Ann Brashares Quotes

There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have a feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well. So I take the memories as they come, accepting them all, letting them guide me whenever I can.

The ways we miss our lives are life.

It's such a colossal effort not to be haunted by what's lost, but to be enchanted by what was.

Happiness in the present is only shattered by comparison with the past.

I get it now; I didn't get it then. That life is about losing and about doing it as gracefully as possible... and enjoying everything in between.

Get up and dance, get up and smile, get up and drink to the days that are gone in the shortest while.

After you have wept and grieved for your physical losses, cherish the functions and the life you have left.

Life is having its way with me now. And I'm really pleased.

My first memory was of stories about the past - a past that, according to the storytellers, was superior in every way to the life then being lived. It didn't take me long, however, to understand that the present was all we had, for the past was gone, and nothing could be done about it.

I give myself 24 hours after a loss. After that, I'm totally on to the next game. But for 24 hours, I'm not a happy man.

Just celebrate the life you had, not the life you could've had.

We may not know what each day has in store for us. We could be gone tomorrow. Any minute could truly be our goodbye. But we do have this moment. This time. Today. Right now. It takes way more effort to shell out hate then it does to allow love to flow freely in our lives. After all, it's what we were born to do.

You don't miss what you never had.

Life is the game that must be played, this truth at least, good friends, we know; so live and laugh, nor be dismayed as one by one the phantoms go.

I have moments where I miss my old self. But I think anyone can get caught up in what we used to have. But at the same time, we can choose to focus on the beauty of now.

It's never too late. Don't focus on what was taken away. Find something to replace it, and acknowledge the blessing you have.

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind.

You've got to laugh at life, you can't take it all too seriously.

I guess I just process death differently than some folks. Realizing you're not going to see that person again is always the most difficult part about it. But that feeling settles, and then you are glad you had that person in your life, and then the happiness and the sadness get all swirled up inside you.

My brother and I have a profound nostalgia for our youth, and I think people need to come to terms with things leaving and being gone.

If I could undo what's been done, But I guess everyone is living, With water and bridges.

For the first time in a long time, he didn't think of the past. And of all the things he'd lost. He thought only of the present, and what he had. And how it was so much more than he deserved. And he prayed then that he would never, ever lose it.