Book of Quotes

The Best of Me

The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks

- "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.” 

- “Don't take my advice. Or anyone's advice. Trust yourself. For good or for bad, happy or unhappy, it's your life, and what you do with it has always been entirely up to you.” 

- “Life was messy. Always had been and always would be and that was just the way it was, so why bother complaining? You either did something about it or you didn’t, and then you lived with the choice you made.” 

- “Because you aren't just someone I loved back then. You were my best friend, my best self, and I can't imagine giving that up again." He hesitated searching for the right words. "You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same.”

- “There's a lot of magic between you too, ain't no denying that. And magic makes forgettin' hard.” 

- “Change isn't always for the best.”

- “I gave you the best of me, he'd told her once, and with every beat of her son's heart, she knew he'd exactly done that.” 

- “Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible. She'd believed in it once too, back when she was eighteen. But she knew that love was messy, just like life. It took turns that people couldn't foresee or even understand, leaving a long trail of regret in its wake. And almost always, those regrets led to the kinds of what if questions that could never be answered.” 

- “Love, after all, always said more about those who felt it than it did about the ones they loved.” 

- “I want to wake up with you beside me in the mornings. I want to spend my evenings looking at you across the dinner table. I want to share every mundane detail of my day with you and hear every detail of yours. I want to laugh with you and FALL ASLEEP with you in my arms.” 

- “I don't know that I've ever felt as happy as I did that day, but then again, it was always like that when we were together. I never wanted it to end.”

- “The truth is, the world isn't easy for any of us. It never has been and it never will be.” 

- “Amanda: This weekend was wonderful, but it isn't real life. It was more like a honeymoon, and after a while the excitement will wear off. We can tell ourselves it won't happen, we can make all the promises we want, but it's inevitable, and after that you'll never look at me the way you do now. I won't be the woman you dream about, or the girl you used to love. And you won't be my long-lost love, my one true thing anymore, either. You'll be someone my kids despise because you ruined the family, and you'll see me for who I really am. In a few years, I'll simply be a woman pushing fifty with three kids who might or might not hate her, and who might end up hating herself because of all this. And in the end, you'll end up hating her, too.

Dawson: That's not true.

Amanda: But it is. Honeymoons always come to an end.

Dawson: Being together isn't about a honeymoon. It's about the real you and me. I want to wake up with you beside me in the mornings, I want to spend my evenings looking at you across the dinner table. I want to share every mundane detail of my day with you and hear every detail of yours. I want to laugh with you and fall asleep with you in my arms. Because you aren't just someone I loved back then. You were my best friend, my best self, and I can't imagine giving that up again. You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same. I know you're afraid, and I'm afraid, too. But if we let this go, if we pretend none of this ever happened, then I'm not sure we'll ever get another chance. We're still young. We still have time to make this right.

Amanda: We're not that young anymore-

Dawson: But we are. We still have the rest of our lives.

Amanda: I know. That's why I need you to do something for me.

Dawson: Anything.

Amanda: Please...don't ask me to go with you, because if you do, I'll go. Please don't ask me to tell Frank about us, because I'll do that, too. Please don't ask me to give up my responsibilities or break up my family. I love you, and if you love me, too, then you just can't ask me to do these things. Because I don't trust myself enough to say no.” 

- “What the younger generation didn't understand was that the grass was greenest where it's watered..”

- “Everyone makes mistakes, even if some are worse than others. Accidents happen.” 

- “Were all first loves like that? Somehow she doubted it; even now it struck her as being more real than anything she'd ever known. Sometimes it saddened her to think that she'd never experience that kind of feeling again, but then life had a way of stamping out that intensity of passion; she'd learned all too well that love wasn't always enough.” 

- “You're still alive. And that means you'll love and be loved...and in the end, nothing else really matters.” 

- “It takes a long time to grow an old friend. Trust is built one single moment at a time.”

- “Please don't ask me to go with you, because if you do, I'll go. Please don't ask me to tell Frank about us, because i'll do that, too. Please don't ask me to give up my responsibilities or break up my family; I love you, and if you love me, too, then you just can't ask me to do these things. Because I don't trust myself enough to say no.”

- “You'll make mistakes and struggle like everyone, but when you are with the right person, you'll almost perfect joy, like you are the luckiest person who ever lived. And that means you'll love and be loved...and in the end, nothing else really matters.” 

- “Even if I thought he as perfect for her." She turned to face him. "What were we thinking?"

"We weren't," he said. "We were in love.” 

- “She wasn't, nor ever had been, under the illusion that marriage was a relationship characterized by endless bliss and romance. Throw any two people together, add the inevitable ups and downs, give the mixture a vigorous stir, and a few stormy arguments were inevitable, no matter how the couple loved each other.”

- “She'd preferred the uncertainty, if only because it allowed her to remember him the way he used to be. Sometimes, though, she wondered what he felt when he thought of that year they spent together, or if he ever marveled at what they'd shared, or even whether he thought of her at all.” 

- “Marriage is a partnership, not a democracy.”

- “It was a life, she eventually concluded, that had been lived in the middle ground, where contentment and love were found in the smallest details of people's lives. It was a life of dignity and honor, not without sorrows yet fulfilling in a way that few experiences ever were.” 

- “Now it was coming to an end, and it was like he was watching the last flicker of light wink out in the darkness of an endless tunnel.” 

- “Even when we were standing in church and I was getting ready to take my vow I can remember wishing that you were standing there instead of him.” 

- “Dawson, she knew, had SAVED Alan's life- but in the end, he'd saved Jared's as well. And for her that meant...everything. 'I gave you the best of me,' he'd told her once, and with every beat of her son's heart, she knew he'd done exactly that.”