Quotes from Ann Brashares

She got under the covers and put her arms around the bag. She could smell Tibby. It used to be she couldn't smell Tibby's smell in the way you couldn't smell your own; it was too familiar. But tonight she could. This was some living part of Tibby still here and she held on to it. There was more of Tibby with her here and now than in what she had seen in the cold basement room that day.

I tell myself your spirits were down the day you wrote. You're fine and we're fine. I hope it's true.

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.

You broke up with him, a combination Effie-Carmen voice in her head reminded her. But that didn't mean you were allowed to stop loving me, she felt like saying to him.

She remembered me.' This was his worst weakness, his most toxic drug.

he occupied an alternate universe that intersected nowhere with hers. He no longer represented someday, a possibility. He represented a road not taken, a road that suddenly shot so far into the distance she couldn't see where it went anymore.

Why do we fight the things we fight when giving into them isn't so bad at all?

I felt like a pianist who'd been forced to play on a few white keys in the middle, finally allowed to run his hands all up and down the keyboard.

She wasn't comfortable with the term boyfriend even when she did have one, and she hated everybody knowing her private business.

Live, Laugh, Love

What's the occasion? she asked. He kissed her ear. I've got a gorgeous woman who's going to be my bride. She laughed. You have that every night. That's why I want to celebrate.

Her need was as big as the stars, and he was down there on the beach, so quiet she could hardly hear him.

No matter how it felt to be near him, she had to keep her swollen heart in check.

She was back on the ground, looking down at the bugs rather than up at the sky.

Sometimes when she thought of Eric, and now more powerfully when she saw him, she felt some achy nostalgia for her old self. For the dauntless, daring soul she used to be. There were certain qualities you possessed carelessly. And you couldn't retrieve them when they were gone.

We're the Septembers now. The real ones. We are everything to one another. We don't need to say so; it's just true. Sometimes it seems like we're so close we form one single complete person rather than four separate ones. We settle into types- Bridget the athlete, Lena the beauty, Tibby the rebel, and me, Carmen, the...what? The one with the bad temper. But the one who cares the most. The one who cares that we stick together.

The thing you had had and loved and taken for granted caught up with you all at once and for no sensible reason suddenly cost more than you could afford.

Bouncing is for balls. -Tibby Rollins

Its natural to overlook and even sacrifice the things that belong to us most easily, most gracefully.

When you belonged nowhere, you sort of belonged everywhere.

Carma, Here are the Pants and a little sketch I made of Leo. From memory, not from life. (And no, I'm not thinging of him day and night. God.) Funny hair, huh? He did not realize I was in his class. I think I'm making a big impression around here. Love you, Len

You have to be like a turtle, she thought; you have to figure out how to bring your home along with you.

My memory is good for some things and not others.

Lena felt like a child. Worse than a child and less valuable. She felt like a mouse. No, smaller than a mouse and less alive. Her life seemed so small and crumpled you could shoot it through a straw like a spitball.