Gabrielle Zevin quotes:

The theme of the dance was "Great Romances," or some such nonsense. There were projections of supposedly great couples from the past on the walls of the gym. Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Hermione and Ron, Bonnie and Clyde, etc.

Before I liked to write, I liked to type. I remember visiting my grandmother Adele in Ponce Inlet, Florida, when I was three years old, and she had an IBM electric typewriter.

But I believe good things happen everyday. I believe good things happen even when bad things happen. And I believe on a happy day like today, we can still feel a little sad. And that's life, isn't it?

What are you reading?" Owen asks. "Charlotte's Web," Liz says. "It's really sad. One of the main characters just died." "You ought to read the book from end to beginning," Owen jokes. "That way, no one dies, and it's always a happy ending.

I don't believe in writer's block.

For the record, I have long suspected that my favorite book is actually 'Charlotte's Web.'

You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?

I myself am mixed race - my mother is Korean, and my father is an American Jew - so I've always felt other.

I'm like a unicorn; I'm a midlist writer who hasn't done anything else but write. But because I wasn't amazingly famous, I didn't become Stephanie Meyer, or even a huge literary name like a Jonathan Franzen or a Joshua Ferris.

On, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human life is a beautiful mess.

Let's stay young forever. Young, stupid, and pretty. Sounds like a plan, don't you think?

Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note.

I wish that the adults who are 'in power' cared more about what their children read. Books are incredibly powerful when we are young - the books I read as a child have stayed with me my entire life - and yet, the people who write about books, for the most part, completely ignore children's literature.

Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down the road and someday, you do not now when, you will make a wrong tun. At the end of the road, when you're least expecting it, he (or indeed she) will be there.

I remember visiting my grandmother Adele in Ponce Inlet, Florida, when I was three years old, and she had an IBM electric typewriter. I thought that this electric typewriter was about the most fascinating toy in the world - I liked the little bell and the sounds and the feel of the keys and especially the erase key.

Intimacy doesn't have all that much to do with backseats of cars. Real intimacy is brushing your teeth together.

Did you know that there are over three hundred words for love in canine?

Diving is a leap of faith plus gravity.

I hadn't ever felt any particular calling to be a novelist, and I clearly remember telling a friend of mine about six months before I started work on 'Elsewhere' that I would never write a novel.

Tragedy is when someone ends up dead. Everything else is just a bump in the road. For the record, that was something Daddy used to say.

Someday, you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you're the only person in the room.

Tragedy is when someone ends up dead.Everything else is just a bump in the road.

When I was in my twenties and broke, I'd buy books before food. A meal will sustain you for a few hours, a good book will sustain you for life.

In the end, the end of a life only matters to friends, family, and other folks you used to know. For everyone else, it's just another end.

I shouldn't have done that," I said. That was when I kissed him again. May God forgive me for this and all these things I've done.

Sorry but nothing of much importance ever happened to me...I'm just a girl who forgot to look both ways before crossing the street.

And when she dreams, she dreams of a girl who was lost at sea but one day found the shore.

His heart is too full, and no words to release it.

I like all weddings, but isn't it particularly lovely when two grown-ups decide to get married?

A good marriage is, at least, one part conspiracy.

I have so much paperwork. I'm afraid my paperwork has paperwork.

If you were older you might agree with me. you might say that real love steals nothing. you might say that real love leaves a person intact. you would be wrong, jane. love is a greedy toddler who knows only the word 'mine.

Your extracurricular activities are definitely somewhat lackluster, Annie.What? Being the daughter of a celebrated criminal doesn't count as an extracurricular activity?No, Scarlet saidA case could be made for poisoning your ex-boyfriend however.

Win walked over to me. He held out his palm. In the middle of it was a single black sequin from the dress Scarlet had lent meYou lost this, he said.I giggled, slightly embarrassed to be leaving bits of myself behindI'm shedding.

Why are the cute ones always such sociopaths?Win doesn't seem like so much of a sociopath, I replied without thinking.Oh, really? So, you think he's cute, do you? At least you're admitting it now.I shook my head. Scarlet was incorrigible.Admitting it is the first step, Annie.

Every book is a world.

On the board, Mr. Beery had written "Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it." I wasn't sure if this was meant to be inspirational, thematic, or a joke about making sure to study.

No one will ever love me that much again.

...lies can sound awfully pretty when a girl is in love with the person telling them.

I know he's a good person. And he said he was sorry. And I love him. And when you love a person, you have to forgive him sometimes.

I'm very privy to the way bookstores work, and I think a lot about the ecosystem that my books have been published in. I think it's great to be aware of how publishing works.

It was a nice day, and I don't mean that it was sunny either. It was humid and not too cool, like winter was getting annoyed with itself and wanted it to be spring just as much as everyone else.

In a way, publishing in 2005 was similar to publishing in 1950. Nobody kept blogs; that was still optional. I didn't even have a website then.

I think you can do a lot, like describing people with their physical characteristics, things like that, but to me, I've always found it to be a much more informative question to ask somebody what they read.

