Top 200 Jennifer E. Smith Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “The quiet between them had gone on for far too long now to pretend it was anything other than what it was. There were no more words; all that was left were two faintly beating hearts.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

152. “For a long time they just stay there like that, as still as the statues in the garden. And when he gives her no sign – no gestures of welcome, no indication of need – Hadley swallows hard and comes to a decision. But just as she turns to walk away she hears him behind her, the word like the opening of some door, like an ending and a beginning, like a wish. “Wait,” he says, and so she does.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

153. “I love that every generation thinks they’ve invented it. They think they’re the first ones to fall in love and get their hearts broken, to feel loss and passion and pain. And in a way, they are. We’ve been there before, of course. But for young people, that doesn’t matter. Everything is new. Which I love, because it means everything is always beginning again. It’s hopeful, I think. At least to me.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

154. “And here’s the amazing thing: Now it was.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

155. “Sometimes it felt like she was still in the middle of a conversation with him, that they’d only paused for a beat; that this was nothing more than the space between musical notes, the timeout on a playing field, the long, slumbering winter before an inevitable spring.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

156. “But there’s something about him that makes her heart quicken in the way it does when she’s surprised. And she supposes that might just be it: the surprises of it all.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

157. “Clare’s been called a lot of things- smart and funny, driven and talented- but memorable certainly isn’t one of them. The most important things about her- the ones she’s most proud of- are apparent only once you get to know her.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

158. “Sometimes it seemed as if his whole life was an exercise in waiting; not waiting to leave, exactly, but simply waiting to go. He felt like one of those fish that had the capacity to grow in unimaginable ways if only the tank were big enough. But his tank had always been small, and as much as he loved his home- as much as he loved his family- he’d always felt himself bumping up against the edges of his own life.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

159. “When you’re on the other side of it,” she says, “fifty-two years can seem like about fifty-two minutes.” She tips her head back and swallows the pill. “Just like when you’re young and in love, a seven-hour plane ride can seem like a lifetime.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

160. “By the time they finished eating, it was fully dark and a little bit chilly, the kind of night that’s caught somewhere between summer and fall, old and new.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

161. “Someone once told her there’s a formula for how long it takes to get over someone, that it’s half as long as the time you’ve been together. Hadley has her doubts about how accurate this could possibly be, a calculation so simple for something as complicated as heartbreak.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

162. “That was the thing about books, she was realizing; they could take you somewhere else entirely, it was true. but it wasn’t the same thing as actually going there yourself.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

163. “He was a mystery that – for reasons I didn’t quite understand – I felt desperate to solve.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

164. “Be good. Be brave. Be yourself.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

165. “There were times when she missed New York – the familiarity of it, and her own deep knowledge of the place – but really, there was nothing pulling her back there anymore.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

166. “Soon enough, his shapeless future would start to mold itself into something more concrete. In the meantime, he was in no hurry.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

167. “When she finally says them, she wants it to be to the first, last, and only person. She wants it to count.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

168. “She twisted a piece of his T-shirt, then let it go and laid her palm flat against his chest, right over his heart, and he could suddenly feel it again: the steady thump of it drowning out all his other thoughts. It was more drumbeat than countdown, more metronome than ticking clock, and he felt himself carried forward with each muffled beat, as if hope were a rhythm, a song he’d only just discovered.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

169. “But Hadley understood. It wasn’t that she was meant to read them all. Maybe someday she would, but for now, it was more the gesture itself. He was giving her the most important thing he could, the only way he knew how. He was a professor, a lover of stories, and he was building her a library in the same way other men might build their daughters houses.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

170. “A relationship doesn’t have a shot in hell if you start planning its ending before it even starts.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

171. “It hasn’t been easy, loving him; it’s like a dull throb, constant and persistent as a toothache, and there’s no real cure for it.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

172. “No one is useless in this world,” it reads, “who lightens the burden of it for any one else.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

