Quotes from The Summer I Turned Pretty

Jenny Han ·  276 pages

Rating: (117.6K votes)


“Moments, when lost, can't be found again. They're just gone.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“It's the imperfections that make things beautiful”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“In the dark you can feel really close to a person. You can say whatever you want.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“Best friends are important. They're the closest thing to a sister you'll ever have.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“Would you rather live one perfect day over and over or live your life with no perfect days but just decent ones?”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty



“When you walk on the beach at night, you can say things you can't say in real life.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“Victory is a thousand times sweeter when you're the underdog.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“Things couldn't stay the same forever.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“She and I were still friends, but not best friends, not like we used to be. But we were still friends. She'd known me my whole life. It's hard to throw away history. It was like you were throwing away a part of yourself.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“Sometimes it’s like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your mind. It’s like you see them through a special lens — but maybe if it’s how you see them,that’s how they really are. It’s like the whole tree falling in the forest thing.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty



“I wondered if this was the way old crushes died, with a whimper, slowly, and then, just like that—gone.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“I love Conrad and I probably always would. I would spend my whole life loving him one way or another. Maybe I would get married, maybe I would have a family, but it wouldn’t matter, because a piece of my heart, the piece where summer lived, would always be Conrad’s”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“For me, it was almost like winter didn’t count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“It was a summer I would never, ever forget. It was the summer everything began. It was the summer I turned pretty. Because for the first time, I felt it. Pretty, I mean. Every summer up to this one, I believed it’d be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“It’s hard to throw away history. It was like you were throwing away a part of yourself.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty



“For me there was-is-nothing better than walking on the beach late at night. It feels like you could walk forever, like the whole night is yours and so is the ocean. When you walk on the beach at night, you can say things you can't say in real life. In the dark you can feel really close to a person. You can say whatever you want.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“I say, " I can't believe you're really here."
He sounds almost shy when he says, "Me neither." And then he hesitates. "Are you still coming with me?"
I cant believe he even has to ask. I would go anywhere. "Yes," I tell him. It feels like nothing else exists outside of that word, this moment. There's just us. Everything that happened this past summer and every summer before it, has all led up to this.

To Now”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“I had been lying to myself, thinking I was free, thinking I had let him go. It didn't matter what he said or did, I'd never let him go." - Belly Conklin”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“On the way out Jeremiah turned around and danced a quick jig for me and i couldn't help it, I laughed. Over his shoulder Conrad said, "Good night Belly."

And that was it. I was in love”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“You just want to keep me on this hook, right? So I'll keep chasing after you and you can feel good about yourself. As soon as I start to get over you, you just reel me back in. You're so screwed up in the head. But I'm telling you, this is it. You don't get to have me anymore. Not as your friend or your admirer or anything. I'm through.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty



“He pulled my foot, drawing me closer. Being this close to him was making me feel dizzy and nervous. I said it again, one last time, even though i didn't mean it.
"Conrad let go of me."
He did. And then he dunked me. It didn't matter. I was already holding my breath.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“The thing was, Jeremiah was right. I did love him. I knew the exact moment it became real too. Conrad got up early to make a special belated
Father's Day breakfast, only Mr. Fisher hadn't been able to come down the night before. He wasn't there the next morning the way he was
supposed to be. Conrad cooked anyway, and he was thirteen and a terrible cook, but we all ate it. Watching him serving rubbery eggs and
pretending not to be sad, I thought to myself, I will love this boy forever.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“I loved the feeling of talking and having somebody really listen to what I have to say. It was like a high or something.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“We sat around the kitchen table picking off of foil-covered plates. Conrad kept sneaking looks at me, and every time I looked back, he looked away. I'm right here, I wanted to tell him. I'm still here.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty



“He made it so hard not to love him. When he was sweet like this, I remembered why I did. Used to love him, I mean. I remembered everything.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“I'd never heard of them, but at that moment, it was the best song I'd ever heard. I went out and bought Ten and listened to it on repeat. When I listened to track five, "Black," it was like I was there, in that moment all over again.

After the summer was over, when I got back home, I went to the music store and bought the sheet music and learned to play it on the piano. I thought one day I could accompany Conrad and we could be, like, a band.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“My dad once told me that Winstone Churchill said that Russia was riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. According to my dad, Churchill had been talking about my mother. This was before the divorce, and he said it half-bitterly, half-respectfully. Because even when he hated her, he admired her.

I think he would have stayed with her forever, trying to figure out the mystery. He was a puzzle solver, the kind of person who likes theorems, theories. X always had to equal something. It couldn't just be X.

To me, my mother wasn't that mysterious. She was my mother. Always reasonable, always sure of herself. To me, she was about as mysterious as a glass fo water. She knew what she wanted; she knew what she didn't want. And that was to be married to my father. I wasn't sure if it was that she fell our of love or if it was that she just never was. in love, I mean.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


“I wondered if it was possible to take someone's pain away with a kiss. Because that was what i wanted to do, take all of his sadness and pour it out of him, comfort him, make the boy i knew come back.”
― Jenny Han, quote from The Summer I Turned Pretty


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About the author

Jenny Han
Born place: The United States
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