One Summer Quotes
"After all that, here he was, dying fast in his cheaply paneled den in Ohio’s Rust Belt."
"His goal was simple: just hang on until Christmas."
"His heart had been won perhaps even before he quite realized it."
"Jack was the one dying, but in a way she was too."
"Fast was good when the pain felt like every nerve in his body was being incinerated."
"There’s really nothing we can do. I’m sorry."
"Jack had survived the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. He could maybe hold on and see his oldest child graduate from college."
"Sometimes, Jack thought, living was far harder than dying."
"He didn’t want to see pity in her eyes. Her big, strong father reduced to this."
"I love you, Lizzie. No matter what happens, nothing will ever change that."
"He now knew how a condemned man felt though he had committed no crime."
"These letters, he’d come to realize, were the most important thing he would ever do in his life."
"He had played this scene out in his head a hundred times. Only he was in the box and it was Lizzie out here saying good-bye."
"Nothing about this was right. He felt like he was staring at the world upside down."
"Who would not be scared? Terrified even? The last journey. The one everyone took alone. Without the comfort of a companion."
"When you love someone, you love them forever."
"I fought as hard as I could. I will never understand why I had to be taken from you so soon, but I have accepted it."
"My love for you, Lizzie, is stronger than anything."
"It’s one day at a time. That’s life. Some days will be good and some days will suck."
"You never know, Jack, you might enjoy it too. You could really fix the place up. Even make the lighthouse work again."
"I can't. It's a legal thing. And I wouldn't have felt right selling it even if I could."
"It's not a dump. This is where your mother grew up."
"My life on earth is over of course, or else you wouldn't be reading this letter. But I had a fine, old run, did everything I wanted to do, and, hell, the things that might've got left out I didn't need anyway."
"I know it has been a most difficult and heartbreaking time for you. I know that you loved Lizzie more than anyone could. And she loved you just as much back."
"It's not so much that time heals all wounds, honey, as it is that the passage of the years lets us make peace with our grief in our way."
"You got a second chance of sorts, son, so you live your life good and well."
"I remember her telling me about a beach house she grew up in, but she never really said anything else about it."
"Nice soft pair of hands you got. Wish I had you on my football team in high school."
"Now do you see why I need the soundproofing?"
"Life. Marriage. Growing old together. Someone to hold hands with."
"But I had a fine, old run, did everything I wanted to do, and, hell, the things that might've got left out I didn't need anyway."
"And every day you wake up to those three darling children, you are waking up to the most precious things that you and Lizzie ever made together."
"I’m my own boss. I’m a people person. I admit I get a kick out of walking into the Little Bit and knowing it’s mine."
"You’re young and you have many years ahead of you... Love is to be shared, not hidden, not hoarded."
"The physics of waves crashing on sand had been completely foreign to her a short while ago. Now she’d grown so accustomed to their presence that she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to be without the sound."
"It’s like you lost a part of yourself in a way."
"Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself."
"Our love is too strong. It will last forever."
"Love is to be shared, not hidden, not hoarded."
"And in your heart you will find more love for someone else."
"You never found Heaven, Lizzie. And you never found Tillie."
"People have the capacity to love many different people."
"I’ve got our kids to raise. And I have to do it right. For Lizzie."
"We’re in a position to purchase a larger house and have the resources to support all of you."
"Our kids have really hit it off playing music together."
"It’s complicated, Mikki. Really complicated."
"It’s not healthy, Jack. You planning on having any fun ever again?"
"What makes you think I deserve to have any fun ever again?"
"You half killed yourself clawing your way back from a death sentence. And for what? To be miserable the rest of your life?"
"It’s an honest profession, and I pay a fair wage."
"Sounds good, make it two. And make sure you put a smiley face on his; might improve the man’s mood."
"You’re right. It’s not enough to support my kids. I have to be there for them."
"It wasn’t nearly as cool as when you and I kissed."
"You’re my knight in black shining armor and hiking boots."
"They were just teenagers, and he’s an ex–army ranger."
"I wasn’t supposed to be here, Jenna. I mean living."
"It’s action, not words, that really counts. That’s what it really means to love someone."
"But I don’t know what I’d do without him in my life."
"Because if I don’t tell someone, I think I’m going to… to… I don’t know."
"You improvise. Fly by the seat of your pants."
"It's not smooth, it doesn't make sense half the time, and it's the hardest, most exasperating job you can ever have. But the payoff is also the biggest."
"Truthfully, some parts of it do, only to be replaced by other parts that are actually harder."
"Always ready to give advice, even if most of it is wrong."
"I'm just trying to understand things that I don't think there's any way to understand."
"Life is crazy and maddening and often makes no sense."
"Life was often unfair, insane, damaging. And yet the alternative to living in that world was not living in it."
"You can do everything perfectly. Do everything that you think you're supposed to be doing. Fulfill every expectation that other people may have. And you still won't get the results you think you deserve."
"No matter what you do, no matter how hard you fight, life sometimes just doesn't make sense."
"Sometimes people can't see what's right in front of them, Jack. It's strange how that works. How often it happens. And how often it hurts people we're supposed to love."
"You should respect the past. You should never forget the past. But you can't live there."
"Right there was the little piece of the sky that contained Heaven."