Sarah Addison Allen Quotes

The thought of hovering above the earth, weightless in a lilac sky, appealed to her, in the same way imaginary friends appealed to her, or talking alligators.

Don't let anyone see your vulnerable spots. Once they knew how to hurt you, they would do it again and again.

Mary had become anxious in her old age, and she hated being away from the house for long. She'd hold the girls' hands tightly and calm herself by telling them what she would make for first frost that year- pork tenderloins with nasturtiums, dill potatoes, pumpkin bread, chicory coffee. And the cupcakes, of course, with all different frostings, because what was first frost without frosting? Claire had loved it all, but Sydney had only listened when their grandmother talked of frosting. Caramel, rosewater-pistachio, chocolate almond.

She did know that it's remarkably easy to fall in love with someone who is already in love with you. It's a little like falling in love with yourself.

The Waverley sisters had married men as steadfast and normal as the women were mercurial and strange.

Motherhood, true motherhood, was what went on when no one else could see.

I lost myself trying to find happiness in things that didn't love me back.

When you know something's wrong, but you don't know exactly what it is, the air around you changes.

She'd been a beautiful woman in her day, delicate and trim, blue-eyed and fair-haired. There was a certain power beautiful mothers held over there less beautiful daughters. Even at seventy-four, with a limp from a hip replacement, Margaret could still enter a room and fill it like perfume. Josey could never do that. The closest she ever came was the attention she used to receive when she pitched legendary fits in public when she was young. But that was making people look at her for all the wrong reasons.

Sometimes you weren't supposed to share pain. Sometimes it was best just to deal with it alone.

We have history, you and I. You just don't know it yet.

There aren't a finite number of things that can make you happy.

Some of the best people i know are fools', Evanelle said. 'The strongest people I know.

Safe is just another word for scared.

Like all fairy tales, the beginning is always beautiful, a ruse to draw you into something you are anticipating.

Things happened the way they were supposed to, and it was no use trying to predict what was going to come next. People liked to think otherwise, but what you thought had no practical influence on what eventually happened. You can't think yourself well. You can't make yourself fall out of love.

There was a long-ago saying that was still heard from time to time in town: Waverleys know where to find the truth, they just can't stomach it. Bay

This was an adventure. She was alive and awake and in charge, and Devin needed to see that. A kaleidoscope of landscapes passed like a slide show- farmland, sandy pine barrens, cypress ponds. This is what Kate's mother had referred to as the "Wet South, as they'd made their way to Lost Lake the last time. She'd made it sound unexplored and exotic, something untoward and almost fearful.

The outside world might have finally turned into autumn, but inside the Waverley house it still smelled of summer. It was lemon verbena day, so the house was filled with a sweet-tart that conjured images of picnic blankets and white clouds like true-love hearts.

Mom! Look. This one is my favorite," Devin said, pulling out a faded pink dress with a red plaid sash. The crinoline petticoat underneath was so old and stiff it made snapping sounds, like beads or fire embers. She dropped the dress over her head, over her clothes. It brushed the floor. "When I'm old enough for it to fit me, I'm going to wear it with purple shoes," she said.
"A bold choice," Kate said as Devin dove back into the trunk. The attic in Kate's mother's house had always fascinated Devin with its promise of hidden treasures. When Kate's mother had been alive, she had let Devin eat Baby Ruth candy bars and drink grape soda and play in this old trunk full of dresses that generations of Morris women had worn to try entice rich men to marry them. Most of the clothes had belonged to Kate's grandmother Marilee, a renowned beauty who, like all the rest, had fallen in love with a poor man instead.

Stability was overrated. Crises and adventures, on the other hand, could actually teach you something.

To this day she could make tap water boil just by kissing him.

Lisette was born without the ability to speak, but she'd been brazen with written words as a child, substituting a sharp tongue for a poison pen.

The morning sun on her white hair and pale face made her seem almost translucent. She'd been a beautiful woman in her day, with wide eyes, high cheekbones, and a long, thin nose. Sometimes you could still catch sight of that beauty, and it was like looking through enchanted glass.

Maybe you don't fall in love. Maybe you jump.

History is a loop. We're exactly where they stood twenty years ago. What's theirs is ours, what's ours will become theirs.

He wasn't used to people saying no, and Eby felt sorry for him, the way she'd always felt sorry for those who had everything and it still wasn't enough.