173. “Sometimes it feels like if I wish for it hard enough, it might just come true. But I know that’s not the way it works. Life doesn’t bend to anyone’s will. And it doesn’t run on credit either. Just because the world stole something from me doesn’t mean it owes me anything. And just because I’ve stockpiled a whole lot of bad luck doesn’t mean I’m due anything good.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

174. “Secrets never stay secret for very long.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

175. “It’s like that feeling of getting off a long flight and taking your first breath of fresh air. You were okay on the plane. You could breathe just fine. And you could survive like that for a pretty long time if you had to. But once you’re off, you realize you wouldn’t want to live that way forever. Not if you had a choice. I think being away did that for me. It helped me realize I hadn’t breathed – really breathed – in a very long time.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

176. “Sometimes it feels like if I wish for it hard enough, it might just come true. But I know that’s not the way it works. Life doesn’t bend to anyone’s will.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

177. “I don’t know if it’ll work out with you guys. Not everyone is that lucky. But don’t screw it up for yourself. If it’s gonna happen, at least let the universe do it for you.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

178. “Maybe the point isn’t always to make things last. Maybe it’s just to make them count.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

179. “It’s not that she doesn’t believe in love. But seeing other people’s stories unfold always feels like watching a movie she would never have picked out for herself. Somewhere there must be a version that’s more like the films in her head, bright and colorful and unique.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

180. “For starters, I don’t even know what my dreams are. All I know is that I feel... restless. And I’d love to do something different, you know? Something new.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

181. “She knows this can’t last – whatever it is; that a few days from now, they’ll be getting off at different stations, going in different directions. But she doesn’t care. Because for now, they have this: a happiness so big it doesn’t leave the room for worries.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

182. “Sometimes it’s good for you to be spectacularly stupid.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

183. “It’s like reading a map of the future, and she wonders if there are such tell tale signs on everyone, hidden clues to the people they’ll one day become.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

184. “I was in love many times before I met your grandfather. Some of them lasted a long time; some of them didn’t. The trick is not to worry about it. If you spend too much time thinking about when it will disappear, you’ll miss the whole thing.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

185. “The proper function of a man is to live, not to exist.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

186. “Or maybe he’s just not used to being alone; maybe that’s something you need to practice, like playing football or the violin.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

187. “But with Hugo, there was no thinking, only feeling. Everything else melted away, and the world went quiet. There was something almost inevitable about it, something automatic, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, to be kissing him like that.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

188. “I want to belong.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

189. “And being part of something – really part of it – means it can be taken away. It means you have something to lose. And I’ve already lost way too much.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

190. “Greta finds it almost painful sometimes to think about all the different lives she could be leading, to know that every choice she’s made has meant the loss of so many other possibilities. Every day, more doors close. Without even trying, simply by moving forward, you end up doubling down on the life you’ve chosen. And the only way to survive is to commit to it fully, to tell yourself it’s the right one. But what if that’s not true?”

— Jennifer E. Smith

191. “Once upon a time,′ she says, looking straight into the camera, ‘my grandmother fell in love on a train.’ She hesitates, taking a sharp breath. ‘Fifty years later, so did I.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

192. “When you move, it’s like your life gets split in two. So you never really feel at home in either place.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

193. “Everything is always beginning again.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

194. “The love part,” she says, so quietly that only Greta can hear, “is more important.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

195. “It’s a particularly strange kind of loss, when something you don’t think you even want gets taken away from you.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

196. “It was like having an extra sun in their orbit, an inexhaustible source of warmth and energy.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

197. “I’m starting to realise that a lot of people don’t put much stock in dreams. They think of them like these faraway planets they never really expect to reach. I was only supposed to step out of my life for a week, but that’s another thing nobody tells you: that once you get there, it’s never enough. There are always more planets to see.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

198. “Love is like this pizza. It’s warm and gooey and delicious, but it doesn’t last.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

199. “Most terrible things that happen are out of your control. So it makes no sense to add some of your own.”

— Jennifer E. Smith

200. “Everyone grows up dreaming of something different, Hugo. And that’s okay. It’s what makes life so interesting.”

— Jennifer E. Smith