Jenny Han Quotes

You only get one senior year of high school, and I want you to enjoy it. You have a hot boyfriend and you got into a great school. Your birthday is coming up soon. This is the time to just be young and celebrate and enjoy each other!"
"Yes, within reason, of course," Daddy says hastily.

New York is truly a city of baked goods.

I had felt guilty but honored. Genevieve liked me best. We were close,closer than with anyone else. The bracelets were proof. How cheaply I was bought then, with just a bracelet made out of string.

I don't want to have to play catch-up at the end of the day. I need to be a part of his daily life and he needs to be a part of mine.

This is two romantic things in a row, so I figure I should praise him accordingly, because the boy responds well to positive reinforcement.

We are married. We are infinite. Me and Conrad. The first boy I ever slow danced with, ever cried over. Ever loved

We're still here. It's not the future yet. *

What about UNC? Are you even planning on transferring to UVA anymore? When it was William and Mary, it was a given, and now it doesn't seem like it."
I wet my lips. My heart is pounding out of control. "I'm not sure. Maybe? But maybe not. UNC feels different to me."
"Yeah, I know. It's obvious."
"Don't make it sound like a bad thing! Would you rather I go somewhere and be unhappy?"
"Temporarily unhappy," he corrects.
"Peter!

But I loved that house, and I hated to say good-bye. Because, it was more than just a house. It was every summer, every boat ride, every sunset. It was Susannah.

Whoever you should choose to partake in that enjoyment, that is your choice, and choose wisely.

I whispered "I'm not," even though I was. Not scared of him, but scared of everything I felt. Sometimes it was too much. What I felt for him was bigger than the world, than anything.

I look at Peter's profile out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes I still can't believe he's mine. The handsomest boy of all the handsome boys is mine, all mine.
"What?" he says.
"Nothing," I say.

There's nothing crazier than a Christmas tree all lit up.

So what would you have asked for if you won?"
He doesn't hesitate even one beat. "Your peanut butter chocolate cake with my name written in Reese's Pieces.

I put on my sunglasses and start to sing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" from The Sound of Music. "You need someone older and wiser, telling you what to do." I tap him on the nose for emphasis.
"Hey, I'm older than you," he objects.
I run my hand along Peter's cheek and sing, "I am seventeen going on eighteen, I-I-I'll take care of you."
"Promise?" he says.
"Sing it just once for me," I prompt. Peter gives me a look. "Please? I love it when you sing. Your voice is so clean."
He can't help but smile. Peter never met a compliment he didn't smile at. "I don't know the words," he protests.
"Yes you do." I pretend to wave a wand in his face. "Imperio! Wait--do you know what that means?"
"It's…an unforgivable curse?"
"Yes. Very impressive, Peter K. And what does it do?"
"It makes you do things you don't want to do."
"Very good, young wizard. There's hope for you yet. Now sing!"
"You little witch." He looks around to see if anyone is listening, and then he softly sings, "I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do…You are seventeen going on eighteen…I'll depend on you."
I clap my hands in delight. Is there anything more intoxicating than making a boy bend to your will? I roll closer to him and throw my arms around his neck.
"Now you're the one making PDAs!" he says.

For me, it was almost like winter didn't count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers.

Where were you this morning?" Peter demands.
I cross my arms and try to stand tall. It's hard, because I'm so short and he really is tall. "You're one to talk."
Peter huffs, "At least I texted you! I've called you like seventeen times. Why is your phone off?"
"You know we're not allowed to have our phones on at school!"
He huffs, "Lara Jean, I waited in front of your house for twenty minutes."
Yikes. "Well, I'm sorry."
"How'd you get to school? Sanderson?"
"Yes."
Peter exhales. "Listen, if you were pissed I couldn't come over last night, you should've just called and said so instead of the shit you pulled this morning."
In a small voice I say, "Well, what about that shit you pulled last night?"
A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. "Did you just say 'shit'? It sounds really funny coming out of your mouth.

People are gonna disappoint you sometimes. We're flawed creatures. Not one of us is perfect, not even you, and you've gotta let people mess up and then you've gotta forgive them. That's just life.

And Josh was never in a hot tub video with one of his daughters."
"Oh my God, let it go already! My dad's forgotten about that." "Forgotten" might be too strong of a word. Maybe more like he's never brought it up again and he hopefully never will.

You've just gotta hold your head up and act like you don't give a shit

That's when I see him. Peter Kavinsky, walking down the hallway. Like magic. Beautiful, dark-haired Peter. He deserves background music, he looks so good.

It's scary when it's real. When it's not just thinking about a person, but, like, having a real live person in front of you, with, like, expectations. And wants.

