Sarah Addison Allen Quotes

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

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.

Embarrassment felt a lot like eating chili peppers. It burned in the back of your throat and there was nothing you could do to make it go away. You just had to take it, suffer from it, until it eased off.

You're dying with the way things are," Della Lee said harshly, causing Josey to lower the handful of popcorn she was about to put in her mouth. "You're going to lose yourself in this, Josey. It's going to happen if you don't change. I know. I lost myself trying to find happiness in things that didn't love me back.

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.

He didn't think he belonged here, so she was making him face some uncomfortable facts. People adapt. People change. You can grow where you're planted.

I'll give you one day at a time, Claire. But remember, I'm thousands of days ahead already.

If anyone had been paying attention to the signs, they would have realized that air turns white when things are about to change, that paper cuts mean there's more to what's written on the page than meets the eye, and that birds are always out to protect you from things you don't see.

She looked like autumn, when leaves turned and fruit ripened.

I should let people in. If they leave, they leave. If I break, I break. It happens to everyone. Right?

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.

You'd be surprised how easy some things can be, things you never thought you'd do, when you take self-respect out of the equation.

Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.

After you finish a book, the story still goes on in your mind. You can never change the beginning. But you can always change the end.

It was early evening when they walked outside, the sky the color of pink lemonade.

She'd always known he didn't love her. But it was easier to bear when he didn't know she loved him. That way they were even. Now he knew he had all the power.

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

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

There was an art to the male posterior. That's all there was to it.

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.

No one should ever compromise the dignity of another human being.

To Fred, those years seemed to pass like quickly skimming a book and then finding the ending wasn't what he expected. He wished he'd paid more attention to the story.

If we measured life in the things that almost happened, we wouldn't get anywhere.

The word lethologica describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.

She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.

Not every man was sorry when he hurt a woman.

He'd always been fascinated by her, drawn to her the way curious people are always drawn to things they don't understand.

Children always know when their mothers are crazy - they just never admit it, not out loud, to anyone.

Every life needs a little space. It leaves room for good things to enter it.

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

It had always fascinated him that she'd consumed so many words, that her head was full of stories, told a thousand different ways.

...a sad sort of vulnerability was wafting from her, making the night smell like maple syrup.

Magic is what we invent when we want something we think we cant have.

Why were girls in such a hurry to grow up? Agatha would never understand. Childhood was magical. Leaving it behind was a magnificent loss.

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

It was like the way you wanted sunshine on Saturdays, or pancakes for breakfast. They just made you feel good.

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

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

The words were strung in the air like garland. She could almost see them.

Adolescence is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you.

Everything had felt so precarious since her mother's death, like she was walking on a bridge made of paper.

He had a smug smile on his lips like he knew, even in his sleep, that women all around him were dying from love because he'd taken their hearts and hidden them where they'd never find them.

He reached out and pushed some hair behind her ears. The gesture was tender, but it hit her with an unexpected force, like when you're in the ocean and a wave hits you. It's so soft and coll that it surprised you that it has such strength.

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

But relying on one person for your every need is so dangerous. One set of hands isn't enough to keep you from falling.

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.

Crystalline swirls of sugar and flour still lingered in the air like kite tails.