17 Gorgeous And Heartbreaking Quotes From 'The Best Of Me'

“Because you aren't just someone I loved back then. You were my best friend, my best self, and I can't imagine giving that up again." He hesitated searching for the right words. "You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same.’”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“There's a lot of magic between you too, ain't no denying that. And magic makes forgettin' hard.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible. She'd believed in it once too, back when she was eighteen. But she knew that love was messy, just like life. It took turns that people couldn't foresee or even understand, leaving a long trail of regret in its wake. And almost always, those…”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“I don't know that I've ever felt as happy as I did that day, but then again, it was always like that when we were together. I never wanted it to end.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“You're still alive. And that means you'll love and be loved...and in the end, nothing else really matters.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“Were all first loves like that? Somehow she doubted it; even now it struck her as being more real than anything she'd ever known. Sometimes it saddened her to think that she'd never experience that kind of feeling again, but then life had a way of stamping out that intensity of passion; she'd learne…”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“Even if I thought he was perfect for her." She turned to face him. "What were we thinking?" "We weren't," he said. "We were in love.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“I knew you loved me and that you'd do anything for me. And that was one of the reasons it hurt so much when you ended it, Dawson. Because I knew even then how rare that kind of love is. Only the luckiest people get to experience it at all.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“Now it was coming to an end, and it was like he was watching the last flicker of light wink out in the darkness of an endless tunnel.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“Even when we were standing in church and I was getting ready to take my vow I can remember wishing that you were standing there instead of him.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“That's why I loved being with you. We could do the simplest things, like toss starfish into the ocean and share a burger and talk and even then I knew that I was fortunate. Because you were the first guy who wasn't constantly trying to impress me. You accepted who you were, but more than that, you a…”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“I want to wake up with you beside me in the mornings. I want to spend my evenings looking at you across the dinner table. I want to share every mundane detail of my day with you and hear every detail of yours. I want to laugh with you and fall asleep with you in my arms.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“Dawson, she knew, had saved Alan's life- but in the end, he'd saved Jared's as well. And for her that meant...everything. 'I gave you the best of me,' he'd told her once, and with every beat of her son's heart, she knew he'd done exactly that.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“...the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. What the younger generation didn’t understand was that the grass was greenest where it’s watered...”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“She understood then, with the distance that maturity brings, how much he'd loved her back then. And still did, something whispered inside her, and all at once she had the strange impression that everything they'd shared in the past had been the opening chapters in a book with a conclusion that had y…”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“She had known the kind of love that was worth risking everything for, the kind of love that was as rare as a glimpse of heaven.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“Peeking in the rearview mirror as she pulled away, she saw that Dawson was still standing where she’d left him, as if hoping she’d change her mind and turn the car around. She felt the stirrings of something dangerous, something she’d been trying to deny. He still loved her, she was certain of that…”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com