I don't think relationships are just physicality. There are ways to show you care about someone, not just using your lips ... Or any other body part.

And after, when it was bedtime, I would sing, "We love you, Conrad, oh yes we do. We love you, Conrad, and we'll be true" into the bathroom mirror with a mouthful of toothpaste. I would sing my eight-nine-ten-year-old heart out. But I wasn't singing to Conrad Birdie. I was singing to my Conrad. Conrad Beck Fisher, the boy of my preteen dreams.

My voice was high and desperate, and I was crying, and I hated that I was crying, but I couldn't help it. I had to keep talking, because this was it. Last chance.

Wistfully, she says, "I wish I'd been in love more than once. I think you should fall in love at least twice in high school." Then she lets out a little sigh and falls asleep. Margot falls asleep like that
one dream sigh and she's off to never-never land, just like that.

I'm Conrad's brother, and this is
our friend," he said. "Do you know where he is?"
Eric opened the door and let us in. "Dude, I have no idea. He just took off. Did Ari call you?"
"Who's Ari?" I asked Jeremiah.
"The RA," he said.
"Ari the RA," I repeated, and the corners of Jeremiah's mouth turned up.

I had been lying to myself, thinking I was free, thinking I had let him go. It didn't matter what he said or did, I'd never let him go. - Belly Conklin

My dad used to say that with everything in life, there's the game-changing moment. The one moment everything else hinges upon, but you hardly ever know it at the time. The three-pointer early on in the second quarter that changes up the whole temp of the game. Wakes people up, brings them back to life. It all goes back to that one moment.

Not for good. Just for now.

I'm clenching my fists so tight my fingernails leave red crescent moons on my skin. I feel a surge, a heat roar up inside me. As bad as I'm hurting now, he'll hurt ten times worse. That's the only thing that keeps me going.

Interplanetary dust, I repeated, liking the feel of the words on my tongue.

For a minute there it was really good. It was really, really good. Wasn't it good? Maybe really, really good things aren't meant to last for too long; maybe that's what makes them all the more sweet, the temporariness of them.

My phone buzzes, and it's a pitiful text from Daddy:

Is it safe to come downstairs? I'm so thirsty.

Coast is clear.

Roger that.

It's a known fact that in life, you can't have everything. In my heart I knew I loved them both, as much as possible to love two people at the same time. Conrad and I were linked, we would always be linked. That wasn't something I could do away with. I knew that now - that love wasn't something you could erase, no matter how hard you tried.

You look…exactly the same."
Gulp. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? "I do?" I get up on my tiptoes. "I think I've grown at least an inch since eighth grade." And my boobs are at least a little bigger. Not much. Not that I want John to notice--I'm just saying.
"No, you look…just like how I remembered you." John Ambrose reaches out, and I think he's trying to hug me but he's only trying to take my bag from me, and there's a brief but strange dance that mortifies me but he doesn't seem to notice. "So thanks for inviting me."
"Thanks for coming."
"Do you want me to take this stuff up for you?"
"Sure," I say.
John takes the bag from me and looks inside. "Oh, wow. All of our old snacks! Why don't you climb up first and I'll pass it to you." So that's what I do: I scramble up the ladder and he climbs up behind me. I'm crouched, arms outstretched, waiting for him to pass me the bag.
But when he gets halfway up the ladder, he stops and looks up at me and says, "You still wear your hair in fancy braids."
I touch my side braid. Of all the things to remember about me. Back then, Margot was the one who braided my hair. "You think it looks fancy?"
"Yeah. Like…expensive bread."
I burst out laughing. "Bread!"
"Yeah. Or…Rapunzel."
I get down on my stomach, wriggle over to the edge, and pretend like I'm letting down my hair for him to climb. He climbs up to the top of the ladder and passes me the bag, which I take, and then he grin

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Never read the comments, Covey! That's the first rule of-"
"If you say 'Fight Club' to me right now, I will hang up on you.

As I head up the stairs, I hear Daddy whisper to her, "Why in the world are you encouraging her to go enjoy her hot boyfriend?"
I almost laugh out loud.
"That's not what I meant!" Trina says.
He makes a harrumph sound. "It sure sounded like it."
"Oh my God, don't take everything so literally, Dan. Besides, her boyfriend is hot.

He will let you down, because that's what he does. That's who he is.

I'm gonna master it just like I mastered the other kind of French." He winks at me.
Kitty and I both scream at him for that. "Don't talk like that in front of my sister!" I yell, shoving him in the chest.
"I was kidding!"
"Also, you're not that good at French kissing." Even though, yeah, he is.
Peter gives me a Who are you kidding? look, and I shrug, because who am I kidding?

