People sometimes talk about the power of first impressions, and believe me, there is truth to it.
Ann BrasharesStarting is hard so I really need to give myself permission to do a bad job. I always give myself leave to write total nonsense for as long as I need to release the pressure, because it's really hard to start if you feel like that first sentence you write has to actually mean something.
Ann BrasharesI knew her hair and her coloring and her shapes would be different next time, but the way she wore her body would keep on.
Ann BrasharesYou know what the secret is? It's so simple. We love one another. We're nice to one another. Do you know how rare that is? - Carmen
Ann BrasharesIf you ever meet a guy and you fall in love with him, but because of some weird genetic mutation he doesn't seem to return the feeling?... Wear that dress.
Ann BrasharesThe most haunting thing was not that he didn't love her anymore. She could have accepted that eventually. The most haunting thing was that he did. He loved her from afar. He loved her in a way that was preserved in time, that couldn't be sullied. And she tended it in her careful, curatorial way.
Ann BrasharesIt was their mothers, long ago. Tibby noted with joy that all four of them were wearing jeans.
Ann BrasharesThe word friends doesn't seem to stretch big enough to describe how we feel about each other. We forget where one of us starts and the other one stops.
Ann BrasharesHow is it that a person could be so relieved and so disappointed, both at the same time.
Ann BrasharesPeople said things they didn't mean all the time. Everybody else in the world seemed able to factor it in. But not Lena. Why did she believe the things people said? Why did she cling to them so literally? Why did she think she knew people when she clearly didn't? Why did she imagine that the world didn't change, when it did? Maybe she didn't change. She believed what people said and she stayed the same." (Lena, 211)
Ann BrasharesExactly! We run or we lose ourselves in something, somebody, anything to try and ease our pain.
Ann BrasharesIt was a blessing and also a curse of handwritten letters that unlike email you couldn’t obsessively reread what you’d written after you’d sent it. You couldn’t attempt to un-send it. Once you’d sent it it was gone. It was an object that no longer belonged to you but belonged to your recipient to do with what he would. You tended to remember the feeling of what you’d said more than the words. You gave to object away and left yourself with the memory. That was what it was to give.
Ann BrasharesLove demands everything, they say, but my love demands only this: that no matter what happens or how long it takes, you`ll keep faith in me, you`ll remember who we are, and you`ll never feel despair.
Ann BrasharesI do believe that characters in novels belong to their writers and their readers pretty equally. I've learned a lot of things about the characters I write from people who read about them. Readers expand them in ways I don't think of and take them to places I can't go.
Ann BrasharesLena realized that a fundamental layer of their happiness depended on the four of them being close to one another. Their lives were independent and full. Their friendship was only one aspect of their lives, but it seemed to give meaning to all the others.
Ann BrasharesMarnie loved her better and more honestly than anyone else in the world, with the possible exception of her mother, who loved her intensely if not honestly.
Ann BrasharesRelief is a short-lived emotion, passive and thin. The agony of doubt disappears, leaving little memory of how it really felt. Life aligns behind the new truth.
Ann BrasharesAll the things she planned to feel, the way she planned to look and seem, the appropriate things she planned to say. None of them came to pass.
Ann BrasharesShe had never had a boy talk to her like that. There was no cover of bullshit, no flirtation, no added charm, but his look was searing. He was different from anyone she had known.
Ann BrasharesParents were the only ones obligated to love you; from the rest of the world you had to earn it.
Ann BrasharesAge is not so much a feature of your character, as the spot where you stand for a pretty fleeting time on the arc of your life.
Ann BrasharesYou have been with me from the very first life. You are my first memory every time, the single thread in all of my lives. It`s you who makes me a person.
Ann BrasharesAnd I thought about the color and I realized what blue it was. It was the soft and changeable, essential blue of a well-worn pair of pants. Pants = Love
Ann BrasharesShe was supposed to be putting her life together right now, and all she could seem to do was throw grenades at it.
Ann BrasharesThe happiness at getting what you want is not usually commensurate with the worry leading up to it.
Ann BrasharesMaybe, sometimes, it's easier to be mad at the people you trust because you know they'll always love you, no matter what.
Ann BrasharesShe knew whose love she doubted. It wasn't her parents' and it wasn't her friends: It was her own.
Ann BrasharesThe weather turned. Her skin seemed to grow a million extra pores, and all of them opened to take in the warmth and tenderness of the air. The sun on her face made her want to cry. Into all those millions of open pores came the sunshine, and other feelings as well. In and out. She was porous.
Ann BrasharesIt wasn't just that Lucy wanted to help him. She wasn't as selfless as that. She was madly attracted to him. She was attracted to all of the normal things and the weird things, too, like the back of his neck and his thumbs on the edge of his desk and the way his hair stuck out on one side like a little wing over his ear. She caught his smell once, and it made her dizzy. She couldn't fall asleep that night.
Ann BrasharesShe cared about him too much, and he was a dangerous person to love. He wouldn't love her back.
Ann BrasharesSomeday when you're twenty, maybe, I'll see you again. You'll be this hot soccer star at some great school, with a million guys more interesting than I am chasing you down. And you know what? I'll see you and I'll pray you want me still.
Ann BrasharesHer body was a prison, her mind was a prison. Her memories were a prison. The people she loved. She couldn't get away from the hurt of them. She could leave Eric, walk out of her apartment, walk forever if she liked, but she couldn't escape what really hurt. Tonight even the sky felt like a prison.
Ann Brashares