"In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that."

"True love is rare, and it's the only thing that gives life real meaning."

"I realize that I don't know where to start. Not because I'm unsure of my story, but because I'm not sure why I feel compelled to tell it in the first place. What can be achieved by unearthing the past?"

"EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES, EVEN THE PERSONS WE LOVE."

"A typical agent in New York gets 400 query letters a month. Of those, they might ask to read 3-4 manuscripts, and of those, they might ask to represent 1."

"Things changed, people changed, and the world went rolling along right outside the window."

"It all comes down to who is by your side and who is willing to stand up for love even when it seems impossible."

"Above all, a query letter is a sales pitch and it is the single most important page an unpublished writer will ever write. It's the first impression and will either open the door or close it. It's that important, so don't mess it up. Mine took 17 drafts and two weeks to write."

"She was my dream. She made me who I am, and holding her in my arms was more natural to me than my own heartbeat. I think about her all the time. Even now, when I'm sitting here, I think about her. There could never have been another."

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

"Change not only was inevitable, but usually brought its own rewards."

"Yet I have come to believe that while the past is unchangeable, our perceptions of is are malleable..."

"So, it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? Thirty years from now, forty years from now? What's it look like? If it's with him- go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again, if I thought that's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out."

"No matter where it is in the sky... No matter where you are in the world... the moon is never bigger than your thumb. -John."

"Three weeks ago, he'd seen hail fall from the sky, onlyto be followed minutes later by a spectacular rainbow that seemed to frame the azalea bushes. The colors, so vivid they seemed almost alive, made him think that nature sometimes sends us signs, that it's important to remember that joy can always follow despair. But a moment later, the rainbow had vanished and the hail returned, and he realized that joy was sometimes only an illusion."

"If you're a bird... I'm a bird..."

"He was a wonderful man. And when a man is that special, you know it sooner than you think possible. You recognize it instinctively, and you're certain that no matter what happens, there will never be another one like him."

"Never forget that God is your friend. And like all friends, He longs to hear what's been happening in your life. Good or bad, whether it's been full of sorrow or anger, or even when you're questioning why terrible things have to happen."

"God, he suddenly understood, was love in its purest form, and in these last months with his children, he had felt His touch as surely as he had heard the music spilling from Ronnie's hands."

"That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered."

"Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life. Work's important, family's important, but without excitement, you have nothing. You're cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what's coming."

"I suppose more than anything, it's the way of life in this part of the country that influences my writing. In Eastern North Carolina, with the exception of Wilmington, most people live in small towns."

"Halfway down the aisle, Jamie suddenly seemed to tire, and they stopped while she caught her breath...It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember."

"Everyone has a past, but that's just it--it's in the past. You can learn from it, but you can't change it."

"Always stick to the story. It was when you started backtracking that people got in trouble. Interrogation 101."

"I'd love to, she finally said,"on one condition."I steadied myself, hoping it wasn't something too awful."Yes?""You have to promise that you won't fall in love with me."I knew she was kidding me by the way she laughed, and I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.Sometimes, I had to admit, Jamie had a pretty good sense of humor.I smiled and gave her my word."

"So tel me, Mr. Science Journalist, do you still doubt the existence of miracles?""I just told you. You're my miracle."

"If you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it."

"A living poem" had always been the words that came to mind when he tried to describe her to others."

"Even when we were standing in the church and I was getting ready to take my vows, I can remember wishing that you were standing there, instead of him. Because I not only still loved you, but loved you beyond measure."

"They wouldn't understand, and I don't feel the need to explain, simply because I know in my heart how real it was. When I think of you, I can't help smiling, knowing that you've completed me somehow. I love you, not just for now, but for always, and I dream of the day that you'll take me in your arms again."

"For it is one thing to declare one's love for someone and quite another to accept that loving that person requires sacrificing one's dreams."

"Jill had three basic statements about life,1. It is your life, usually with some added social commentary.2. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.3. No one ever said that life was fair."

"God's voice is usually nothing more than a whisper, and you have to listen very carefully to hear it. But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings as loud as a church bell."

"The saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there's nothing to make it last."

"I write 2,000 words a day when I write. It sometimes takes three hours, it sometimes takes five hours."

"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."

"She had been proud of his decision to serve his country, her heart bursting with love and admiration the first time she saw him outfitted in his dress blues."

"Spreading the news is your duty as a Christian, and there are many ways to do this."

"Youth offers the promise of happiness, but life offers the realities of grief."

"You are the answer to every prayer I've offered. You are a song, a dream, a whisper, and I don't know how I could have lived without you for as long as I have."

"And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love."

"I've never been afraid of them. Not once. Because I had you."

"On and on they went these nevers, but despite their random natures I found myself following almost every one. Perhaps because I never wanted to disappoint my father."

"The emotions attached to them were like sand castles in the tide, slowly washing out to sea."

"In all the years we spend together, I never once regretted the fact that I had chosen her and that she had chosen me as well."

"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."

"Focus in on the genre you want to write, and read books in that genre. A LOT of books by a variety of authors. And read with questions in your mind."

"Because publishing is becoming more business-oriented each day with more examination of the bottom line, it's harder to break out than ever."

"Or maybe watching you enjoy a carefree summer while you fell in love was what kept me out of the hospital in the first place."