Things feel like they'll be forever, but they aren't. Love can go away, or people can, without even meaning to. Nothing is guaranteed.

To love a boy, to have him love you back. It feels miraculous.

Well, I'm definitely wearing a flower crown on my head. I don't care if you say it's played out."
Flatly she says, "You can't wear a flower crown."
"Why not?"
She spits out toothpaste. "You're too old. That's for flower girls."
"No, you aren't envisioning it correctly. I wasn't thinking baby's breath. I was thinking little pink and peach roses, with a lot of greenery. Pale green greenery, you know that kind?"
She shakes her head, resolute. "We aren't fairies in a forest. It's too cutesy.

The next morning, on the way to school in Peter's car, I steal a look at his profile. "I like how you're so smooth," I say. "Like a baby."
"I could grow a beard if I wanted to," he says, touching his chin. "A thick one."
Fondly I say, "No, you couldn't. But maybe one day, when you're a man."
He frowns. "I am a man. I'm eighteen!"
I scoff, "You don't even pack your own lunches. Do you even know how to do laundry?"
"I'm a man in all the ways that count," he boasts, and I roll my eyes.
"What would you do if you were drafted to go to war?" I ask.
"Uh…aren't college kids given a pass on that? Does the draft even still exist?"
I don't know the answers to either of these questions, so I barrel forward. "What would you do if I got pregnant right now?"
"Lara Jean, we're not even having sex. That would be the immaculate conception."
"If we were?" I press.
He groans. "You and your questions!

You're the only boy I've ever kissed kissed. And you were the first. First kiss, first boyfriend, first everything! You got so many of my firsts, and I didn't get any from you."
Sheepishly he says, "Actually that's not entirely true."
I narrow my eyes. "What do you mean?"
"There was never any girl at the beach. I made the whole thing up."
"There was no Angelina with big boobs?"
"I never said she had big boobs!"
"Yes you did. You told Trevor that."
"Okay, fine! Geez. You're missing the whole point, by the way."
"What's the whole point, Peter?"
He clears his throat. "That day in McClaren's basement. You were my first kiss too."
Abruptly I stop laughing. "I was?"
"Yeah."
I stare at him. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"
"I don't know. I guess I forgot. Also it's embarrassing that I made up a girl. Don't tell anybody!"
I'm filled with a glowy kind of wonder. So I was Peter Kavinsky's first kiss. How perfectly wonderful!

Is a known fact that in life, you can't have everything

Jeremiah came over after a while. He sat on the edge of my chair and drank from my thermos of Kool-Aid.
"She's pretty," I said.
"Who? Yolie?" He shrugged. "She's nice. One of my many admirers."
"Ha!"
"So what about you? Cam Cameron, huh? Cam the vegetarian. Cam the straight edge."
I tried not to smile. "So what? I like him."
"He's kind of a dork."
"That's what I like about him. He's…different."
He frowned slightly. "Different from who?"
"I don't know." But I did know. I knew exactly who he was different from.
"You mean he's not a dick like Conrad?"
I laughed, and so did he. "Yeah, exactly. He's nice."
"Just nice, huh?"
"More than nice."
"So you're over him, then? For real?" We both knew the "him" he was talking about.
"Yes," I told him.
"I don't believe you," Jeremiah said, watching me closely-just like when he was trying to figure out what kind of hand I had in Uno.
I took off my sunglasses and looked him in the eye. "It's true. I'm over him."
"We'll see," Jeremiah said, standing up. "My break's over. Are you okay over here? Wait around and I'll drive us home. I can put your bike in the back."
I nodded, and watched him walk back to the lifeguard chair. Jeremiah was a good friend. He'd always been good to me, watched out for me.

I think that time might be different for young people. The minutes longer, stronger, more vibrant.

Us," Peter corrects. "I did it for us." He links our fingers together. "It's you and me, kid.

I sank onto the deck. My heart was pounding a million trillion times a minute. I never felt more alive. Anger, sadness, joy. He made me feel it all. No one else had that kind of effect on me. No one.

Tell me why you guys were laughing."
Clicking into my seat belt, I say, "At least once a week, Ms. Rothschild runs out to her car and spills hot coffee all over herself."
Kitty pipes up, "It's the funniest thing in the world."
Peter snorts. "You guys are sadistic."
"What's sadistic?" Kitty wants to know. She puts her head between us.
I push her back and say, "Put your seat belt on."
Peter puts the car in reverse. "It means seeing other people in pain makes you happy."
"Oh." She repeats it to herself softly. "Sadistic."
"Don't teach her weird stuff," I say.
"I like weird stuff," Kitty protests.
Peter says, "See? The kid likes weird stuff.