To think, after all this time, after all the searching and all the waiting, after all the regret and the time she'd spent away, she came back to find that happiness was right where she's left it.
On a football field in Mullaby, North Carolina.
Waiting for her.

The apple tree in the background, just barely visible, was stretching a single limb out to her, as if wanting to be in the photo with her.

She opened her hand in front of me, but nothing was there. But then she blew on the palm of her hand and sparkles of ice flew into the air and landed on my face. It was so soft and cool.

Love always hurts. That's one thing I know you know. But it's worth it. That's what you don't know. Yet.

Willa had always thought her grandmother was sweet, but she'd been one of those people with invisible thorns, preventing others from getting too close. Georgie Jackson had been a nervous, watchful person, not at all frivolous, which Willa had found extraordinary, considering how rich the Jacksons had once been. But after her family had lost their money, Georgie had worked as a maid for various wealthy families in town until she was well into her seventies.

She'd wanted the attention, she'd wanted more people to know her gift, as if the more people who knew, the more real it would be.

Waverleys know where to find the truth, they just can't stomach it.

It took me a long time to realize this: We get to choose what defines us.

And everyone still swore the rose candies made them think of their first loves.

People always say life is too short for regrets. But the truth is, it's too long.

My favorite books are the ones that make me smile for hours after reading them. I want that for my readers, for the sweetness to linger. Sort of like chocolate, but without the calories.

But she couldn't start this, because then it would end. Stories like this always ended. She couldn't take this pleasure, because she would spend the rest of her life missing it, hurting from it.

She reminds me of Rapunzel. You know, like in the fairytale. The only time she leaves that house is to take her mother to her few social activities, or to run errands for her."
No, Adam thought. That's not the only time she leaves.
He turned to look at her house, more curious than he wanted to be.
Rapunzel had been sneaking out of the castle.

Maybe you don't have to be led into the future. Maybe you can pick your own path. Maybe you don't fall in love. Maybe you jump. Maybe, just maybe, it's all a choice.

I needed to stop being what everyone thought I was.

Her grandmother used to tell her that a pink sky meant someone in the distance had just fallen in love ...

It was lemon verbena day, so the house was filled with a sweet-tart scent that conjured images of picnic blankets and white clouds shaped like true-love hearts.

There was a strange but universal understanding among women. On some level all women knew, they all understood, the fear of being outnumbered, of being helpless. It throbbed in their chests when they thought about the times they left stores and were followed. The knocks on their car windows as they were sitting alone at red lights, and strangers asking for rides. Having too much to drink and losing their ability to be forceful enough to just say no. Smiling at strange men coming on to them, not wanting to hurt their feelings, not wanting to make a scene. All women remembered these things, even if they had never happened to them personally. It was a part of their collective unconscious.

She was still water in his hands. He didn't know how to hold on.

Don't you wish you could take a single childhood memory and blow it up into a bubble and live inside it forever?

After awhile, all the men wanted his opinion, and all the girls were in love with him. He made certain of it. Because he knew the best way to get what he wanted was to break down what made us strongest. And our friendships were what made us strong. He changed all that.

She seethed like water the second before it rolls to a boil.

Why don't you take off your shirt?" he finally asked. "I bet you say that to all the girls.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

Back then she used to hide from her mother in the secret space just to worry her, but now she stocked it with magazines, paperback romances and sweets. Lots and lots of sweets. Moonpies and pecan rolls, Chick-O-Sticks and Cow Tales, Caramel Creams and Squirrel Nut Zippers, Red Hots and Bit-O-Honey, boxes upon boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes. The space had a comforting smell to it, like Halloween, like sugar and chocolate and crisp plastic wrappers.

Always make your expectations known, she used to say. That way you never get hurt.

Living down your own past was hard enough. You shouldn't have to live down someone else's.

Soy milk and two sugars." Just this past week, Rachel had become convinced that how people took their coffee gave some secret insight into their characters. Were people who took their coffee black unyielding? Did people who liked their coffee with milk and no sugar have mother issues? She had a notebook behind the coffee counter in which she wrote her findings. Willa decided to keep her on her toes by making up a different request every day.
Rachel walked back to the coffee bar to write that down in her notebook. "Hmm, interesting," she said seriously, as if it made all the sense in the world, as if she'd finally figured Willa out.
"You don't believe in ghosts, but you do believe that how I take my coffee says something about my personality?"
"That's superstition. This is science.

