Quotes from Charmed Thirds

Megan McCafferty ·  359 pages

Rating: (13K votes)


“I thought Marcus was going to be in my life forever. Then I thought I was wrong. Now he’s back. But this time I know what’s certain: Marcus will be gone again, and back again and again and again because nothing is permanent. Especially people. Strangers become friends. Friends become lovers. Lovers become strangers. Strangers become friends once more, and over and over. Tomorrow, next week, fifty years from now, I know I’ll get another one-word postcard from Marcus, because this one doesn’t have a period signifying the end of the sentence.

Or the end of anything at all.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“Most people talk when they have nothing to say. I’m not talking because I have too much to say. None of which I’d want you to hear.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“I know it makes sense for me and him to just break up now and just live our seperate lives and not have to worry about missing each other all the time. But when I think about that, I get sick. Physically sick. Like I seriously throw up. I need to be with him, even if I can’t, like, be with him.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“And now, as I'm lying alone in my own bed, I keep thinking about writhing against him last night, naked and vulnerable. Even after we'd both risen and fallen, peaked and plummeted, even after Marcus was physically shrinking from inside me, I couldn't stop clutching, crying, trying. Trying to pull him deeper, deeper, deeper within.

Trying to make him more a part of me than I am myself.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“High school parties exhausted me because I always felt like I was the only thinking person in a room mostly full of morons obliterating precious IQ points with every gulp of whatever booze they managed to steal out of their parents' liquor cabinets. College parties are exhausting in a diametrically opposite way. They are full of smart, funny people who are all used to being the smartest, funniest person in the room, so they spend the whole party talking over one another, overlapping and overtaking the conversation to prove that they are the smartest, funniest person in the room, if not the entire planet.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds



“We're all people", he said simply. "It doesn't matter if you're two, thirty-two, or ninety-two. Everyone wants to be treated with respect. Everyone wants to feel like they matter in this world.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“Love," he said, "has the longest arms.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“I love when I reach Marcus on the phone and as he says hello, I can hear the music he's listening to in the background. That music is the sound of him without me. How he surrounds himself when I'm not there, which is almost all the time.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“Why do you even put up with me?'
'I'm not putting up with you,' he said, softly. 'I'm loving you.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“So everything we believe about happiness is wrong," I said.

He nodded.

Everything?" I asked, when what I meant was, Everything? Including you? Including me?

And Marcus, being Marcus, knew what I really wanted to know, and answered my silent, more significant question. He held up his hand to shield the rays and looked me in the eyes.

Almost.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds



“When I'm at school in the city, I don't feel particularly worldly or wise. It's only when I come back home that I remember exactly why I left.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“That's what all love comes down to, doesn't it? We help others only as much as they let us.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“chromosomal dance
oh, heavenly happenstance
rare creation, you

-Marcus (Poetry Spam #22)”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“Love may have the longest arms, but it can still fall short of an embrace.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“Even with the best intentions, growing apart might just be an inevitable part of growing up.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds



“Well, I think it's possible to love someone and still be curious about someone else. And I think you should be able to act on that impulse without impunity. But in our society, where monogamy rules despite all the evidence that it doesn't work, a person is demonized for wanting to break from that traditional model of relationships. I think you can love someone, truly love someone, and still be drawn to someone
else. Enough to want to kiss that other person, just to see what it would be like. Or maybe to help confirm that what you've got is better than what else is out there. Because isn't the desire alone a form of betrayal? So what further harm does it do to put those thoughts into action? Ideally, you would be able just to go back to the person you love after you've kissed that other person and discovered it wasn't as
interesting as you thought it would be, which I would imagine would be the case most of the time. And in the event that itis unexpectedly amazing, isn't it better to have experienced that moment of bliss rather than imagine what it could have been like?”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“I hate the very human inclination towards insensitivity”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“Humans find meaningfulness where none exists because we want to create a sense of order in this chaotic universe. It's called apophenia. (And it's also the reason people believe in God.)”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“What are your thoughts?'
'My thoughts?' I replied, before I even realized what I was saying. 'My thoughts created my world.'
Mac sat up in his seat. He scrunched his curls with his hands, perplexed. 'Who said that?'
I told him the truth.
'Oh, just someone I used to know,' I said, stroking the naked skin on my middle finger.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“So much of courtship is the unspoken.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds



“You called me a natural con artist and asked me what other secrets I was hiding. I didn't answer because I already knew, in some deep, primal way, what furtive truth you were referring to:
That I was destined to fall in love with you.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“In choosing to be a Psychology major, I decided to learn for the joy of learning for the first time in my life. I'd always been fascinated by human nature. What makes us act the way we do? Why do we make the same mistakes over and over? But I guess my interest is purely theoretical. I'm a Psychology major
who has no desire to work with people. This was poor planning on my part, I suppose. My parents definitely think so. But choosing passion over practicality seemed so honorable when I was a first-year student and graduation seemed so very, very far away . . .