You'd rather make up a fantasy version of somebody in your head than be with a real person.

Smirky mouths make you want to kiss them, to smooth them out and kiss the smirkiness away.

UVA has a great law school," I say, and I get a sudden pang, because college is one thing, but law school? That's so far away, and who knows what will happen between now and then? By then we'll be such different people. Thinking of Peter in his twenties, I feel a sense of yearning for the man I many never get to meet. Right now, today, he's still a boy, and I know him better than anybody, but what if it isn't always this way? Already our paths are diverging, a little more every day, the closer we get to August.

Should we play some music for them, when he gets down on one knee?" Peter suggests.
"We didn't discuss that part of the plan, and Daddy's nervous enough as it is," I say. "He can't be thinking about how we're hiding in the bushes waiting to cue up music for them. It'll make him self-conscious."
"Besides, we can add the music in post," Kitty says. "We need to be able to hear the dialogue."
I give her a look. "Katherine, this isn't a movie. This is real life.

I won't be the reason you don't go to him. I won't be your excuse. You've got to see for yourself, or you'l never be able to let him go
Jeremiah Fisher

I was as cool as a cucumber

What would you do if I got pregnant right now?"
"Lara Jean, we're not even having sex. That would be the immaculate conception.

She still has that freshman-year reputation though. She acts like she doesn't care, but I know she does, at least a little.

He says it with all the certainty only a teenage boy can have

I'd never heard of them, but at that moment, it was the best song I'd ever heard. I went out and bought Ten and listened to it on repeat. When I listened to track five, "Black," it was like I was there, in that moment all over again.
After the summer was over, when I got back home, I went to the music store and bought the sheet music and learned to play it on the piano. I thought one day I could accompany Conrad and we could be, like, a band.

Let's take a selfie. We can't, our phones are dead, remember? We'll just have to have the memory in our hearts like the old days.

I want to be that person for him, I want to be the one who keeps him going during this difficult time.

I keep trying to block it out, but it keeps on coming back.

And then he smiled at me, and he was Jeremiah again. Susannah's boy, sunshine and smiles. Her little angel.

Peter and I were hanging out and he told me about what you guys were doing today.

When she leaned forward to mess with the AC vents, her hair brushed against my leg and it was really soft. It made remember all over again. It made it hard to stay pissed and keep her at arm's length the way I'd planned. It was pretty near damn impossible. When I was near her, I just wanted to grab her and hold her and kiss the shit out of her. Maybe then she'd forget about my asshole of a brother.

Wait! he yelled.
I didn't turn around, I walked faster. Then I heard him slam his fist on the hood of his car. I almost stopped.
Maybe I would have if he'd followed me. But he didn't. He got in his car and he left, just like he said he would.

But then maybe i don't want to know. Maybe it;s nicer not knowing.

With his fair hair and milky skin and rosy cheeks, he looks like he could be an English farmer's son. But he's slim, so maybe the sensitive farmer's son who steals away to the barn to read.

The look on his face made me want to die. It confirmed every mean and low thing I'd ever thought about myself, the stuff you hope and pray no one will ever know about you. Because if they knew, they would see the real you, and they would despise you.

You're keeping me going, Lara Jean. Josh looks at me and I feel it all, every memory, every moment we've ever shared.

What in the world? I stare at him, my mouth open. I never said you had an STD!

Dear Peter K,

First of all I refuse to call you Kavinsky. You think you're so cool, going by your last name all of a sudden. Just so you know, Kavinsky sounds like the name of an old man with a long white beard.

Did you know that when you kissed me, I would come to love you? Sometimes I think yes. Definitely yes. You know why? Because you think EVERYONE loves you, Peter. That's what I hate about you. Because everyone does love you. Including me. I did. Not anymore.

Here are all your worst qualities:

You burp and you don't say excuse me. You just assume everyone else will find it charming. And if they don't, who cares, right? Wrong! You do care. You care a lot about what people think of you.

You always take the last piece of pizza. You never ask if anyone else wants it. That's rude.

You're so good at everything. Too good. You could've given other guys a chance to be good, but you never did.

You kissed me for no reason. Even though I knew you liked Gen, and you knew you liked Gen, and Gen knew you liked Gen. But you still did it. Just because you could. I really want to know: Why would you do that to me? My first kiss was supposed to be something special. I've read about it, what it's supposed to feel like00fireworks and lightning bolts and the sound of waves crashing in your ears. I didn't have any of that. Thanks to you it was as unspecial as a kiss could be.

The worst part of it is, that

So much of love is chance. There's something scary and wonderful about that.

