Water was supposed to symbolize renewal, she knew, but when Riley swam, pared down, alone, and unreachable--she felt a deeper sense of who she already was.

The bottom had arrived. She crashed against it, but it brought no sense of closure or understanding. She just lay there at the bottom looking up. She knew there must be a very tiny circle of light up there somewhere, but just now she couldn’t see it.

He didn't seem to realize that three excuses was as good as no excuse.

Tibby's wish would be to hold on to the idea of love even in the face of darkest doubt. Because that was the way in which she failed. Not once, but again and again.

Let me love you, but don't love me back. Do love me and let me hate you for a while. Let me feel like I have some control, because I know I never do.

If you ever meet a guy and you fall in love with him, but because of some weird genetic mutation he doesn't seem to return the feeling?... Wear that dress.

She spilled rice on my knee, and she smiled. I wanted her to spill a thousand things on me, lava, acid, bricks, anything, and smile each time

She kept walking. The very small, brave part of her brain knew that this would be her one chance. If she turned around, she would lose it.

She was alive, and they were dead. She had to try to make her life big. As big as she could. She promised Bailey she would keep playing.

But certain souls cohere. It's rare but possible. But it takes two powerful wills to make it so.

A loving soul was always more beautiful over the long haul, but actual prettiness was fleeting.

Knowing where she was in the world, even if he never touched her, gave him a deep satisfaction, and he half despised himself for being satisfied with so little.

It's always nervewracking to put yourself out there. But it's the root of joy.