Quotes from The Best of Me

Nicholas Sparks ·  292 pages

Rating: (124.9K votes)


“That's why I loved being with you. We could do the simplest things, like toss starfish into the ocean and share a burger and talk and even then I knew that I was fortunate. Because you were the first guy who wasn't constantly trying to impress me. You accepted who you were, but more than that, you accepted me for me. And nothing else mattered-- not my family or your family or anyone else in the world. It was just us.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Don't take my advice. Or anyone's advice. Trust yourself. For good or for bad, happy or unhappy, it's your life, and what you do with it has always been entirely up to you.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Life was messy. Always had been and always would be and that was just the way it was, so why bother complaining? You either did something about it or you didn’t, and then you lived with the choice you made.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Because you aren't just someone I loved back then. You were my best friend, my best self, and I can't imagine giving that up again." He hesitated searching for the right words. "You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“There's a lot of magic between you too, ain't no denying that. And magic makes forgettin' hard.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me



“Change isn't always for the best.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“I gave you the best of me, he'd told her once, and with every beat of her son's heart, she knew he'd exactly done that.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible. She'd believed in it once too, back when she was eighteen. But she knew that love was messy, just like life. It took turns that people couldn't foresee or even understand, leaving a long trail of regret in its wake. And almost always, those regrets led to the kinds of what if questions that could never be answered.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“I want to wake up with you beside me in the mornings. I want to spend my evenings looking at you across the dinner table. I want to share every mundane detail of my day with you and hear every detail of yours. I want to laugh with you and fall asleep with you in my arms.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Love, after all, always said more about those who felt it than it did about the ones they loved.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me



“I don't know that I've ever felt as happy as I did that day, but then again, it was always like that when we were together. I never wanted it to end.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“The truth is, the world isn't easy for any of us. It never has been and it never will be.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Amanda: This weekend was wonderful, but it isn't real life. It was more like a honeymoon, and after a while the excitement will wear off. We can tell ourselves it won't happen, we can make all the promises we want, but it's inevitable, and after that you'll never look at me the way you do now. I won't be the woman you dream about, or the girl you used to love. And you won't be my long-lost love, my one true thing anymore, either. You'll be someone my kids despise because you ruined the family, and you'll see me for who I really am. In a few years, I'll simply be a woman pushing fifty with three kids who might or might not hate her, and who might end up hating herself because of all this. And in the end, you'll end up hating her, too.
Dawson: That's not true.
Amanda: But it is. Honeymoons always come to an end.
Dawson: Being together isn't about a honeymoon. It's about the real you and me. I want to wake up with you beside me in the mornings, I want to spend my evenings looking at you across the dinner table. I want to share every mundane detail of my day with you and hear every detail of yours. I want to laugh with you and fall asleep with you in my arms. Because you aren't just someone I loved back then. You were my best friend, my best self, and I can't imagine giving that up again. You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same. I know you're afraid, and I'm afraid, too. But if we let this go, if we pretend none of this ever happened, then I'm not sure we'll ever get another chance. We're still young. We still have time to make this right.
Amanda: We're not that young anymore-
Dawson: But we are. We still have the rest of our lives.
Amanda: I know. That's why I need you to do something for me.
Dawson: Anything.
Amanda: Please...don't ask me to go with you, because if you do, I'll go. Please don't ask me to tell Frank about us, because I'll do that, too. Please don't ask me to give up my responsibilities or break up my family. I love you, and if you love me, too, then you just can't ask me to do these things. Because I don't trust myself enough to say no.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“You're still alive. And that means you'll love and be loved...and in the end, nothing else really matters.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Everyone makes mistakes, even if some are worse than others. Accidents happen.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me



“What the younger generation didn't understand was that the grass was greenest where it's watered..”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Were all first loves like that? Somehow she doubted it; even now it struck her as being more real than anything she'd ever known. Sometimes it saddened her to think that she'd never experience that kind of feeling again, but then life had a way of stamping out that intensity of passion; she'd learned all too well that love wasn't always enough.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“You'll make mistakes and struggle like everyone, but when you are with the right person, you'll almost perfect joy, like you are the luckiest person who ever lived. And that means you'll love and be loved...and in the end, nothing else really matters.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“It takes a long time to grow an old friend. Trust is built one single moment at a time.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Please don't ask me to go with you, because if you do, I'll go. Please don't ask me to tell Frank about us, because i'll do that, too. Please don't ask me to give up my responsibilities or break up my family; I love you, and if you love me, too, then you just can't ask me to do these things. Because I don't trust myself enough to say no.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me



“You have the Best Of Me....”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“I gave you the best of me.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Even if I thought he as perfect for her." She turned to face him. "What were we thinking?"

"We weren't," he said. "We were in love.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Marriage is a partnership, not a democracy.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“I knew you loved me and that you'd do anything for me. And that was one of the reasons it hurt so much when you ended it, Dawson. Because I knew even then how rare that kind of love is. Only the luckiest people get to experience it at all.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me



“She wasn't, nor ever had been, under the illusion that marriage was a relationship characterized by endless bliss and romance. Throw any two people together, add the inevitable ups and downs, give the mixture a vigorous stir, and a few stormy arguments were inevitable, no matter how the couple loved each other.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“She'd preferred the uncertainty, if only because it allowed her to remember him the way he used to be. Sometimes, though, she wondered what he felt when he thought of that year they spent together, or if he ever marveled at what they'd shared, or even whether he thought of her at all.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Now it was coming to an end, and it was like he was watching the last flicker of light wink out in the darkness of an endless tunnel.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me


“Even when we were standing in church and I was getting ready to take my vow I can remember wishing that you were standing there instead of him.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Best of Me



Video

About the author

Nicholas Sparks
Born place: in Omaha, Nebraska, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“It made me strong.I took a step back, near my whole self in the mirror.I pushed back my shoulders and raised my chin, my back straight as an arrow.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Chains


“Like him, Uncle had eccentric tastes and liked old things. The difference, Silas was beginning to see, was that Uncle saw such objects as extensions of himself, of his body, essential, required, uniquely his. This thought made Silas uneasy.”
― Ari Berk, quote from Death Watch


“with the expression of one who knows that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times


“Imagine that it's sugar," Korbyn said. 'You're riding across candy.'

"Salt can never be sugar," Fennik said.

"We should talk about the definition of the word 'imagine'.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, quote from Vessel


“It’s fun to home in on that incongruity”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


Interesting books

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
(22.1K)
We Wish to Inform Yo...
by Philip Gourevitch
Child of God
(24.4K)
Child of God
by Cormac McCarthy
New York
(25.7K)
New York
by Edward Rutherfurd
Mister Monday
(31.9K)
Mister Monday
by Garth Nix
The Pigman
(23.7K)
The Pigman
by Paul Zindel
Perfect Scoundrels
(21.8K)
Perfect Scoundrels
by Ally Carter

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.