Cecelia Ahern Quotes

In order to fly one must first clear the shit off one's wings.

People do whatever the hell they want to do at any age they fancy. Last month you were thirty-five. That means you're five years from forty. Do you think that the day you reach forty you will be any different than you were at thirty-nine or forty-one for that matter? People create little ideas about ages so they can write silly self-help books, stick stupid comments in birthday cards, create names for internet chat rooms and look for excuses for crisis that are happening in their life.

We're not in this life just to work, we're in it to live.

I always pushed myself. Whenever I felt I needed to stop, I made myself run faster.

Chin up, don't smile, don't cry, don't fall, walk.

Oh, it's called, em ... ' Kate thinks, 'I can't remember what it's called.'
'You're the same as me,' Dad says to her. 'You've got CRAFT too.'
'What's that?'
'Can't. Remember. A. Fuc-

One must not speak of such things. One is still scarred from that experience.

For the yesterdays and todays, and the tomorrows I can hardly wait for - Thank you.

After having my baby I felt like I'd been introduced to my life, I slowed down, I paid more attention to simple things, I addressed a few issues in my own life, I even got married, I looked at what was important and what wasn't, and so I used that experience for inspiration.

Today I love you more than ever; tomorrow I will love you even more. I need you more than ever; I want you more than ever.

We're so arrogant, aren't we? So afraid of age, we do everything we can to prevent it. We don't realize what a privilege it is to grow old with someone. Someone who doesn't drive you to commit murder or doesn't humiliate you beyond repair.

He was comparing you to the butterflies that you both adore and cherish, and he said you were special for the same reasons: you were rare, exotic and entirely you. He said you're beautiful exactly the way are now.

(...) every single person, has a story to tell. Every single ordinary person has an extraordinary story. We might all think that we are unremarkable, that our lives are boring, just because we aren't doing ground-breaking things or making headlines or winning awards. But the truth is we all do something that is fascinating, that is brave, that is something we should be proud of.

The hips were the leaders of this conspiracy. So I rang my boss and held the phone to my hips so he could hear them too.

She had been given a wonderful gift: life. Sometimes it was cruelly taken away too soon, but it's what you did with it that counted, not how long it lasted.

There are certain kinds of silence that make you walk on air.

I wish the world was filled with people like you, do you know that?

Above Constance's desk were nude photographs of women in 1930s France, draped in provocative poses. She had put them there for Bob's viewing pleasure and in return he had placed African art of naked men above his desk for her.

Kids always know what's going on, even before you know yourself sometimes.

Every single time you crossed over for me and met me on my side. I realize now, I don't think I ever met you in the middle. And I don't think I ever once said that you for that.

If you have a dream, you want to at least be able to try to achieve it in some way. Something that is seemingly beyond your grasp but that you know that with a bit of hard work you could possibly achieve.

Perhaps it would have been easier if I said that not being able to find something is like suddenly not remembering the words to your favorite song that you knew by heart. It's like suddenly forgetting the name of someone you know really well and see every day, or the name of a television show you watched for years. It's something so frustrating that it plays on your mind over and over again because you know there's an answer but no one can tell you it. It niggles and niggles at me and I can't rest until I know the answers.

She never seemed to be truly happy; she just seemed to be passing time while she waited for something else. She was tired of just existing; she wanted to live.

I have found that the many imbalances within our individual lives result in an overall more worldly balance. What I mean is that no matter how unfair I think something is, I need only look at the bigger picture to see how, in a way, it fits ... however impossible it is to understand it or see it at the time.

Never do something that can't be undone.

I'm never overwhelmed or under it either; just nicely whelmed. I'm OK. Nothing spectacular but sometimes special. I look in the mirror and see this medium average person. A little tired, a little sad, but not falling apart.

It bothers me that so many lack common sense, that their opinions can be so biased and backward, so utterly frustrating,misguided,misinformed and dangerous that I can't stand to listen to them.

Time cant be given. But it can be shared.

It can take a lifetime to build up a friendship- it can take a second to make an enemy.

The fear was there; it was there all the time, but it was merely disguised as something else for others to see.

Sometimes you see everything so clearly and other times you can't even see yourself, but then, isn't that all of us?

People who are loved can eventually be hated in equal amounts

I should have been afraid, walking through a mountainside in the dark by myself. Instead I felt safe, surrounded by the songs of birds, engulfed by the scents of sweet moss and pine, and cocooned in a mist that contained a little bit of magic.

Albert Einstein: 'We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.'" He

Close your eyes and stare into the dark.