There's an old hymn called 'How Can I Keep from Singing?' That's what writing feels like to me. I have to write. It's intrinsic to who I am. So it was a natural choice for me to try to pursue writing as a career. Truthfully, though, I still daydream about how fun it would be to ride on the back of a garbage truck.

Eby wanted to say so much to her. She wanted to say that waking up is the most important part of grieving, that so many women in their family failed to do it, and she was proud of Kate for fighting her way back. But Eby didn't say anything. She could fix a lot of things, but family wasn't one of them. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to come to terms with.

When your cup is empty, you do not mourn what is gone. Because if you do, you will miss the opportunity to fill it again.

But a man like that deserved to never be thought of again. Why couldn't he have just stayed buried? No good had come of this.

She knew that who you are is a stone set deep inside you. You can spend all your life trying to dig that stone out, or you can build around it. Your choice. Sitting there in bed, she thought about

Watching them, she realized they made so much sense together. Every look, every touch, was a reassurance, almost electric, as if they were shocking each other with every contact.

Paxton walked over to the box and opened it, still feeling a little of that thrill she used to have at the thought of party dresses, the fantasy of it all. She smiled when she saw the shimmering pink material, the sparkling jewels at the neckline.

When you are abandoned as a child, you are never able to forget that people are capable of leaving, even if they never do.

Those stories were the sound track of my summer with you.

Your peers when you're a teenager will always be the keepers of your embarrassment and regret. It was one of life's great injustices, that you can move on and be accomplished and happy, but the moment you see someone from high school you immediately become the person you were then, not the person you are now.

Always make your needs and expectations known,she used to say. That way no one gets hurt.

When she looked in the mirror these days, she saw someone she didn't recognize ... She saw an old woman trying to be beautiful, her skin dry and her wrinkles like cracks. She looked like a very well-dressed winter apple.

After tidying the kitchen, Claire walked upstairs and found Tyler in the hallway, lost in thought as he rearranged his paintings hanging there, a series he called "Claire's World," which he'd painted when they first married. She wasn't actually in the paintings, he wasn't a portrait painter, but they were beautiful studies in light and color- leafy greens, black lines that looked like lettering, bright apple-red dots. If she stared at them long enough, sometimes she thought she could make out a figure, crouched among the greens. Claire wondered, not for the first time, what she did to deserve this man, her husband.

So you stay, you don't tell anyone, is that it?"
"Sure," Della Lee said easily.
"That's blackmail."
"Add it to my list of sins."
"I don't think there's room left on that list," Josey said as she took a dress from its hanger. Then she closed the closet door on Della Lee.

When you're happy for yourself, it fills you. When you're happy for someone else, it pours over.

He claimed the waters must have, indeed, been healing, because look how hard his journey was on him to get there, and how easy it was on him to get home.

She would read a book hundreds of times, carrying it with her until the pages were torn and the covers were falling off, then she'd paste the covers to the ceiling where she could stare at them, like remembering a good dream.

Don't give up because of the dark days. Succeed in spite of them. The dark days make the bright days seem even brighter. So bright you can hardly stand it.

This past year, sometimes I would get up in the mornings and actually look forward to going to school because I knew I would see you. I would wonder what you were going to wear. I loved lunch because I could sit in the cafeteria and look out the window and see you up there in the bleachers.

The next morning dawned bright and sweet, like ribbon candy.

Once he'd asked, "Don't you want to read? There are hundreds of books in the sitting room."
She had laughed and said, "I've read them all. I want to remember them the way they were. If I read them now, the endings will have changed.

He'd always liked the way Josey smelled. He thought about how she was wearing her curly black hair down that night, how she was in that tight sweater he'd seen her in so many times, the red so striking against her pale skin. And he wasn't the only man here who had noticed.

He was the only person in the world she was tongue-tied around, and yet the only person she really wanted to talk to.

She didn't realize she was staring at him until he turned to stare back. The air around them suddenly changed. She was so close she could smell him, a hint of cologne, and she could see the perspiration collected in the indentation at the base of his throat. His eyes went to her lips. Something warm and desperate filled her body. She'd never felt anything like it. It felt like the entire universe would cease to exist if something didn't happen right then.

She knew him in that way you can only know a person as a child. Like if you cracked away the adult shell, you'd find that child, happily sitting inside, smiling at you.

