Jennifer E. Smith Quotes

It's just one more thing she hadn't considered, and as the idea of it settles over her, she realizes again how entwined their lives are. They're like two trees whose branches have grown together. Even if you pull them out by the trunks, they're still going to be twisted and tangled and nearly impossible to separate at the roots.

They were nearly to Annie's by now, and they made the rest of the trip in silence, Peter frowning out at the road with a look of deep concentration. Emma didn't blame him; after all, she'd insulted his entire system of beliefs. But how were you every supposed to get anywhere if you always stuck to the same route? He spent so much time charting out the world that he barely had a chance to get lost in it.

And like every ending, it was a strange mix of exuberance and sorrow.

How many times can a life be split into a before and an after?

For a long time, it had felt like something way out on the horizon, this moment, something she had to squint to make out, so far away it didn't seem quite real. Until now, when it's suddenly hurtling toward them at an impossible pace, so swiftly that it doesn't matter whether or not Clare is ready for it. There's no preparing at this point. There's only steeling yourself. There's only hoping for the best.

Beneath these was a small silver-edged photo album, and Emma breathed in at the sight of the engraved names: Tommy and Emma. She found herself smiling; she'd known somehow that he would have been a Tommy. And if he'd never had the chance to become any of the other things she'd imagined for him, she was happy that at least he'd had that.

Husbands make the best kinds of heroes. - Lisa JacobsonMarriage is a mosaic you build with your spouse. Millions of tiny moments that create your love story.

Soon enough, his shapeless future would start to mold itself into something more concrete. In the meantime, he was in no hurry.

Maybe the world isn't full of signs so much as it's full of people trying to use whatever evidence they can find to convince themselves of what they hope to be true.

There's a kind of unfamiliar electricity that goes through her at the nearness of him, and she can't help wondering if he feels it, too.

True," he says. "But I'm able to supplement it with my wealth of British intelligence and charm." "Right," Hadley says. "Charm. When do I get to see some of that?" He twists his mouth up at the corners. "Didn't some guy help carry your suitcase earlier?" "Oh yeah," she says, tapping a finger against her chin. "That guy. He was great. I wonder where he went?

Faith - seeing your husband as Jesus sees him.

And with that, they parted like two strangers, setting off in entirely different directions, just as they had in the past, as if it were some kind of bad habit, or maybe just a curse.

As a kid, I couldn't sleep without this ratty stuffed elephant," she explains, not sure what made her think of it now. Maybe it's that she'll be soon seeing her dad again, or maybe it's just the plane keying up beneath her, prompting a childish wish for her old security blanket.
[Oliver]"I'm not sure that counts"
"Clearly you've never met Elephant"
He laughs, "Did you come up with that name all by yourself?"
"Damn right," she says

Exactly. How can you know it makes you happy if you've never experienced it?"
"There are different kinds of happy," she said. "Some kinds don't need any proof.

This house is about two dictionaries away from caving in,' she'd say, 'and you're buying duplicates?

I suppose my biggest fear is never seeing my son again. You don't know what happiness is - what it really means - until it's taken away from you. Then you realize the world will never be as bright as it was.

It was his fault, all of it, and yet her hatred for him was the worst kind of love, a tortured longing, a misguided wish that made her heart hammer in her chest. She couldn't ignore the disjointed sensation that they were now two different pieces of two different puzzles, and nothing in the world could make them fit together again.

From: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 4:24 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: birds of a feather

I couldn't find the rock you were talking about, but I think I'm at the right place. It's pretty much just me and the seagulls, so I should be easy to spot...

(I'm the one without feathers.)

He's looking at her like she's the answer to some sort of riddle.

It's not supposed to reflect reality," she said. "Reality is all well and good. But sometimes you just want to pretend the world is a better place than it actually is. That great and wonderful things can happen. That love triumphs over everything.

It was real," she said, her voice thick. "Wasn't it?" He looked up at her. "What was?" "Us," she said. "Last summer." "Yeah," he said, stepping back again. "It was.

Nothing's all that scary if you can see it coming.

You can't know the answer until you ask the question.

It's like I'd been living on a map my whole life and have only now realized the world is actually a globe.

But it's more than that. It's the same icy dread that fills her each time she starts to imagine it; not just the goodbye, but everything that's to come afterward: the hurt that will surely trail them to opposite coasts, so strong that she can already feel it even now, when he's only inches away. The truth is, she's still waiting for her heart to get on board with the decision her head has made. But she's running out of time.

Parents aren't always right about everything," Hadley says. "Sometimes it just takes a while to figure that out.

And then what?" she asked, though this time the words were quieter, smaller; they were heavy with things unspoken: questions without answers and promises without assurances.
Owen wanted to say this: "And the we'll be together forever."
Or this: "And then we'll live happily ever after."
But he could't. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the empty sky, feeling his once heavy heart go floating off like a balloon.
"And then we'll have to go home," he said eventually, because it was the truth, and after everything they'd been through, it was the only thing he could give her.

