Quotes from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“When someone's been gone a long time, at first you save up all the things you want to tell them. You try to keep track of everything in your head. But it's like trying to hold on to a fistful of sand: all the little bits slip out of your hands, and then you're just clutching air and grit.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“You'd rather make up a fantasy version of somebody in your head than be with a real person.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That's the part of the risk. I don't want to be scared anymore.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Life doesn't have to be so planned. Just roll with it and let it happen.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Do you know what it’s like to like someone so much you can’t stand it and know that they’ll never feel the same way?”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“You only like guys you don't have a chance with, because you're scared.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“It's not like in the movies. It's better, because it's real.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“I don’t have to be so afraid of good-bye, because good-bye doesn’t have to be forever.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“I want to say yes, but I don't want to be with a boy whose heart belongs to somebody else. Just once, I want to be somebody else's first choice”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“I didn't fall for you, you tripped me!”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Do you think there's a difference? Between belonging with and belonging to?”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“When someone's been gone a long time, at first you save up all the things you want to tell them. You try to keep track of everything in your head. But it's like trying to hold on to a fistful of sand: all the little bits slip out of your hands, and then you're just clutching air and grit. That's why you can't save it all up like that.

Because by the time you finally see each other, you're catching up only on the big things, because it's too much bother to tell about the little things. But the little things are what make up life.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“I wonder what it's like to have that much power over a boy. I don't think I'd want it; it's a lot of responsibility to hold a person's heart in your hands.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“If love is like a possession, maybe my letter are like my exorcisms”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“I delete the picture of him from my phone; I delete his number. I think that if I just delete him enough, it will be like none of it ever happened and my heart won't hurt so badly”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“I'm always wondering about the what-ifs, about the road not taking.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Smirking, he says, "Whatever spell you just tried to cast on me, it didn't work, so I think you need to go back to Hogwarts.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“If you were mine, I would never have broken up with you, not in a million years.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“It feels strange to have spen much time wishing for something, for someone and then one day, suddenly,to just stop”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Plenty of people are good-looking. That doesn't make them interesting or intriguing or cool.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Seventeen's not so young. A hundred years ago people got married when they were practically our age."
"Yeah, that was before electricity and the Internet. A hundred years ago eighteen-year-old guys were out there fighting wars with bayonets and holding a man's life in their hands! They lived a lot of life by the time they were our age. What do kids our age know about love and life?”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Margot would say she belongs to herself. Kitty would say she belongs to no one. And I guess I would say I belong to my sisters and my dad, but that won’t always be true. To belong to someone—I didn’t know it, but now that I think about, it seems like that’s all I’ve ever wanted. To really be somebody’s, and to have them be mine.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“My letters are for when I don't want to be in love anymore. They're for good-bye. Because after I write in my letter, I'm not longer consumed by my all-consuming love...My letters set me free. Or at least they're supposed to.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That's part of the risk.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“How was I supposed to know what’s real and what’s not? It feels like I’m the only one who doesn’t know the difference.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“When I write, I hold nothing back. I write like he'll never read it. Because he never will. Every secret thought, every careful observation, everything I've saved up inside me, I put it all in the letter. When I'm done, I seal it, I address it, and then I put it in my teal hatbox.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“You've just gotta hold your head up and act like you don't give a shit”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“It’s fun to think of the what-if. Scary, but fun. It’s like, I thought this door was closed before, but here it is open just the tiniest crack. What if?”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Josh, you break my heart. And you're a liar. Because you know me, you know me better than almost anybody, and you don't love me.”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Relationships are incredibly amorphous. They could get back together. They could stay friends. Who's to say what will happen in the future?”
― Jenny Han, quote from To All the Boys I've Loved Before

About the author

Popular quotes

“Did he know that she was so dissatisfied with herself that she was always pretending to be different? Probably he did, and despised her for it. More than anyone she knew, Joe Willard was always, fearlessly, himself.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy in Spite of Herself

“Ir iš tiesų netrukus tekančio vandens šniokštimas pamažu nustelbė visur aplinkui šlamančius medžius, tyliai kalbančius vieni su kitais alsia, gailia šneka, kokia ramiomis dienomis prabyla eukaliptai.”
― Colleen McCullough, quote from The Ladies of Missalonghi

“Gastronomic boredom leads to lots of unhealthy eating. If you don’t make improvisation and experimentation part of your eating life, you are sure to find yourself in an eating rut.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“He needed to crawl inside of her, share her skin, bury himself deep so she could pour the sun over him and steer him away from the shadows always clawing pieces out of him.”
― Christine Feehan, quote from Murder Game

“Entery Ships
The rule say that Pirate ships are faster then anything - except the Barbery vikings, when on the side of good can overtake even Pirates.
Se also Boats and Galleys.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

Interesting books

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.