Quotes by Ann Brashares

Tibby, who was not fond of change, had once told Bridget that the present, no matter what it brought, couldnt change the past. The past was set and sealed.

Carmen: “I want you to leave me alone, but not ignore me. I want you to miss me when I go away to college, but not be sad. I want you to stay exactly the same, but not be lonely or alone. I want to do the leaving, and not have you ever leave me.

She perched on her windowsill, gazing at the lurid sun soaking into the Caldera, trying to appreciate it even though she couldn’t have it. Why did she always feel she had to do something in the face of beauty?

Bridget wondered whether it all came down to the claustrophobic choice between dying beautiful or living ugly.

She felt like parts of her soul were missing, had left her body long ago. It had happened not in Greece three months ago, but long before that. It was in Greece that shed realized those parts had left her and were not coming back.

You surround yourself with your pain or you avoid it and let it find you when you are trying to do other things

Her vision of the world under the water represented a beautiful stillness, a version of heaven. It was the lost city of Lena, her alternate universe, the life she yearned for but didnt get to have.

She was worried these thoughts would crush her if she let them come, but they didnt. You didnt know how heavy they were until you tried to lift them. You didnt know how strong you were.

In a way it scared me, having a summer of experiences and feelings that belonged to me alone. What happened in front of my friends felt read. What happened to me by myself felt partly dreamed, partly imagined, definitely shifted and warped by own fears and wants. And who knows? Maybe there is more truth in how you feel than in what actually happens.

Bridgets anger evaporated and the sadness came back. The anger was easier. She owned and controlled it, whereas the sadness owned her.

She knew that when she got old it would be more fun to look back on a life of romance and adventure than a life of quiet habits. But looking back was easy. It was the doing that was painful. There were plenty of things she would like to look back on but wasnt willing to risk ...

The path of your life can change in an instant.

We follow our scripts like actors in a very large, very long production. And even with no audience, none of us gives a hint that it isnt real.

Grief was like a newborn, and the first three months were hard as hell, but by six months youd recognized defeat, shifted your life around, and made room for it.

[Carmen] knew a worse friend would have made her feel better.

Were the Septembers now. The real ones. We are everything to one another. We dont need to say so; its just true. Sometimes it seems like were 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.

When you remembered to forget, you were remembering. It was when you forgot to forget that you forgot.

My memory is good for some things and not others.

she looked up at the stars and gave Tibby thanks. She didnt have to throw her thoughts far to know they reached her.

Shed cried over a broken heart before. She knew what that felt like, and it didnt feel like this. Her heart felt not so much broken as just ... empty. It felt like she was an outline empty in the middle. The outline cried senselessly for the absent middle. The past cried for the present that was nothing.