If you were to draw a map of the two of them, of where they started out and where they would both end up, the lines would be shooting away from each other like magnets spun around on their poles. And it occurred to Owen that there was something deeply flawed about this, that there should be circles or angels or turns, anything that might make it possible for the two lines to meet again. Instead, they were both headed in the exact opposite directions. The map was as good as a door swinging shut. And the geography of the thing- the geography of them- was completely and hopelessly wrong.

So that means your mom's okay with everything?"
"She will be," Ellie said. "We both will."
Graham nodded. "I'm glad."
"She took it better than expected. If you'd asked me yesterday, I would've guessed I'd be locked in my room tonight."
He waved this away. "I'd have to come to rescue you," he told her. "I might not have a white horse, but I do have a very portly pig."
"How romantic," Ellie said.

Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers.

He's like a song she can't get out of her head. Hard as she tries, the melody of their meeting runs through her mind on an endless loop, each time as surprisingly sweet as the last, like a lullaby, like a hymn, and she doesn't think she could ever get tired of hearing it.

Unlike most people, Peter didn't look to the future for reassurance; he understood that the only thing certain in life is the past. History repeats itself again and again, and every story has been told before. It seemed to him that life could be terribly unoriginal in that way, and the only manner of certainty
the only way to know what might be ahead
was to look back on what had already happened.

The truth is, she's still waiting for her heart to get on board with the decision her heart has made.

You," he says, laughing in spite of himself, "are mad as a hatter.

That light he'd felt when he first saw her
he understood now that it was only a lightbulb. It was quick and easy, full of electricity, but there was something artificial about it. What he wanted was fire: heat and spark and flame.

Is it later yet?

That was the thing about playing with a band, Peter thought. There was always someone else to rescue you when it seemed certain you might fall behind. Only the solo acts left themselves open to those kinds of disasters.

It was exactly as he'd thought it would be, like the first time and the millionth time all at once, like being wide awake, like losing his balance. Only this time, it wasn't just him; this time, they were losing their balance together.

It's like one of your maps. There's never just one way to get somewhere right? There are a bunch of different possibilities. Some of them take you where you want to go, some bring you home, and others go somewhere else entirely. You can be really certain about really uncertain things.

What was she supposed to do, spend Christmas there and Easter here? See her dad every other holiday and one week during the summer, just enough to glimpse his new life in fragments, tiny slivers of a world she had no part in? And all the while missing out on those moments of her mom's life–her mom, who'd done nothing to deserve to spend Christmas alone?

And in August it will be fifty-two years together."
"Wow," Oliver says. "That's amazing."
"I wouldn't call it amazing," the woman says, blinking. "It's easy when you find the right person.

I want my husband to lead me and our family. But in order for him to do that I must be willing to submit to his lead. This does not mean I surrender my opinions or input or wisdom ... it means I surrender my grip of control and selfish ways and trust him!

His were always lighthearted notes from the places they'd visited, scrawled in the limited space on the back of the cards, whereas hers tended to be longer and slightly rambling, unrestricted by the confines of paper. But sitting there with the cursor blinking at him, he wasn't sure what to say. There was something too immediate about an e-mail, the idea that she might get it in mere moments, that just one click of the mouse would make it appear on her screen in an instant, like magic. He realized how much he preferred the safety of a letter, the physicality of it, the distance it had to cross on its way from here to there, which felt honest and somehow more real.

He could be a fan of rock stars or tennis stars or the countless stars in the sky.

And the boy's eyes are searching hers with something like loneliness, like the very last thing he wants is to be left behind right now.

She had a knack for making herself invisible that had always felt like a kind of superpower, something that belonged only to her.

There was no point in waiting for someone who hadn't asked, and there was no point in wishing for something that would never happen.

Not everyone makes it fifty-two years, and if you do, it doesn't matter that you once stood in front of all those people and said that you would. The important part is that you had someone to stick by you all that time. Even when everything sucked.

It wasn't that we forgot. But things like that sometimes get stored away, and there never seems to be a good time to dig them up again. It hurts a lot less to keep them buried. That doesn't make it right, but it's just the way it is.

Love is the strangest, most illogical thing in the world.

Because I was with you," he tells her. "I feel better when I'm with you.

But Hadley understood. It wasn't that she was meant to read them all. Maybe someday she would, but for now, it was more the gesture itself. He was giving her the most important thing he could, the only way he knew how. He was a professor, a lover of stories, and he was building her a library in the same way other men might build their daughters houses.

I'm not sure I'm quite finished saying hello yet.

She wishes that it were true, all of it. That it were more than just a story. That is was their story.

