Nicholas Sparks

"Believe me, I'm no romantic, and while I've heard all about love at first sight, I've never believed in it, and I still don't. But even so, there was something there, something recognizably real, and I couldn't look away."

"You're a hero and a gentleman, you're kind and honest, but more than that, you're the first man I ever truly loved. And no matter what the future brings, you always will be, and I know that my life is better for it."

"The first thing I did when I sold my book was buy a new wedding ring for my wife and asked her to marry me all over again."

"I have a great wife and it's very easy to be romantic because it makes her happy and then my life is so much better when she's happy."

"None of my characters are rich or famous, and the situations they find themselves in could happen to anyone."

"My wife, my family, my friends - they've all taught me things about love and what that emotion really means. In a nutshell, loving someone is about giving, not receiving."

"I don't know that love changes. People change. Circumstances change."

"Its easy to fall for someone that will find humor in every situation."

"One of my father's RULES FOR LIFE was to marry a woman who was smarter than you. "I did this," he would say to me, "and you should do it, too. I say, why do all the thinking?"

"There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well."

"“That's why I loved being with you. We could do the simplest things, like toss starfish into the ocean and share a burger and talk and even then I knew that I was fortunate. Because you were the first guy who wasn't constantly trying to impress me. You accepted who you were, but more than that, you accepted me for me. And nothing else mattered-- not my family or your family or anyone else in the world. It was just us.”"

"“Love doesn't mean anything if you're not willing to make a commitment, and you have to think not only about what you want, but about what he wants. Not just now, but in the future.”"

"The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they always have been and will be. Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we've found each other. And maybe each time, we've been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both a goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come."

"All of sudden, this shooting star went by, and all I could think was that they were listening to us somehow."

"It's the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee."

"How far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?"

"I dont think that we're meant to understand it all the time. I think that sometimes we just have to have faith."

"You have no idea how much the last few days have meant to me, I began. Meeting you has been the best thing that's ever happened to me. I hesitated, know that if I stopped now, I'd never be able to say it to anyone. I love you, I whispered. Did you ever imagine something like this? she wondered aloud. You and me , I mean? No, I said. It scares me a little. My stomach flipped, and all at once, I was sure she didnt feel the same way. You dont have to say it back to me, I began. That's not why I said it-- I know, she interrupted. You don't understand. I wasnt scared because you told me. I got scared because I wanted to say it, too: I love you, John."

"Poetry, she thought, wasn't written to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch without understanding."

"Yes, I decided, a man can truly change. The events of the past year have taught me much about myself, and a few universal truths. I learned, for instance, that while wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it's often much more difficult to heal them. Yet the process of healing those wounds provided the richest experience of my life, leading me to believe that while I've often overestimated what I could accomplish in a day, I had underestimated what I could do in a year. But most of all, I learned that it's possible for two people to fall in love all over again, even when there's been a lifetime of disappointment between them."