I didn't want to make the same mistake my parents made. I didn't want my love to fade away one day like an old scar. I wanted it to burn forever.

I've never known Margot to chicken out before, but I suppose in matters of the heart, there's no predicting how a person will or won't behave.

How crazy, how thrilling that your whole life trajectory can change in just one night.

The clouds in his face clear away instantly, and he is sunny and bright again.

When someone's been gone a long time, at first you save up all the things you want to tell them. You try to keep track of everything in your head. But it's like trying to hold on to a fistful of sand: all the little bits slip out of your hands, and then you're just clutching air and grit.

I wonder, though ... what would it be like? To be that close to a boy and have him see all of you, no holding back.

It's not like in the movies. It's better, because it's real.

Smiling, he said, Did you know that astronomers call them interplanetary dust?

The only thing I'll say is, make your own friends. Peter will be making tons of friends because of lacrosse, and the people he'll be friends with aren't necessarily the kinds of people you'd pick to be friends with. So make your own friends. Find your people. (Margot to Lara Jean)

Susannah continued. If and when I go off slow dancing in the ever after, I don't want to look like I've been stuck in a hospital room my whole life. I at least want to be tan.

Let's go out to the parking lot so you can get some air," he says, putting an arm around me and hustling me out the door and through the restaurant.
We step outside, and I sway on my feet a little. Peter's trying not to smile. "You're drunk."
"I guess I'm a weightlight!"
"Lightweight." He pinches my cheeks.
"Right. Weightlight. I mean, lightweight." Why is that so funny? I can't stop laughing. But then I see the way he is looking at me, with such tenderness, and I stop. I don't feel like laughing anymore. I feel like crying. Look at the way he made my dad's bachelor party so special. Look at all the ways he loves me so well. I have to love him back just as much.

I wished for Conrad on every birthday, every shooting star, every lost eyelash, every penny in a fountain was dedicated to the one I loved.

When you lose someone and it still hurts, that's when you know the love was real.

I do this to feign confidence, because the more I fake it, the more it's supposed to feel true.

What must it be like, to have a boy like you so much he cries for you?

My favourite food is cake.
What kind of cake?
It doesn't matter. All cake.

This is the last time we'll walk up this staircase together, Peter taking the stairs two at a time, me nipping at his heels, huffing and puffing to keep up. It's the last day of school for seniors, the last day of my high school career.
When we reach the top of the staircase, I say, "I feel like taking the stairs two at a time is just bragging. Have you ever noticed that only boys ever take stairs two at a time?"
"Girls probably would if they were as tall."
"Margot's friend Chelsea is five eleven, and I don't think she does it."
"So what are you saying--boys brag more?"
"Probably. Don't you think?"
"Probably," he admits.

That's when I finally got it. I finally understood. It wasn't the thought that counted. It was the actual execution that mattered, the showing up for somebody. The intent behind it wasn't enough. Not for me. Not anymore. It wasn't enough to know that deep down, he loved me. You had to actually say it to somebody, show them you cared. And he just didn't. Not enough.

It occurred to me that I was going to have to make the most of this summer, really make it count, in case there wasn't another one quite like it. I was getting older too. Things couldn't stay the same forever.

Anyway, Ms. Rothschild wasn't my first crush."
"She wasn't?"
"No. You were."
It takes me a few seconds to process this. Even then, all I can manage is, "Huh?"
"When I first moved here, before I knew your true personality." I kick him in the shin for that, and he yelps. "I was twelve, and you were eleven. I let you ride my scooter, remember? That scooter was my pride and joy. I saved up for it for two birthdays. And I let you take it for a ride."
"I thought you were just being generous."
"You crashed it and you got a big scratch on the side," he continues. "Remember that?"
"Yeah, I remember you cried."
"I didn't cry. I was justifiably upset. And that was the end of my little crush.

This is Karma. I'm a bitch. Can you think of anyone who deserves a bitch slap? - Kat

Now sing!"
"You little witch." He looks around to see if anyone is listening, and then he softly sings, "I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do…You are seventeen going on eighteen…I'll depend on you."
I clap my hands in delight. Is there anything more intoxicating than making a boy bend to your will? I roll closer to him and throw my arms around his neck.
"Now you're the one making PDAs!" he says.
"You really do have a pretty voice, Peter. You never should've quit chorus."
"The only reason I ever took chorus is because all the girls were in chorus."
"Well, then forget about joining a chorus at UVA. No a cappella groups either.

"You little witch."" title="Jenny Han Quotes: Now sing!"
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The most believable lies are the ones that are atleast a little bit true.

I wish we could see Hamilton.

There´s no way to protect yourself against heartbreak. That's just a part of life.