Talking to you is one of my favorite things to do."
"Top 10?" she asked.
"Top 5 at least," he said with a wink.

I love Graham Larkin," she said quietly, her voice full of emotion, and there was a flicker of surprise on his face, and then his expression softened. "You're supposed to shout it," he said, smiling as she tugged on the brim of the cap, forcing him to lower his face, bringing him closer and closer until their lips met. And even though they were in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world, lost in a sea of concrete and wood and metal, she could almost swear he tasted like the ocean.

[Hadley] "I have a fear of mayo, so I've actually gotten pretty good at it over the years."
[Oliver] "You have a fear of mayo?"
She nods again."It's in my top three or four."
"What are the others?" he asks with a grin. "I mean what could possibly be worse than mayonnaise.

He smiled. "All that stuff can be learned," he said. "What you're doing now, that's instinct. And it counts for a lot.

There's a star in the sky that refuses to stay put, and Hadley realizes it's actually a plane, that just last night, that star was them.

The idea that their paths might have easily not crossed leaves her breathless, like a near-miss accident on a highway, and she can't help marveling at the sheer randomness of it all. Like any survivor of chance, she feels a quick rush of thankfulness, part adrenaline and part hope.

They just stood there, regarding each other silently, the room suddenly as quiet as the elevator had been, as comfortable as the kitchen floor, as remote as the roof. Because that's what happened when you were with someone like that: the world shrank to just the right size. It molded itself to fit only the two of you, and nothing more.

From: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, June 8, 2013 1:18 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: what happy looks like
Sunrises over the harbor. Ice cream on a hot day. The sound of the waves down the street. The way my dog curls up next to me on the couch. Evening strolls. Great movies. Thunderstorms. A good cheeseburger. Fridays. Saturdays. Wednesdays, even. Sticking your toes in the water. Pajama pants. Flip-flops. Swimming. Poetry. The absence of smiley faces in an e-mail.

What does it look like to you?

It's not what it isn't.

Well, there's an after-party," he said, leaning back to look at her. "But I'm only stopping by for pictures, and then I've gotta fly to Manila.

It was one thing to count on someone who was dead and gone, to rely on an idea or a memory, a personal with no real influence over her life outside of her imagination. But it was another thing entirely to have someone actually want to be there for you, unfailingly and unquestioningly, someone who listened carefully and told you the truth and waited patiently until you were ready to be there for them, too.

Boring," the director said. "Could we create a little more chemistry?"
Graham gritted his teeth. The guy might be brilliant, but he had an annoying habit of constantly saying "we" when he meant "you", and Graham was pretty sure chemistry wasn't something you could just create anyway; it was either there or it wasn't, and with Olivia, it wasn't. Yet somehow, even though there were two people involved in the kiss, Graham was the only one getting a lecture. Still, he nodded gamely, and set himself up to try again.

People talk about books being an escape, but here on the tube, this one feels more like a lifeline ... The motion of the train makes her head rattle, but her eyes lock on the words the way a figure skater might choose a focal point as she spins, and just like that, she's grounded again.

But there's no such thing as a completely fresh start. Everything new arrives on the heels of something old, and every beginning comes at the cost of an ending.

Sometimes it felt like she was still in the middle of a conversation with him, that they'd only paused for a beat; that this was nothing more than the space between musical notes, the timeout on a playing field, the long, slumbering winter before an inevitable spring.

Above them, one of the blackened television screens brightens, and there's an announcement about the in-flight movie. It's an animated film about a family of ducks, one that Hadley's actually see, and when Oliver groans, shes about to deny the whole thing. But then she twists around in her seat and eyes him critically.
"There's nothing wrong with ducks," she tells him, and he rolls his eyes.
"Talking ducks?"
Hadley grins. "They sing, too."
"Don't tell me," he says. "You've already seen it."
She holds up two fingers. "Twice."
"You do know it's meant for five-year-olds, right?"
"Five- to eight-year-olds, thank you very much."
"And how old are you again?"
"Old enough to appreciate our web-footed friends."
"You," he says, laughing in spite of himself, "are a mad as a hatter."
"Wait a second," Hadley says in mock horror. "Is that a reference to a...cartoon?"
No, genius. It's a reference to a famous work of literature by Lewis Carroll. But once again, I can see how well that American education is working for you.

Once," he says, "I was flying to California on the Fourth of July."
She turns her head, just slightly.
"It was a clear night, and you could see all the little fireworks displays along the way, these tiny flares going off below, one town after another.

I can't believe you're here," she says, her voice soft. "I can't believe you found me."
"You found me first," he says, and when he leans to kiss her, it's slow and sweet and she knows that this will be the one she always remembers. Because while the other two kisses felt like endings, this one is unquestionably a beginning.

