Nicholas Sparks

Frugality, I've learned, has its own cost, one that sometimes lasts forever.

Three weeks ago, he__ 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__ 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.

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

Dean: If there is a greater power, why is it he can't get you a new sweater?Jamie: Because, he's too busy looking for your brain.

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.

...nothing wonderful lasted forever. Joy was as fleeting as a shooting star that crossed the evening sky, ready to blink out at any moment.

The lessons my parents taught are still with me. I keep a tighter leash when raising my kids than my parents did, but I often find myself doing or saying the same things they did. My mom, for instance, was always cheerful when coming in from work; I try to behave the same way when I finish writing for the day. My dad would listen intently when I came to him with a problem, to help me find a way to solve it on my own; I try to do the same with my own kids. At night, while I'm tucking my kids in bed, I ask them to tell me three nice things that each of their siblings did for them that day, in the hopes that it will help them grow as close as Micah, Dana, and I did. And more frequently than I ever would have imagined possible growing up, I find myself telling my children "It's your life", or "No one ever promised that life would be fair", and "What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things".

When we first met, I didn't want to get involved with anyone. I didn't have the time or energy, and I wasn't sure that I was ready for it. But you were so good to me, and I got swept up in that. And little by little, I found myself falling in love with you.

And suddenly she knew exactly why Catherine had fallen in love with him. It wasn't that he was unusually attractive, or ambitious, or even charming. He was partly those things, but more important, he seemed to live life on his own terms.

I fell in love with her when we were together, then fell deeper in love with her in the years we were apart.

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.

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

because the past was always around her and might return at any time. It prowled the world searching for her, and she knew it was growing angrier at every passing day.

If it__ over, then don__ let the past screw up the rest of your life.

The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it...

Outside the hospital, I squinted in the harsh morning sunlight. I could hear birds chirping in the tree, but even though I searched for them, they remained hidden from me.

You know how it is. You feel a little different because other people have two parents, even if they__e divorced. It__ like you grow up knowing that you__e missing something important that everyone else has, but you don__ know exactly what it is. I remember hearing my friends talking about how their fathers wouldn't let them stay out late or didn't like their boyfriends. It used to make me so angry because they didn't even realize what they had. Do you know what I mean?

That initial anger she had felt turned to sadness, and now it had become something else, almost a dullness of sorts. Even though she was constantly in motion, it seemed as if nothing special ever happened to her anymore. Each day seemed exactly like the last, and she had trouble differentiating among them.