Top 40 Tracey Garvis-Graves Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I want you to be my wife. There’s no one else I want to spend the rest of my life with. We can live out here, you, me, our kids, and Bo. But I get it now, Anna. My decisions affect you, too. So now you have one of your own to make. Will you marry me?”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

2. “You made it so damn easy for me to love you.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

3. “I never wanted you to leave, but I didn’t know how to ask you to stay.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

4. “You know that saying, ‘Act now, apologize later?’ I’m pretty much the poster boy.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

5. “It’s a hard pill to swallow when you have to admit, even to yourself, that you were wrong about the person you were certain was perfect for you.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

6. “So what is it that you do, exactly?” “I specialize in penetration testing. Pentesting for short. I’m incredibly good at it.” “I’ve never heard of that. That sounds made up.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

7. “Is this the dating pool you want to swim around in? I mean really, Katie.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

8. “Life isn’t easy for anyone. We all have challenges. We all face adversity. It’s how we overcome it that makes us who we are.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

9. “Always choose love. Always choose the adventure. You’ll never regret it.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

10. “Are you free Friday night? Around six thirty? I’d like for us to go on our third date. And you know what that means.” “I do happen to be available, and I’m well aware of what sometimes happens on the third date. But for your information, we’re not quite there yet.” “We’re not?” “No.” “Are you sure? Because I feel like we could be.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

11. “Sometimes it’s important to let the people we care about know that a single incident doesn’t have to define them.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

12. “I’m going to order us a drink. A bourbon sounds excellent on this crisp fall afternoon.” Ian signaled for the waiter. “Against my better judgment, I’ll order you a glass of wine. According to your credit card statement, you had a staggering amount of chardonnay delivered to your apartment last month. I think you might want to take one of those ‘Could I Be an Alcoholic’ quizzes the next time you come across one, just to see what it says.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

13. “The constant vigilance and my heightened anxiety that I’d screw it up anyway exhausted me, but I persevered.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

14. “I’ve been in love with you for months. I’m telling you now because I think you love me, too, Anna. You just don’t think you’re supposed to. You’ll tell me when you’re ready. I can wait.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

15. “I want to work at a library someday,” I said. “I want to spend every waking day of my adult life surrounded by books.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

16. “Is your life better with him, Anna, or without him? I decided right then, standing on that sidewalk, to stop worrying about things that might never go wrong.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

17. “He had the whitest teeth I’d ever seen, which made me think his kisses would taste like Pep O Mint Life Savers. Joe’s kisses probably tasted like pot and Funyuns. And failure.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

18. “I never know what people are thinking. It’s like visiting a country where you don’t speak the language and you’re trying so hard to understand but no matter how many times you ask for juice, they keep bringing you milk.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

19. “Come on over to the dark side, Katie. I’ll save you a seat next to me.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

20. “I’ll win you over eventually. I’m very charming that way.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

21. “I did tell you yesterday that I wasn’t feeling especially pretty.” “Even when you’re sick, you’re a solid eight point five.” “How very sweet in a completely sexist way.” “When you’re not sick you’re an eleven.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

22. “Well, how do you usually meet women?” “They have a way of suddenly appearing. Like the birds in that song.” She had to think about that for a minute. “You mean ‘Close to You’ by the Carpenters?”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

23. “I love you. I will never stop loving you.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

24. “A couple times a week she went to the library and returned with stacks of books. She read faster than anyone I knew.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

25. “You have the rest of your life to work, and taking a break from something doesn’t mean you’re any less passionate about it.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

26. “I know what the word means even when I’m not wearing my smart glasses.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

27. “What if it turns out that after going through the evaluation, I find out I’m not on the spectrum. That I really am just weird. I don’t know if I can handle that.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

28. “Though she has trouble deciphering other people’s facial expressions, her face is an open book and no one would ever have trouble understanding hers.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

29. “Staring into space is how I clear my mind so I can work through whatever problem I’m trying to solve.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

30. “I’d spent the preceding twenty days swirling in a paralyzing vortex of loud sounds and bad smells, overwhelming stimuli, and confusing social norms, and I’d had just about all I could take.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

31. “In my experience, people treat the ones they love the worst.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

32. “It was hard for me to come up with something on the fly, which is why I preferred, if at all possible, not to say anything at all for fear it wasn’t the right thing.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

33. “If you’re going to stare at it, it’s going to wake up and say hi.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

34. “You’re not gonna name it Dog, are you?”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

35. “Though she has trouble deciphering other people’s facial expressions, her face is an open book and no one would ever have trouble understanding hers. I’ve always wondered if she exaggerates them to help people understand what she’s thinking, the way she wishes they would for her. I find it endearing.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

36. “I know you’ve alluded to my boundary issues,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the tub. “And this is probably a shining example, but I wanted to make sure you were okay. Passing out in the bathtub or shower is one of the leading causes of death while bathing. And I can’t see anything because of all the bubbles. Actually, that’s a blatant lie because I can pretty much make out your entire left nipple. The suds are a little disparate in that area.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

37. “When you have nothing, everything feels like something.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

38. “I stared at the palm trees, their green fronds rippling in the breeze. Sweat trickled slowly down the side of my face, and the constant smell of coconut on my hands reminded me of suntan lotion. It would always be summer on the island.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

39. “For so long, I’d envied the affection other people seemed to acquire effortlessly. Holding hands and kissing someone felt like finally being able to nibble at a buffet that had delicacies I had yet to fully sample, and I was eager to try every one of them. After years of loneliness and isolation, receiving attention and affection from another person boosted my spirits unbelievably. It was an infinitely preferable way to go about life.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

40. “Jonathan made concessions for me, and I didn’t need Janice to tell me that. He kept me away from loud noises before they could overwhelm me. He was always kind- to people, to animals, to strangers. He made me feel special and smart.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

41. “It’s hard to see at first because it’s dark, but there’s a cardboard box, and in it are a cat and five small kittens. I don’t have any pets, and if I had to choose, I’d probably consider myself a dog person. But I can’t deny how cute the kittens are. The love Annika feels for these tiny animals transforms her face, and I’m reminded of how protective and nurturing she can be.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves

42. “Reading transported me to exotic places, fascinating periods in history, and worlds that were vastly different from my own.”

— Tracey Garvis-Graves