Ann Brashares Thinking Quotations

We aren't in high school. We aren't really in our families and we aren't in our houses. Those are the places we grew up and the times we spent together, but they aren't us. If think they are, then we're lost, because times end and places are lost. We aren't any place or any time . . . We are everywhere.

I sometimes think the stronger you feel about someone, the harder it is to picture their face when you are away from them.

People 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)

Daniel?" "Yes." "Did you ever think we were meant not to be together?" "No. We are meant to be together. We are just meant to want it very badly.

Maybe you think you’ll be entitled to more happiness later by forgoing all of it now, but it doesn’t work that way. Happiness takes as much practice as unhappiness does. It’s by living that you live more. By waiting you wait more. Every waiting day makes your life a little less. Every lonely day makes you a little smaller. Every day you put off your life makes you less capable of living it.

Once Paul told her that the beach was like him because it changed every day but it never made any progress. Later she remembered thinking that a normal person might have begun by saying that he was like the beach.

But will he come I just want to know what you think the odds are. Tell me what you really think." "I think Tibby was a wise girl. I think she loved you.

He tricked himself into thinking that she would look into his eyes and remember, that love would conquer all.

I think pants have unique qualities, especially in a woman’s life. Whatever bodily insecurities we have, we seem to take out on our pants.

To write a story, I think you really have to open yourself up to the world.

All I could think to do was love her. That's all a person can do.

Riley was quiet for a minute. She gathered her blanket all around her. "Paul always loved you, Alice. He knows I know that. I know he loves me, too. But it's different." Alice opened her mouth, but nothing came out at first. "He loved me once. But I think that part is over," she said slowly. "No, it's not. It hasn't even begun." Riley took Alice's bare foot in her hand and squeezed it. "I told him, though, that he better be good to you. When you came along, I said I'd share you, but I told him to remember that you're my sister. I loved you first."

She thought she would know when it happened. But now, as she looked around, she wondered if it was really like that at all. Maybe it happened in a million different ways, when you were thinking of it and you weren't. Maybe there was no gap, no jump, no chasm. You didn't forget yourself all at once. Maybe you just looked around one time or another and you thought, Hey. And there you were.