Sometimes, readers, when they're young, are given, say, a book like 'Moby Dick' to read. And it is an interesting, complicated book, but it's not something that somebody who has never read a book before should be given as an example of why you'll really love to read, necessarily.

People choose to read, and it takes effort. It's not one of those hobbies that asks nothing of the person who is doing it. It's more than a hobby.

"I accept your condemnation," I said.

A life isn't measured in hours and minutes. It's the quality, not the length.

A life isn't measured in hours or minutes. Its the quality not the length. All things considered I've been luckier than most. Almost sixteen years on Earth, and I've already had eight good ones here. I expect to have eight more before all's good said and done. Nearly thirty-two years total, and that's not too shabby

A question I've thought about a great deal is why it is so much easier to write about the things we dislike/hate/acknowledge to be flawed than the things we love.

Above all, mine is a love story. Unlike most love stories, this one involves chance, gravity, a dash of head trauma. It began with a coin toss. The coin came up tails. I was heads. Had it gone my way, there might not be a story at all. Just a chapter, or a sentence in a book whose greater theme had yet to be determined. Maybe this chapter would've had the faintest whisper of love about it. But maybe not. Sometimes, a girl needs to lose.

And I was crying for gravity. It had sent me down the stairs, and I'd thought that meant something, but maybe it was just the direction that all things tend to flow.

As many have discovered, it is entirely possible (although not particularly desirable) to love two people with all your heart. It is entirely possible to long for two lives, to feel that one life can't come close to containing it all.

Ask two people to tell you anything, you'll get two versions. Even easy things like directions, let alone important or semi-controversial topics like why a fight started or what a person was generally like. If you don't know something for yourself, you just can't be sure.

Betty inhales sharply, 'It's just I thought I had lost you forever.' Oh, Betty, don't you know there's no such thing as forever?

But I wondered if all this kissing was a bad habit with him and me. The thing we did with our mouths instead of talking.

But in my defense, I knew enough about her to know I wanted to know everything else; I knew as much about her as she wanted me to know; I knew as much about her as anyone ever knows about anyone. And isn't love just curiosity at the beginning anyway?

But then again maybe "I will" is nicer. It has a future in it.

Chocolate doesn't solve everything, Nana." "It solves a whole heck of a lot, though.

Covers matter. In my experience, a different cover can make you think you're reading an entirely different book.

Daddy always said that an option that you know to have a bad outcome is only a fool's option, i.e., not an option at all. And I liked to think that Daddy hadn't raised a fool.

Daddy always said the only thing worth begging for was your life, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe sometimes your love is a little bit worth begging for, too.

Daddy always said you only explained things to the people that actually mattered.

Daddy once said, "If you don't know what you believe, Annie, you'll be a lost soul.

Dance with me,' Win said. 'I know I'm probably making a fool of myself. You're probably thinking, how many times do I have to reject this guy? Can't he take a hint?' I shook my head. 'But somehow I don't even care. I see you in your red dress, standing by the punch table, and something in me wants to keep trying. I think, she is a person worth knowing.

Death is a state of mind---many people on Earth spend their entire lives dead.

Each period had required me to be a slightly different person, and that was exhausting. I wondered if school had always felt this way and whether it was like this for everone.

Eye contact made people think you were being truthful even if you weren't.

For the longest time after that, neither of us said anything. I was unaccustomed to his silence, but I didn't mind it. I knew near everything about him, and he knew near everything about me, and all that made our quiet a kind of song. The kind you hum without even knowing what it is or why you're humming it. The kind that you've always known.

He kissed me, though not in a sexy way. Gentle. Tender.

He told me that love was the only thing that really mattered in the world.

Hi there," squeaked a precocious little voice, "you are speaking to Chloe Fusakawa, and I have just learned how to answer the phone.

I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart.

I did learn something about insanity while I was down there. People go crazy, not because they are crazy, but because it's the best available option at the time.

I do believe that food lobbies exert enormous, at times insidious, power over what we eat, that our water supplies are not being protected as much as they probably should be and that, in general, people are more interested in smart phones than museums.

I know you did, lass. You're the toughest girl I know." "'Lass'? Where did that come from?" "I don't know. I just felt the urge to call you that.

I let myself feel good and sorry for myself, but only for a second. Daddy always said that the most useless of all human emotions was self-pity.

I met a travler from an ancient land.

I was crying a little for the boy I had wanted him to be and the boy he hadn't turned out to be.

I was just thinking... isn't it lucky that we decided to become co-editors? If one takes a blow to the head, the other can fill in. If the other's lung spontaneoulsy collapses, the one can fill in. It's a perfect system once you think about it." ~Will Landsman

I wish I could tell you to always follow your heart, but I think it is bad advice. You have a heart, yes, it is true, but also a brain and also a soul. I've come to believe that we love with our brains as much as our hearts. Real Love is not just instinct, but intent...... From year to year, you may not always be the same Jane. This is perfectly normal. A Jane is many Janes in a lifetime.

