Quotes from Sweethearts

Sara Zarr ·  217 pages

Rating: (17.5K votes)


“. . .There are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. . . Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“the past only had whatever power you gave it; life was what you made it and if you wanted something different from what you had, it was up to you to make it happen.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“Remember that no matter where I am or what I'm doing I've got a special place inside me that's all for you. It's been there since the day we met.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“You were never what I wanted to forget.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts



“Life was mostly made up of things you couldn’t control, full of surprises, and they weren’t always good. Life wasn’t what you made it. You were what life made you.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“I'm talking about the ones who, for whatever reason, are as much a part of you as your own soul. Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business.

Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless. If you had a lifetime to talk, there would still be things left unsaid.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“Can it really be love if we don't talk that much, don't see each other? Isn't love something that happens between people who spend time together and know each other's faults and take care of each other?...In the end, I decide that the mark we've left on each other is the color and shape of love.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“I had them all fooled into believing I was normal and well-adjusted, a rock of sensibility who could always be counted on to have a positive attitude.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“And he left. I watched him walk out – he didn’t say good-bye, he didn’t even look back. It scared me, how easy it was for him to do that.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts



“Life needed a fast forward button. Because there were days you just don't want to live through, not again, but they kept coming around and you were powerless to stop time or speed it up or do anything to keep from having to face it.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“I think about how there are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. I don’t mean the usual faint impression: he was cute, she was nice, they made me laugh, I wish I’d known her better, I remember the time she threw up in class. And I don’t just mean that they change you. A lot of people can change you – the first kid who called you a name, the first teacher who said you were smart., the first person who crowned you best friend. It’s the change you remember, the firsts and what they meant, not really the people. Ethan changed me, for instance, but the longer we are apart the more he sort of recedes into the distance as a real person and in his place is a cardboard cutout that says first boyfriend. I’m talking about the ones who, for whatever reason are a part of you as your own soul. Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. My mom was right about that. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless. If you had a lifetime to talk, there would still be things left unsaid.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“Other memories stick, no matter how much you wish they wouldn’t. They’re like a song you hate but can’t ever get completely out of your head, and this song becomes the background noise of your entire life, snippets of lyrics and lines of music floating up and then receding, a crazy kind of tide that never stops.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“I lived too much in my head instead of the real world.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“And I don't just mean that they change you. A lot of people can change you—the first kid who called you a name, the first teacher who said you were smart, the first person who crowned you best friend. It's the change you remember, the firsts and what they meant, not really the people.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts



“we had each other. I never needed anyone else. That’s the difference between you and me. You need all these people around you. Your friends, your boyfriend, everyone. Every single person has to like you. I only ever needed one person. Only ever needed you.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“The importance of our connection, what it meant to find each other again, the way it made what happened to us and between us not be a waste, not be for nothing. He would know, he had to know, that not saying good-bye would be the worst end of all.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“Sitting and waiting for something to happen was the worst kind of torture.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“But as I get older I think – can it really be love if we don’t talk that much, don’t see each other? Isn’t love something that happens between people who spend time together and know each other’s faults and take care of each other? In the end I decide that the mark we’ve left on each other is the color and shape of love. That’s the unfinished business between us. Because love is never finished. It circles and circles the memories always out of order and not always complete. There’s one I always come back to: me and Cameron Quick, laying on the ground in an aspen grove on a golden fall day, the aspen leaves clattering and quaking the way they do. Cameron turning to me, reaching out a small and dirty hand, which I take and do not let go.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“Ethan and I are done," I said finally.
"I'm sorry."
"He was my first boyfriend."
"I know."
"The only real boyfriend I've had. I'm a senior in high school and he was my only real boyfriend."
"I know."
"And I won't find another one at Jones Hall. That is guaranteed."
"Okay."
"This is all very sad and tragic," I said.
Alan unwrapped a sleeve of Smarties. "Yet, oddly, you don't seem that upset."
"I know.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts



“I looked at my hand resting on the shelf of the prop cabinet, thinking of the scars that were there whether anyone could see them or not.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“What brings two people together anyway?”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“I don’t want these memories to become slippery, to just disappear into the thin air of life the way most things seem to. I want them to stick – even the bad ones – so I repeat them often.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“the mark we've left on each other is the color and shape of love. That's the unfinished business between us. because love, love is never finished.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“I understand that you can never have the whole picture; inevitably, there’s stuff you don’t know, can’t know. But when it comes to Cameron I always want more than I have, would like to be able to take hold of at least one or two more pieces, if only because I’m convinced there are parts of myself inside them.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts



“The one thing that could never die or be buried was my loyalty to Cameron for everything he’d done for me and what we’d been through together, even if that loyalty was a ghost.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“This was a memory I wanted to keep, whole, and recall again and again. When I was fifty years old I wanted to remember this moment on the porch, holding hands with Cameron while he shared himself with me. I didn’t want it to be something on the fringes of my memory like so many other things about Cameron and myself.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“Ethan couldn’t possibly understand it, what Cameron and I meant to each other and how different it was from anything like a romance or a crush.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


“I tried his cell over and over but he never answered. Then I’d call just to hear his voice on the outgoing message, until eventually that was gone too.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts


About the author

Sara Zarr
Born place: The United States
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