Sarah Addison Allen quotes:

My favorite books are the ones that make me smile for hours after reading them. I want that for my readers, for the sweetness to linger. Sort of like chocolate, but without the calories.

Blank-slate friendships were thin and temperamental. She knew that. There was no history there to cement people together, for better or worse.

To this day she could make tap water boil just by kissing him.

There's an old hymn called 'How Can I Keep from Singing?' That's what writing feels like to me. I have to write. It's intrinsic to who I am. So it was a natural choice for me to try to pursue writing as a career. Truthfully, though, I still daydream about how fun it would be to ride on the back of a garbage truck.

The next morning dawned bright and sweet, like ribbon candy.

It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.

Coffee, she'd discovered, was tied to all sorts of memories, different for each person. Sunday mornings, friendly get-togethers, a favorite grandfather long since gone, the AA meeting that saved their life. Coffee meant something to people. Most found their lives were miserable without it. Coffee was a lot like love that way. And because Rachel believed in love, she believed in coffee, too.

There was a certain power beautiful mothers held over their less beautiful daughters.

Don't you wish you could take a single childhood memory and blow it up into a bubble and live inside it forever?

Who I am, what I am, is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, a lifetime of stories. And there are still so many more books to read. I'm a work in progress.

Willa?" "Yes" "It's morning and I still love you.

She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.

I'm a classic stress-eater, so I know a lot about how eating can become a way of hiding from what's really wrong. I escape into food. But some people escape into books. Some into relationships that might not be good for them. The three main characters in 'The Sugar Queen' struggle with each of these comforts-turned-crutches.

There's not a lot I can fix for her anymore. Band-Aid and bedtime story days are almost over. This, I can fix with a simple Welcome.

When you're a teenager, your friends are your life. When you grow up, friendships seem to get pushed further and further back, until it seems like a luxury, a frivolity, like a bubble bath.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

Embarrassment felt a lot like eating chili peppers. It burned in the back of your throat and there was nothing you could do to make it go away. You just had to take it, suffer from it, until it eased off.

Fate never promises to tell you everything up front. You aren't always shown the path in life you're supposed to take. But if there was one thing she'd learned in the past few weeks, it was that sometimes, when you're really lucky, you meet someone with a map.

Doctors say there's no such thing as chemo brain, but ask any chemo patient.

I think of the future all the time. All my life I've chased dreams of what could be. For the first time in my life, I've actually caught one. I'll give you one day at a time, Claire. But remember, I'm thousands of days ahead already.

It was early evening when they walked outside, the sky the color of pink lemonade.

She never thought she was good at making friends. But maybe she was just trying to be friends with the wrong people.

He loved that she made him something he never thought he'd been capable of being. Someone who stayed.

all we have is our deep and abiding love for each other. We can't loose that or we loose ourselves. If we don't help each other, who will?

We're connected, as women. It's like a spiderweb. If one part of that web vibrates, if there's trouble, we all know it, but most of the time we're just too scared, or selfish, or insecure to help. But if we don't help each other, who will?

The trick is not to make eye contact. They don't charge if you don't make eye contact.

...a sad sort of vulnerability was wafting from her, making the night smell like maple syrup.

After you finish a book, the story still goes on in your mind. You can never change the beginning. But you can always change the end.

She wished she had known back then. Known that happiness isn't a point in time you leave behind. It's what's ahead of you. Every single day.

It was the truest, purest, saddest thing she had ever heard spoken. It was like hearing gospel for the first time, how it shocked you, how it made you afraid because you thought no one could see inside you."

People always say life is too short for regrets. But the truth is, it's too long.

For stubborn souls like Lisette, death was easier than the courage it took to actually change your life.

Under her thick pancake makeup, her skin had been pockmarked, but he would stare at her adoringly from his cot at night and imagine her scars were constellations, a secret map to a far-off, happy place.

Under her thick pancake makeup, her sin had been pockmarked, but he would stare at her adoringly from his cot at night and imagine her scars were constellations, a secret map to a far-off, happy place.

Sometimes it's difficult to tell what side of the moral compass we are all on. There are so many things to factor in.

You can't change where you come from, but you can change where you go from here. Just like a book. If you don't like the ending, you can make up a new one.