Maybe growing up was really nothing more than growing away: from your old life, from your old self, from all those things that kept you tethered to your past.

Hadley falls into step beside her. 'That's it? A good feeling?' 'That's it,' she says. 'I think it's meant to be.' 'I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way, Hadley says with a frown, but Violet only smiles. 'What if it does?

But the crowds are surging around them and her backpack is heavy on her shoulders and the boy's eyes are searching hers with something like loneliness , like the very last thing he wants is to be left behind right now. And that's something Hadley can understand, too, and so after a moment she nods in agreement, and he tips the suitcase forward onto it's wheels, and they begin to walk.

Graham glanced up at the sky, which was pale and pocked with birds, the whole thing like a negative of yesterday's fireworks display.

We keep thinking there are only these two choices: We either grow apart or grow together. But maybe we can just kind of each grow on our own, and see how it goes. And then later, if it's right, we'll come back to each other and start again.

It is what it is ... " he murmured, letting the words trail off at the end.
"I hate that expression," Lucy said, a bit more forcefully than intended. "Nothing is what it is. Things are always changing. They can always get better.

And being here like this, so suddenly close to him is enough to make her lightheaded. It's a feeling like falling.

But it wasn't just the pace that made them feel suspended, like they were doing little more than drifting. It was the odd feeling that they'd been set loose into the world with nothing - and no on - left to reel them back again.

Though it's not as bad until we get up in the air."
"How come?" he asks. "Plenty of wide open spaces up there."
"But no escape route."
"Ah," he says. "So you're looking for an escape route."
Hadley nods. "Always."
"Figures," he says, sighing dramatically. "I get that from girls a lot.

He'd mistaken loneliness for independence, and had become so good at closing himself off from the world that it took an e-mail from Ellie to remind him what it was like to have a real conversation.

It's because you're thinking big picture. That'll knock the wind out of you every time. You have to take it in pieces.

Numbers are shifty things. They rarely tell the whole story.

The handyman who'd helped rescue them was sitting at the front desk, his arm propped on his toolbox as he listened to a handheld radio, and he waved when he saw them. "How were the stairs?"
Better than the elevator," Owen said. "Any news?"
"No power until tomorrow at the earliest," he reported, his mustache twitching. "They're saying it goes all the way up into Canada." He paused for a moment, then shook his head. "It must be quite a sight from up in space.

They were just so different, and she kept wondering if he'd realize this was a mistake at some point; if, once she stopped being the novelty, the random American, he would recognize who she really was -- a nerdy bookworm, a happy loner -- and move on.

Perhaps if there were more time, or if time were more malleable; if she could be both places at once, live parallel lives

And though it seemed odd that she still didn't know his name, something kept her from asking. Those two little words, she knew, would inevitably set off a chain reaction: first Google, then Facebook, then Twitter, and on and on, mining the twists and turns of the internet until all the mystery had been wrung out of the thing.

It makes no sense," she said, her voice cracking a little. "You and me." "I know that," he said, reaching out and taking her hand, and the feel of his skin on hers nearly knocked the breath right out of her. "Sort of. But sometimes I think ... " "What?" "That maybe it's the only thing that makes sense.

He wondered if there was a rule that you had to love all of someone, or whether you could pick out only the best parts, like piling your plate full of desserts at a buffet table and leaving the vegetables to go cold in their little metal bins.

But there's something about him that makes her heart quicken in the way it does when she's surprised. And she supposes that might just be it: the surprises of it all.

How are you supposed to find what you're looking for if you're not convinced it's even out there?

And here's the amazing thing: Now it was.

It had always been the two of them through everything -every adventure and every expedition- and now there was this awful distance between them, and she tried not to think about all the stories they were missing out on, all the litle moments and bigger milestones that had happened over the past few weeks without the other knowing

So," the woman asks, digging through her purse and emerging with a pair of foam earplugs, "how did you two meet?"
They exchange a quick glance.
"Believe it or not," Oliver says, "it was in an airport."
"Oh how wonderful!" she exclaims, looking positively delighted. "And how did it happen?"
"Well" he begins, sitting up a bit taller, "I was being quite gallant, actually, and offered to help her with her suitcase. And then we started talking and one thing lead to another ... "
Hadley grins "And he's been carrying my suitcase ever since."
"It's what an true gentlemen would do," Oliver says with an exaggerated modesty.
"Especially the really gallant ones.

That's the thing about flying: You could talk to someone for hours and never even know his name, share your deepest secrets and then never see them again.

Yeah, but what if we got separated?
Why would we?
But just, what if?
We won't

There was so much I was trying not to say. I guess it was easier to talk about nothing than about how much I missed you.

By the time they finished eating, it was fully dark and a little bit chilly, the kind of night that's caught somewhere between summer and fall, old and new.