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

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Popular quotes

“It reminds me of how grandmother always had the right costume for me to wear. You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you're pretending to be.”
― John Boyne, quote from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

“For this will cure him that is sick, and rouse him that is in dumps; one that has loved, it will remember of it; one that has not, it will instruct. For there was never any yet that wholly could escape love, and never shall there be any, never so long as beauty shall be, never so long as eyes can see. But help me that God to write the passions of others; and while I write, keep me in my own right wits.”
― quote from Daphnis and Chloe

“You're stronger than us. Once you find your anchor never let go of it. No matter what.”
― John Marrs, quote from The Good Samaritan

“Did you ever eat a whole box of cookies right in a row? Did you ever do that? I don't mean take them into your bedroom or something. I mean open them right up in the kitchen as soon as you get home from the store and eat 'em while you're standing there? Just stare at the toaster while you're eatin' a whole goddamn box of cookies?”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty

“You don’t like all the makeup?”
“I just don’t think you need it. I mean, you look pretty without it.”
Oh, really? That was totally unexpected.
He started tapping the steering wheel like he was listening to a rock concert, or suddenly embarrassed, maybe wishing someone would shut him up. “Sorry I don’t have a towel in the car.”
Subject change. He was embarrassed. How cute was that?
“That’s okay. We should probably get home, anyway, and we have plenty of towels there.”
“Right.”
He shifted into reverse and did that thing guys do where they twist their whole bodies and put their arm across the back of the seat. Only his car had bucket seats, and his fingers grazed my cheek and then jerked as though they’d been stung, before he grabbed the back of the headrest.
He was staring at me, really staring at me, and I wondered if he wanted his fingers to touch my cheek again, because I wanted them to. I wanted to feel that spark again, that little spark I felt every time he gave me the slightest accidental touch.
“Do you like Mac?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said really quickly, too quickly.
He nodded, looked over his shoulder, and backed out of the parking spot.
As we drove home, a heavy silence filled the car. I began to wonder if maybe he hadn’t really been asking if I liked Mac.
If maybe he’d been asking something completely different. Maybe he’d been asking if I liked him.”
― Rachel Hawthorne, quote from The Boyfriend League

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