I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who WANTS to know all your stories.

If you are going to forgive a person, Liz decides, it is best to do it sooner rather than later. Later, Liz knows from experience, could be sooner than you thought.

I'm allergic to sad memories. It's the worst.

In a way, whoever you know in a certain place defines that place for you.

In life, Jane reflected, the most interesting things tend to happen when you're on your way to do something else.

In you, I found infinity. In you, I was reborn

It is a lie that people who love each other must know everything about each other. Love must occasionally allow for a gap.

It was funny how dad was more honest in a book that anyone in the world could pick up and read than he could be talking to me. Or maybe it was sad. One or the other. Sometimes it's hard to tell.

It was odd to have something so personal out there in that way, but the good thing about art is that no one necessarily knows what you mean by it anyway.

It was strange, really. A couple months ago, I had thought I couldn't live without him. Apparently I could.

It was such a sweet, sad song with such sweet, sad lyrics. Old-fashioned a little, but also timeless.

It wasn't even 8:00 yet. Pretty early for such deep thoughts.

It's difficult to ever go back to the same places or people. You turn away, even for a moment, and when you turn back around, everything's changed.

It's a tragic fact to die in an accident

It's a weakness to apologize before hearing what the other person's grievances are. You don't want to end up creating new grievances where there were none to begin with. Another Daddy-ism, if you hadn't already guessed.

It's hard to believe. Where does the times go?' Betty sighs. 'I've always hated that phrase. It makes it would like time went on a holiday, and is expected back any day now. Time flies is another one I hate. Apparently, time does quite a bit of traveling, though.

It's sad when you think about it, but also kind of beautiful.

It's when you don't need something that you tend to lose it.

i've made room for you, she said. if you want it, there's room.

Life used to move much more quickly when I was a girl. We needed to abbreviate just to keep up.

Liz looks at the tissue box, which is decorated with drawings of snowmen engaged in various holiday activities. One of the snowmen is happily placing a smiling rack of gingerbread men in an oven. Baking gingerbread men, or any cooking for that matter, is probably close to suicide for a snowman, Liz thinks. Why would a snowman voluntarily engage in an activity that would in all likelihood melt him? Can snowmen even eat? Liz glares at the box.

Liz, I like you very much," he says. "Oh," she says, "I like you very much, too!" Owen is not sure if she means "O" for Owen, or just plan "Oh." He is not sure what difference it would make in either case. He feels the needs to clarify. "When I said 'I like you very much,' I actually meant 'I love you.'" "O," she says, "I actually meant the same thing." She closes the car door behind her. "Well," he says to himself, driving back to his apartment, "isn't that something?

Love stories are written in millimeters and milliseconds with a fast, dull pencil whose marks you can barely see, they are written in miles and eons with a chisel on the side of a mountiantop

Maybe if I'd been braver in that moment, I would have cried.

My beautiful Win. I wanted to kiss him on every last broken place, but his mother and my lawyer were there. So, instead I started to cry.

My brain said no. But my heart!

My heart was a little bit broken, but I still had to go to school. I buttoned my dress shirt over it and my winter coat, too. I hoped it didn't show too much.

No one actually needs another person or another person's love to survive. Love is when we have irrationally convinced ourselves that we do.

Oh, all stories are the same, aren't they? Men and women fall in love or out of love. People are born; people die. It al ends happily or it all ends sadly, and the difference matters only to the people involved.

Oh," says Owen, "but I would have, you know." "I know you would have," says Liz, "and knowing you would have is nearly as good.

On Elsewhere we fool ourselves into thinking we know what will be just because we know the amount of time we have left. We know this, but we never really know what will be. We never know what will happen...

Our moment had passed somehow. I was different. He was, too. Without our "madness" to unite us, there wasn't anything much there. Or maybe too much had happened in too short a time. It's like when you take a trip with someone you don't know very well. Sometimes you can get very close very quickly, but then after the trip is over, you realise all that was a false sort of closeness. An intimacy based on the trip more than the travellers, if that makes any sense.

People are capable of great, great change during the span of one lifetime. And women even more than men.

People, you'll find, aren't usually all good or bad. Sometimes they're just a little bit good and a whole lot bad. And sometimes they're mostly good with a dash of bad. And most of us, well, we fall in the middle somewhere.

Saying you're through with romance is like saying you're done with living, Betty. Life is better with a little romance, you know.

Should have. Would have. Could have. Didn't.

Since i couldn't remember the "real" first time i'd lost my virginity, this would have become my de facto first time. I wanted a better story then: I did it with this boy who i wasn't very into and who had mysterious Gaterade breath; in his room decorated with sports equipment; at least he was nice enough to provide condoms and get his ancient, horny dog to leave us along.

Someday, we'll run into each other again, I know it. Maybe I'll be older and smarter and just plain better. If that happens, that's when I'll deserve you. But now, at this moment, you can't hook your boat to mine, because I'm liable to sink us both.

Sometimes books don't find us until the right time.