Rosie: Actually, I'm surprised to admit it myself but she's not so bad. In fact she's not bad at all. As far as bosses go she's been really, really pleasant. Her name is Julie. Can you believe it? She actually has a first name. And all this time I had convinced myself it was Big Nose Smelly Breath. And it's a nice, normal name too; I would have thought it was something more like Vladimir or Adolf.
Ahern, Cecelia (2005-02-01). Love, Rosie (p. 308). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition.

Never trust a man who sits, uninvited, at the head of the table in another man's home.

Tabitha nods all throughout my sentences when I'm speaking to her, says "Right" after practically every single word, and even more annoyingly tries to finish my sentences for me, or join in with my last few words. The really annoying thing is that she always gets it wrong. She never fully catches the gist of what I'm saying, so I have to keep repeating the sentence while she keeps trying to guess what my last words will be. One of these days I'll just say "I'm a tramp" as my last words and she'll have to say that.
Ahern, Cecelia (2005-02-01). Love, Rosie (pp. 200-201). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition.

This is my one and only life, and it is a great and terrible and short and endless thing, and none of us come out of it alive

I suppose it's easier to see the way out of anything when you've found your way out of that maze. When you're stuck in the middle, in a series of dead-ends making circles, it's difficult to make any sense of anything.

Childbirth is nothing compared to exercise, and Gary was a big baby. This is what they should do to prisoners of war when they're trying to interrogate them.

Well that's the problem with paradise- nothing attracts a serpent quite like it.

Seeming and being are not one and the same.

I never grew up thinking the goal in life was to be a millionaire. All the way through college, I had a part-time job. I worked hard to get the things that you need at that age.

For him life was all full of opportunities, and I don't think that was necessarily a bad thing, but I think he wanted to grab them for all the wrong reasons. He wasn't passionate about art, he didn't care about lawyers helping people, he didn't even care about my singing voice. It was all for more money. And so I suppose it was fitting that it was the loss of all his money that killed him in the end. The pills and the whiskey were just the nails in the coffin.

I think I wished for you all of my life.

She was being a jealous, bitter and incredibly selfish friend, she knew that, but Holly needed to be selfish these days in order to survive. She

There are more people involved in telling a story than the writer.

Sometimes there is only one thing left to say, P. S. I Love You ...

I think that most people go to bookshops and have no idea what they want to buy. Somehow the books sit there, almost magically willing people to pick them up. The right person for the right book. Its as though they know whose life they need to be a part of, how they can make a difference, how they can teach a lesson, put a smile on a face at just the right time.

There were hundreds of them spread across the floor, each telling its own tale of triumph or sadness, each letter representing a phase in her life. She had kept them all.

Remember our wonderful memories, but please don't be afraid to make some more

We don't realize what a privilege it is to grow old with someone.

To borrow means to take and use something belonging to someone else and then eventually return it.

Rushing, rushing, rushing. We are always rushing. Never have enough time here, always trying to make our way there. Need to have left here five minutes ago, need to be there now.

Life ... It's a great and terrible and short and endless thing. None of us come out of it alive.

The next best thing never last for too long

Were we lost and unaccounted for, or was this where we truly belonged and our normal lives the original error?

She longs for him to be here, but knows it was she who walked away from him. It's her fault he's not here.

You can't hold on to all things forever, no matter how hard you grip them.

Autumn

The season between summer and winter,
comprising in the Northern Hemisphere
usually the months of September,
October and November.

A period of maturity.

I can't even think about what life "could
have been" like in Boston, without crying. It's like deja-vu, I don't think me
and Boston were ever meant to be.

She got a sense that their time together was valuable, as though she needed to hold on to every minute as if it were their last. He was too good to be true, every moment spent with him magical, so much so that she presumed this couldn't last forever. None of her good feelings had lasted forever, none of the people who lightened her life managed to stay. Going by her previous luck, from pure fear of not wanting to lose something so special, she was just waiting for the day he would leave. Whoever he was, he was healing her, he was teaching her to smile, teaching her to laugh, and she wondered what she could teach him.

My dear Rosie,

Unbeknownst to you I took this chance before, many, many years ago. You never received that letter and I'm glad because my feelings since then have changed dramatically. They have intensified with every passing day.
I'll get straight to the point because if I don't say what I have to say now, I fear it will never be said. And I need to say it.
Today I love you more than ever; I want you more than ever. I'm a man of fifty years of age coming to you, feeling like a teenager in love, asking you to give me a chance and love me back.
Rosie Dunne, I love you with all my heart. I have always loved you, even when I was seven years old and I lied about falling asleep on Santa watch, when I was ten years old and didn't invite you to my birthday party, when I was eighteen and had to move away, even on my wedding days, on your wedding day, on christenings, birthdays and when we fought. I loved you through it all. Make me the happiest man on this earth by being with me.
Please reply to me.

