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.

You'd rather make up a fantasy version of somebody in your head than be with a real person.

Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That's the part of the risk. I don't want to be scared anymore.

Life doesn't have to be so planned. Just roll with it and let it happen.

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?

You only like guys you don't have a chance with, because you're scared.

It's not like in the movies. It's better, because it's real.

I don’t have to be so afraid of good-bye, because good-bye doesn’t have to be forever.

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

I didn't fall for you, you tripped me!

Do you think there's a difference? Between belonging with and belonging to?

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.

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.

If love is like a possession, maybe my letter are like my exorcisms

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

I'm always wondering about the what-ifs, about the road not taking.

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.

If you were mine, I would never have broken up with you, not in a million years.

It feels strange to have spen much time wishing for something, for someone and then one day, suddenly,to just stop

Plenty of people are good-looking. That doesn't make them interesting or intriguing or cool.

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?

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.

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.

Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That's part of the risk.

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.

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.

You've just gotta hold your head up and act like you don't give a shit

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?

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.

Relationships are incredibly amorphous. They could get back together. They could stay friends. Who's to say what will happen in the future?