Like magic, she felt him getting nearer, felt it like a pull in the pit of her stomach. It felt like hunger but deeper, heavier. Like the best kind of expectation. Ice cream expectation. Chocolate expectation.

Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people's legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.

If a man has so much heat he burns your skin when he touches you, he's the devil. Run away

I think Heaven will be like a first kiss.

No one should ever compromise the dignity of another human being.

Every life needs a little space. It leaves room for good things to enter it.

He stared up at the moon, which looked like a giant hole in the sky, letting light through to the other side.

Whenever I would get too nosy as a child, my grandmother would say, "When you learn someone else's secret, your own secrets aren't safe. Dig up one, release them all.

Sometimes you weren't supposed to share pain. Sometimes it was best just to deal with it alone.

You'd be surprised how easy some things can be, things you never thought you'd do, when you take self-respect out of the equation.

I needed to stop being what everyone thought I was.

If anyone had been paying attention to the signs, they would have realized that air turns white when things are about to change, that paper cuts mean there's more to what's written on the page than meets the eye, and that birds are always out to protect you from things you don't see.

I was just telling Claire about a guy I met in bread class. I hate him, but he could be my soul mate.

The Waverley sisters hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice.

She looked like autumn, when leaves turned and fruit ripened.

It was lemon verbena day, so the house was filled with a sweet-tart scent that conjured images of picnic blankets and white clouds shaped like true-love hearts.

But she stopped herself. That wouldn't make it right. You didn't forgive because it was the only choice you thought you had. That didn't make it forgiveness, that made it desperation. She'd always been too desperate about Jake. Always.

To Fred, those years seemed to pass like quickly skimming a book and then finding the ending wasn't what he expected. He wished he'd paid more attention to the story.

Right now everyone is drinking bad wine made of sour grapes and hysteria. Let them drink it, and let them regret it in the morning.

...she was still water in his hands. He didn't know how to hold on.

He was the only person in the world she was tongue-tied around, and yet the only person she really wanted to talk to.

The area was encompassed in a bubble of warm, fragrant steam from the funnel cake deep fryers. It smelled like sweet vanilla cake batter you licked off a spoon.

I just don't know where home is. There's this promise of happiness out there. I know it. I even feel it sometimes. But it's like chasing the moon - just when I think I have it, it disappears into the horizon. I grieve and try to move on, but then the damn thing comes back the next night, giving me hope of catching it all over again.

Misfits need a place to get away, too. All that trying to fit in is exhausting.

Magical realism is a blending of the unusual or supernatural into an otherwise ordinary setting. And, to me, this perfectly describes the South. 'The Sugar Queen' involves a lot of magical happenings, but in a very down-home Southern setting. It's full of things that could almost be true.

At any given time I'm listening to the Cory Branan, Leonna Naess, Eve 6, the King's Noyse, Sean Paul, Green Day, the BoDeans, Buddy Holly, Nowell Sing We Clear... the list goes on and on. But I rarely listen to music while I write. I start typing the lyrics.

Don't give up because of the dark days. Succeed in spite of them. The dark days make the bright days seem even brighter. So bright you can hardly stand it.

I love that my dad has stopped asking me when I'm going to get a real job.

Adolescence is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you.

Always make your needs and expectations known,she used to say. That way no one gets hurt.

Because he knew the best way to get what he wanted was to break down what made us strongest. And our friendships were what made us strong.

Being left makes you doubt your ability to keep people, even friends.

Books can be possessive, can't they? You're walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention. Sometimes what's inside will change your life, but sometimes you don't even have to read it. Sometimes it's a comfort just to have a book around. Many of these books haven't even had their spines cracked. 'Why do you buy books you don't even read?' our daughter asks us. That's like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat. For company, of course.

But one thing she [Rachel] did believe in was love. She believed that you could smell it, that you could taste it, that it could change the entire course of your life.

But relying on one person for your every need is so dangerous. One set of hands isn't enough to keep you from falling.

But surprises were nothing new to her. Like opening a can of mushroom soup and finding tomato instead; be grateful and eat it anyway.