All my love,
Alex

Life's kind of like a painting. A really bizarre, abstract painting. You could look at it and think that all it is, is a blur. And you could continue living your life thinking that all it is, is just a blur. But if you really look at it, really see it, focus on it, and use your imagination, life can become so much more. The painting could be of the sea, the sky, people,buildings, a butterfly on a flower, or anything except the blur you were once convinced it was.

Alex: Rosie, I'm serious. Keep the money and say nothing. Give it to charity or something if it bothers you that much. You can make a donation to the Reginald Williams Foundation for Heart Disease if you want.
Rosie: Gag, gag, puke, puke. No thanks. But the charity thing isn't a bad idea. I think I'll do that.
Alex: Which one will you donate it to?
Rosie: The Rosie Dunne Foundation for Women Who Haven't Seen Their Best Friends in America for Ages.
Alex: That's a good charity. Very needy too.
Ahern, Cecelia (2005-02-01). Love, Rosie (p. 275). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition.

Love was one of those feelings that you could never control.

My box bedroom can only fit a bed and a wardrobe but it was my whole world. My only personal space to think and dream, to cry and laugh and wait until I became old enough to do all the things I wasn't allowed to do.

Rosie,

I'm returning to Boston tomorrow but before I go I wanted to write this letter to you. All the thoughts and feelings that have been bubbling up inside me are finally overflowing from this pen and I'm leaving this letter for you so that you don't feel that I'm putting you under any great pressure. I understand that you will need to take your time trying to decide on what I am about to say.
I no what's going on, Rosie. You're my best friend and I can see the sadness in your eyes. I no that Greg isn't away working for the weekend. You never could lie to me; you were always terrible at it. Your eyes betray you time and time again. Don't pretend that everything is perfect because I see it isn't. I see that Greg is a selfish man who has absolutely no idea just how lucky he is and it makes me sick.
He is the luckiest man in the world to have you, Rosie, but he doesn't deserve you and you deserve far better. You deserve someone who loves you with every single beat of his heart, someone who thinks about you constantly, someone who spends every minute of every day just wondering what you're doing, where you are, who you're with and if you're OK. You need someone who can help you reach your dreams and who can protect you from your fears. You need someone who will treat you with respect, love every part of you, especially your flaws. You should be with someone who can make you happy, really happy, dancing-on-air happy. Someone who should have taken the chance

I also believe that when people are going through difficult situations in life ... it causes them to search a lot more. They search life and search their soul. When you're searching, you're suddenly a lot more open to the world around you, to the possibilities, to things you never thought about before. - When you're happy, you don't question the world so much. When you're lost, you question everything. The very reason why it is so essential to human self-discovery

Silent people hold a magic and a knowledge that less contained people lack; that their not saying something means that more important thoughts are going on inside their head. Perhaps their seeming simplicity belies a hidden mosaic of fanciful thoughts.

I wake up in the morning and I feel like I'm missing something. I know that there's something not right, and it takes me a while to remember what it is ... then I remember. My best friend is gone. My only friend. It was silly of me to rely so much on one person.

At first we had so much to catch up on we were talking a hundred words a second, barely even listening to the ends of one another's sentences before moving onto the next. And there was laughing. Lots of laughing. Then the laughing stopped and there was this silence. What the hell was it?
It was like the world stopped turning in that instant. Like everyone around us had disappeared. Like everything at home was forgotten about. It was as if those few minutes on this world were created just for us and all we could do was look at each other. It was like he was seeing my face for the first time. He looked confused but kind of amused. Exactly how I felt. Because I was sitting on the grass with my best friend Alex, and that was my best friend Alex's face and nose and eyes and lips, but they seemed different. So I kissed him. I seized the moment and I kissed him,

Well i think its quite obvious that if you're going to rely on something to carry your wishes, you might as well know where exactly it has come from and where it intends on going

Her mind. It was far stronger than any muscle in her body.

Oh, I talk about things; I drive my husband insane. And I can't tell a lie. Everyone knows. I do this smile thing.

Before even when she lay in bed looking frail and weak she still managed to make me feel safe. Mothers do that don't they? Their very presence can help. And even if I ended up mothering her in the final days, she still was taking care of me. I miss her.