But now, a semester away from unemployment, I realize how much better off those Engineering students really are. Sure, they're boring conversationalists that make you want to kill yourself because every story begins, “The other day? In the lab?” But people become a whole helluva lot more interesting when they're pulling down six figures, don't they? If I'm going to drag my friends out to my cardboard box, the pressure's on to provide some pretty goddamned sparkling conversation once they get there. And even with all my noble knowledge for knowledge's sake, I'm not sure I can.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“Women will always choose the man over the best friend. This is a sad but true fact of life, and it's only this certitude that makes me unashamed to admit it.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“And to think I survived this deadly workload, only to be murdered by the sight of my parents' bare asses, a tragedy that gives a whole new meaning to the word assassination.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“Why is it that the most fundamental life lesson—LIVE!—is the only one I continually forget to put into practice?”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds



“Jessica..." The sound of his voice saying my name soothed me, and it's all I wanted to hear him say. Just my name, over and over and over again in his buttery baritone. I wanted my name to be his mantra, the word he meditated on, his tool for finding calm in the world.

But he kept on talking.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“My mother, of course, had a different opinion.
'They're driving me crazy!' she said, swatting at them with her beige Coach handbag.
'How can you tell?' my dad asked. 'Between your menopause craziness and your turning fifty craziness and everything else?'
'Forty-eight!' my mom cried.
Dad groaned. 'Have you forgotten who you're lying to?”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“I need to be more in the moment, like when I was wet and wild in the waves. Being in the moment—right now!—equals freedom. It can't be scrutinized, analyzed, rhapsodized, mythologized. It
can't be desecrated, debated, prognosticated. Right now can only be lived. Isn't this the same message I
tried to get across to the kiddies in the lecture that got me fired? Isn't this the same advice Gladdie gave me right before she died?

Why is it that the most fundamental life lesson—LIVE!—is the one I continually forget to put into practice?”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“I didn't know anything about anything. And the only difference between then and now is this: I may know more than I used to, but my wisdom pales in comparison to that which I've yet to learn.”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds


“According to Jung, synchronicity is an unpredictable moment of meaningful coincidence”
― Megan McCafferty, quote from Charmed Thirds



About the author

Megan McCafferty
Born place: in Bayville, New Jersey, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Emma dropped the letter. The first thing she felt was a sinking in her stomach and a trembling in her knees; then, a sense of blind guilt, of unreality, of cold, of fear; then, a desire for this day to be past. Then immediately she realized that such a wish was pointless, for her father's death was the only thing that had happened in the world, and it would go on happening, endlessly, forever after.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, quote from The Aleph and Other Stories


“Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit. All that exists is a magnificent interweaving, vast and reciprocal.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles


“That's when I finally got it. I finally understood. It wasn't the thought that counted. It was the actual execution that mattered, the showing up for somebody. The intent behind it wasn't enough. Not for me. Not anymore. It wasn't enough to know that deep down, he loved me. You had to actually say it to somebody, show them you cared. And he just didn't. Not enough.”
― Jenny Han, quote from It's Not Summer Without You


“I wouldn't call it tamed, laddy-me-love. The lady of Pirate's Swoop shouldn't be tame.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Lioness Rampant


“Constituimos una sola raza mestiza que desde México hasta el estrecho de Magallanes presenta notables similitudes etnográficas.”
― Ernesto Che Guevara, quote from The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey


Interesting books

Mossflower
(59.8K)
Mossflower
by Brian Jacques
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
(198.8K)
Guns, Germs, and Ste...
by Jared Diamond
Princess of the Midnight Ball
(29.3K)
Princess of the Midn...
by Jessica Day George
Theft of Swords
(40.6K)
Theft of Swords
by Michael J. Sullivan
Ashes of Midnight
(21.3K)
Ashes of Midnight
by Lara Adrian
Winter's Heart
(82.6K)
Winter's Heart
by Robert Jordan

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.