But that would leave Paxton to fend for herself, and the last thing any woman wanted in this kind of situation was to look around and see all the people who could help her doing nothing.

Children always know when their mothers are crazy - they just never admit it, not out loud, to anyone.

Crystalline swirls of sugar and flour still lingered in the air like kite tails.

Don't let anyone see your vulnerable spots. Once they knew how to hurt you, they would do it again and again.

Everything had felt so precarious since her mother's death, like she was walking on a bridge made of paper.

First frost meant letting go, so it was always reason to celebrate.

Girls like us, when we love, it takes everything we have.

Happiness is a risk. If you're not a little scared, then you're not doing it right.

He didn't think he belonged here, so she was making him face some uncomfortable facts. People adapt. People change. You can grow where you're planted.

He had a smug smile on his lips like he knew, even in his sleep, that women all around him were dying from love because he'd taken their hearts and hidden them where they'd never find them.

He might be tall enough to see into tomorrow, but he hadn't looked there in a long, long time. He'd forgotten how bright it was. So bright he could hardly stand it.

He reached for her and kissed her. It was all at once passionate, as if there was too much in him to contain. He was immediately swept up in it. It took no effort, the difference between swimming on your own and being washed away in a flood.

He reached out and pushed some hair behind her ears. The gesture was tender, but it hit her with an unexpected force, like when you're in the ocean and a wave hits you. It's so soft and coll that it surprised you that it has such strength.

He used to believe good things happened in this kind of weather.

He'd always been fascinated by her, drawn to her the way curious people are always drawn to things they don't understand.

Her friendship . . . still existed, as if it was a living, breathing thing, something that came to life the moment it happened and didn't just go away because they no longer acknowledged it.

Her grandmother used to tell her that a pink sky meant someone in the distance had just fallen in love . . . .

Her life was monotonous, but it kept her out of trouble. . . . This, her father would say, was called being an adult.

How can we know the true meaning of charity if we don't even know how to help those closest to us?

How could someone with a life this full feel this empty?

How we see the world changes all the time. It all depends on our mood.

I lost myself trying to find happiness in things that didn't love me back.

I should let people in. If they leave, they leave. If I break, I break. It happens to everyone. Right?

I spent so much time telling myself that this wasn't home that I started to believe it," she said carefully. "Belonging has always been tough for me." I can be your home," he said quietly. "Belong to me.

If they just carried on like always, everything would be ok.

If we measured life in the things that almost happened, we wouldn't get anywhere.

I'll give you one day at a time, Claire. But remember, I'm thousands of days ahead already.

It felt as though they were the only people in the world, two young women about to bury the symbol of their helplessness, as if that's all it would take to make them whole again.

It had always fascinated him that she'd consumed so many words, that her head was full of stories, told a thousand different ways.

It took me a long time to realize this: We get to choose what defines us.

It was like she was MADE of cake, light and pretty and decorated on the outside-with her sweet laugh and pink streak to her hair-but it was anyone's guess what was on the inside.

It was like the way you wanted sunshine on Saturdays, or pancakes for breakfast. They just made you feel good.

It was the best first kiss in the history of first kisses. It was as sweet as sugar. And it was warm, as warm as pie. The whole world opened up and I fell inside. I don't know where I was, but I didn't care. I didn't care because the only person who mattered was there with me.

I've never seen you hide from anyone before. He must do something crazy to you.

Life is about experience... You can't hold on to everything

Living down your own past was hard enough. You shouldn't have to live down someone else's.

Love always hurts. That's one thing I know you know. But it's worth it. That's what you don't know. Yet.

Magic is what we invent when we want something we think we cant have.

Memories, even hard memories, grew soft like peaches as they grow older.

Men of thoughtless actions are always surprised by consequences.

Men. You can't live with them, you can't shoot them.

My favorite books are the ones that make me smile for hours after reading them. I want that for my readers, for the sweetness to linger. Sort of like chocolate, but without the calories

Not every man was sorry when he hurt a woman.

Nothing is really broke, so it's not like I can fix it. I just have to keep trying to find what I'm looking for.

People adapt. People change. You can grow where you're planted.

People fall in love all the time. And it's not always with the right people. And it's not always reciprocated.

Safe is just another word for scared.

She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.