Spring
The season between winter and summer, comprising in the Northern Hemisphere
the months March, April and May.

The ability of something to return to its original shape when it is pressed down, stretched or twisted.

We have a long way to go to
being the perfect couple, we certainly don't live the fairy tale marriage, he
doesn't shower me with rose petals and fly me to Paris on weekends but
when I get my hair cut, he notices. When I dress up to go out at night, he
compliments me. When I cry, he wipes my tears. When I feel lonely, he
makes me feel loved. And who needs Paris, when you can get a hug?

So how long have you been together? Two months?'
'Five.'
'Five? Jesus, Steve, you might as well get married. I should buy a hat.'
'Don't. They give away your Spock ears.'
She laughed. 'This is the Romanian girl?'
'Croatian.'
'Right. She's a painter?'
'Photographer.'
'Right.' She studied him.
'What?' he laughed self-consciously as though he was a twelve-year-old boy who'd just been caught with his first girlfriend.
'Nothing.'
'Come on.'
'I don't know Steve,' she cut into her meat, 'you've changed. You no longer write about Victoria Beckham and you have a girlfriend. I think ... '
'You think what?'
'I don't know, I might be jumping the gun here, but I think there's a possibility you might not be gay after all.'
A chip was hurled at her head.

I would love to write a mystery - a romantic, funny mystery.

I always want my books to reach a positive point in the end.

Write what's up there." Sister Ignatius pointed at her temple. "As a great man once said, this is a secret garden. We've all got one of those."
"Jesus?"
"No, Bruce Springsteen.

I was right. And right wins every time.

Fifteen minutes later, Justin looks at his pint of blood with pride. He doesn't want it to go to some stranger, he almost wants to bring it to the hospital himself, survey the wards and present it to someone special, for it's the first thing to come straight from his heart in a very long time.

Stars are like people,.. just because they appear to emerge from the same point doesn't mean that they do. This is an illusion of perspective created by distance. Not all families manage to hold it together,..Everyone moves in different directions. That we all emerge from the same point is a misconception; to travel in different directions is the very nature of every being and every existing thing.

You can't know everything by looking at me. You can never know by looking at someone.

UnsureOne: But surely if you've been friends since you were six and you're now thirty-two, you've both been married once and are now living with other people in different countries, then if it hasn't happened by now, it won't be happening at all.

Love frees a soul and in the same breath can sometimes suffocate it.

But I can understand now why people read, why they like to get lost in somebody else's life. Sometimes I'll read a sentence and it will make me sit up, jolt me, because it is something that I have recently felt but never said out loud. I want to reach into the page and tell the characters that I understand them, that they're not alone, that I'm not alone, that it's okay to feel like this.

The more time she is spending around people, the more she discovers of her own character failures. In the cottage she was generous, she was kind, she was positive. In this world new sides of her are emerging and she doesn't like it. She thought she was a better person than this.

A sunflower for my sunflower. To brighten the dark October days you hate so much. Plant some more, and be safe in the knowledge a warm and bright summer awaits.

This wash't how people spoke to each other. Where was the pretense that we liked each other, that we were both happy to be there, and we'd meet again?

Shoot for the moon, even if you fail, you'll land among the stars

That is who I am supposed to be, how I am identified and recorded for all time, but I am neither of those things

You know, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.'
'And yet it is still extremely funny.

Some people go through life searching and never find their soul mates. They never do. You and I did, we just happened to have them for a shorter period of time than we hoped for. It's sad, but it's life. So you go to this ball, Holly and you embrace the fact that you had someone whom you loved and who loved you back.

Slow down. Stop trying to do everything now, now, now. Hold up the people behind you for all you care, feel them kicking at your heels but maintain your pace. Don't let anybody dictate your speed.

People, like houses, hold their secrets. Sometimes the secrets inhabit them, and sometimes people inhabit their secrets. They wrap their arms tight to hug them close, twist their lying tongues around the truth. But, like gravy left overnight, the truth is a thin layer of film that forms and covers the surface. The truth prevails, rises above all else. It squirms and wriggles inside, grows until the swollen tongue can't wrap itself around the lie any longer, until the time comes when it needs to spit the words out and send truth flying through the air and crashing into the world like…well, like a frozen dead bird through a living room window. Truth and time always work alongside each other.

Don't ever take for granted when people look in your eyes; you have no idea how important it is to be acknowledged. Even if it's an angry stare, because it's when they ignore you, when they look right through you, that you should start worrying.