Quotes from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“It's not the changes that will break your heart; it's that tug of familiarity.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Love is the strangest, most illogical thing in the world.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“He’s like a song she can’t get out of her head. Hard as she tries, the melody of their meeting runs through her mind on an endless loop, each time as surprisingly sweet as the last, like a lullaby, like a hymn, and she doesn’t think she could ever get tired of hearing it.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“What are you really studying?"
He leans back to look at her. "The statistical probability of love at first sight."
"Very funny," she says. "What is it really?"
"I'm serious."
"I don't believe you."
He laughs, then lowers his mouth so that it's close to her ear. "People who meet in airports are seventy-two percent more likely too fall for each other than people who meet anywhere else.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Did you know that people who meet at least three different times within twenty-four hour period are ninety-eight percent more likely to meet again?”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“It's one thing to run away when someone's chasing you. It's entirely another to be running all alone.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“I can't believe you're here," she says, her voice soft. "I can't believe you found me."

"You found me first," he says, and when he leans to kiss her, it's slow and sweet and she knows that this will be the one she always remembers. Because while the other two kisses felt like endings, this one is unquestionably a beginning.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“I like how you're neither here nor there. And how there's nowhere else you're meant to be while waiting. You're just sort of suspended.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“He looks at her and smiles. "You're sort of dangerous, you know?"
She stares at him. "Me?"
"Yeah," he says sitting back. "I'm way too honest with you.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“You know what they say," Dad said. "If you love something, set it free."
"What if he doesn't come back?"
"Some things do, some things don't," he said, reaching over to tweak her nose. "I'll always come back to you anyway."
"You don't light up," Hadley pointed out, but Dad only smiled.
"I do when I'm with you.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Because I was with you," he tells her. "I feel better when I'm with you.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“There's a formula for how long it takes to get over someone, that it's half as long as the time you've been together.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Is it possible not to ever know your type-not to even know you have a type-until quite suddenly you do?”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“And in August it will be fifty-two years together.”
“Wow,” Oliver says. “That’s amazing.”
“I wouldn’t call it amazing,” the woman says, blinking. “It’s easy when you find the right person.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“People who meet in airports are seventy-two percent more likely to fall for each other than people who meet anywhere else.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Love isn't supposed to make sense. It's completely illogical.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Hadley didn't know it was possible to miss someone who's only a few feet away, but there it is.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“And see those clouds?'
'Hard to miss'
'Those are cumulus clouds. Did you know that?'
'I'm sure I should.'
They're the best ones.'
'How come?'
Because they look the way clouds are supposed to look, the way you draw them when you're a kid. Which is nice, you know? ...”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“There’s always a gap between the burn and the sting of it, the pain and the realization.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“That's the thing about flying: You could talk to someone for hours and never even know his name, share your deepest secrets and then never see them again.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“But Hadley understood. It wasn't that she was meant to read them all. Maybe someday she would, but for now, it was more the gesture itself. He was giving her the most important thing he could, the only way he knew how. He was a professor, a lover of stories, and he was building her a library in the same way other men might build their daughters houses.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“You know what they say, if you love something, set it free.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Hadley grabs the laminated safety instructions from the seat pocket in front of her and frowns at the cartoon men and women who seem weirdly delighted to be bailing out of a series of cartoon planes. Beside her, Oliver stifles a laugh, and she glances up again.
“What?”
“I’ve just never seen anyone actually read one of those things before,”
“Well,” she says, “then you’re very lucky to be sitting next to me.”
“Just in general?”
She grins. “Well, particularly in case of an emergency.”
“Right,” he says. “I feel incredibly safe. When I’m knocked unconscious by my tray table during some sort of emergency landing, I can’t wait to see all five-foot-nothing of you carry me out of here.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“People talk about books being an escape, but here on the tube, this one feels more like a lifeline...The motion of the train makes her head rattle, but her eyes lock on the words the way a figure skater might choose a focal point as she spins, and just like that, she's grounded again.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Look what a hard time I've given him. But no matter how many times I've pushed him away, he always comes back around again. And I wouldn't want it any other way.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“He was a professor, a lover of stories, and he was building her a library in the same way other men might build their daughters houses.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“What are you really studying?"
He leans back to look at her. "The statistical probability of love at first sight.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

“Well, I guess we all can't have epic loves at such a young age.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

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“The juggler seemed worried. "Throw it a book," he said.

I threw it a book, and it tore into it, like a cat ripping a small animal apart; and while the creature ate its book the juggler pushed the door open. He nearly fell into a deep chasm on the other side. "Not a disaster," he said, as if he was trying to convince himself. "We need more books. Big books."

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“And here he is, letting the massive steel street door click shut behind him, standing at the top of the three iron steps that lead down to the shattered sidewalk. New York is probably, in this regard at least, the strangest city in the world, so many of its denizens living as they (we) do among the unreconstructed remnants of nineteenth-century sweatshops and tenements, the streets potholed and buckling while right over there, around the corner, is a Chanel boutique. We go shopping amid the rubble, like the world's richest, best-dressed refugees.”
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“I have always enjoyed watching women dress. The appeal isn't sexual. Most girls' first glimpse of private female life is watching their mothers dress and put makeup on. It makes sense that we'd find it comforting. Childhood fascinations often crystallize this way. Isn't beauty forever defined, in a sense, by the first things we found beautiful? Surely part of my pleasure results from the inundation of images that we all experience. But I also love ritual, and it is a mesmerizing one. I enjoy the ritual of dressing myself, too. It is a form of basking in a kind of femininity that I am opposed to as an ideal, but for better or worse, I think we all fetishize the female body, and intellectualization doesn't spare anyone the obsession.”
― Melissa Febos, quote from Whip Smart: A Memoir

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