That was high school in a nutshell. No one was where they belonged. They were all on their way to someplace else.

She couldn't see the tree, but she knew it was there. That always gave her a small measure of comfort.

The trick to getting through life, she'd told him, is not to resent it when it isn't exactly how you think it should be.

For stubborn souls like Lisette, death was easier than the courage it took to actually change your life.

Girls like us, when we love, it takes everything we have.

Whenever I would get too nosy as a child, my grandmother would say, When you learn someone else's secret, your own secrets aren't safe. Dig up one, release them all.

When Josey woke up and saw the feathery frost on her windowpane, she smiled. Finally, it was cold enough to wear long coats and tights. It was cold enough for scarves and shirts worn in layers, like camouflage. It was cold enough for her lucky red cardigan, which she swore had a power of its own. She loved this time of year. Summer was tedious with the light dresses she pretended to be comfortable in while secretly sure she looked like a loaf of white bread wearing a belt. The cold was such a relief.

Claire's skin suddenly felt prickly. It came so easily to Sydney, and Claire used to hate her so much for it. Look how naturally she talked with Tyler, made it seem like toit was no big deal to fotm connections when they were so easily broken.

The right men make all the difference in the world. But the wrong men do, too.

I told you. I want to talk to you." "So talk," she said. "Not like this." His hand wrapped around her arm and made her stop. "I've kept my distance since you've been back, because I thought that's what you wanted. When I heard you were moving back to Mullaby, I had ... hope. But the moment i saw you again, and you gave me a look that could kill, I knew it was still too soon.

Devin was the most gorgeous, unique creature Kate had ever known. She'd come out of the womb an individual, refusing to be defined by anyone. She didn't even look like anyone on either side of their families. Matt's family was so proud of their dark hair, a blue-black that had been the envy of generations, the way it caught the sun like a spiderweb. From Kate's own side of the family, there was a gene that made their eyes so green that they could trick people into thinking that even the most unattractive Morris woman was pretty. And yet here was Devin, with fine cotton-yellow hair and light blue eyes, the left of which was a lazy eye. She'd had to wear an eye patch when she was three. And she'd loved it. She loved her knotted yellow hair. She loved wearing stripes with polka dots, and tutus, and pink and green socks with orange patent-leather shoes. Devin could care less what other people thought about her.

Coffee, she'd discovered, was tied to all sorts of memories, different for each person. Sunday mornings, friendly get-togethers, a favorite grandfather long since gone, the AA meeting that saved their life. Coffee meant something to people. Most found their lives were miserable without it. Coffee was a lot like love that way. And because Rachel believed in love, she believed in coffee, too.

PAXTON OSGOOD'S FUTURE HUSBAND
Will be kind
Will be funny
Will be accepting
Will be be able to cook
Will be a good kisser
Will always surprise me
Will argue with me and sometimes let me win,
but not always
Will be mysterious
Will always love me, no matter what I look like
Mama will not like him, which means
I will love him even more

There was a certain power beautiful mothers held over their less beautiful daughters.

Josey was a different person than she was even a month ago. She reminded Margaret so much now of Marco's cousins from Italy. They'd shown up in Bald Slope without warning once, early in Marco and Margaret's wedding. They were magical women, with their long curly hair, large breasts and movements like dancers. Their bracelets sounded like wind chimes when they walked. Margaret had been fascinated by them. Marco had ushered them out within hours of their arrival and taken them to Asheville for their stay. He was ashamed of them, their earthiness and sensuality, of their provincial ways. No one from Italy ever visited again.

You're suddenly quiet."
He watched her swallow. "I don't understand how you do this to me." He leaned in slightly. His hair smelled like something flowery, like the fading scent of lilacs. "Do what?" "Your touch." "I'm not touching you, Emily." She turned around. "That's just it. It feels like you are. How do you do that? It's like you have something I can't see, that reaches out. It doesn't make sense." That startled him. She felt it. No one had ever felt it before.

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If they just carried on like always, everything would be ok.

My favorite quote for First Frost is, They give their hearts away too easily and get distracted by silver-eyed strangers.

Willa said happiness means taking risks. And if you're not a little scared, you're not doing it right."
That made him laugh, "If that's the case, we have nothing to worry about," he said, leaning forward to kiss her. "Let's be terrified together again.

Something was about to happen.