Taylor Jenkins Reid Quotes & Sayings

You loved him. He loved you. You believed in each other. That is what you lost. It doesn't matter whether it's labeled a husband or a boyfriend. You lost the person you love. You lost the future you thought you had. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

But yes," I say, "I really do believe that. I believe I'm destined for something. We are all destined for something. And I believe that the universe, or God, or whatever you want to call it, I believe it keeps us on the right path. ... — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It's funny, isn't it? So often men see betrayal in what you've done instead of how you feel. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Sometimes you want to forget the fact that you're alone, and instead, you want to relish the feeling that someone understands you, someone is fighting the same battle that you are. Also, you know, sometimes you just want to feel wanted and desired. Sometimes you want to feel what it feels like with someone new. Sometimes you forget about whether you're ready to do something, and you just let yourself do it. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

But I'm also really angry at myself for not being loyal to Sam, for not remaining steadfast and true in my devotion, like I have promised him I would be. I am mad at myself for being unsure, for not being the sort of woman who can tell him he's the only one, for not giving him the kind of love he deserves. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

My mother raised me to be polite, to be demure. I have long operated under the idea that civility is subservience. But it hasn't gotten me very far, that type of kindness. The world respects people who think they should be running it. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I want so badly to take all her words and fit them like the pieces of a puzzle into the hole in my heart — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I'm learning not to read too much into good things. I'm learning just to appreciate the good while you have it in your sights. Not to worry so much about what it all means and what will happen next. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

A conversational roadblock. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I decided that was my answer to questions of fate. I could go around asking myself what if x hadn't happened, and the answer would always be, "But it did. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I am overwhelmed with love for my mom right now. She always knows just what to do. When do you learn that in life? When do you learn what to do? — Taylor Jenkins Reid

The sun will rise no matter what pain we encounter. No matter how much we believe the world to be over, the sun will rise. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

True love doesn't always last," I say. "It doesn't always have to be for a lifetime. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

doesn't matter if we don't mean to do the things we do. It doesn't matter if it was an accident or a mistake. It doesn't even matter if we think this is all up to fate. Because regardless of our destiny, we still have to answer for our actions. We make choices, big and small, every day of our lives, and those choices have consequences. We have to face those consequences head-on, for better or worse. We don't get to erase them just by saying we didn't mean to. Fate or not, our lives are still the results of our choices. I'm starting to think that when we don't own them, we don't own ourselves. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I've read the articles that show up in all the women's magazines about marital ruts and turning the heat up in your marriage. They don't tell you anything real. They don't have any answers. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Sometimes divorce isn't an earth-shattering loss. Sometimes it's just two people waking up out of a fog. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

We are two people who are madly in love with our old selves. And that is not the same as being in love. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I know what it means to miss you, — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It's almost terrifying, how much it defies logic and reason. What else do we know about the world that isn't true? — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Maybe it doesn't matter if you need someone during the everyday moments of your life. Maybe what matters is that when you need someone, they are the one you need. Maybe needing someone isn't about not being able to do it without them. Maybe needing someone is about it being easier if they are by your side. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Change, at least in my life, is more often than not a slow and steady stream. It's not an avalanche. It's more of a snowball effect. I probably shouldn't pontificate about my life using winter metaphors. I've only seen real snow three times. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You can only forgive yourself for the mistakes you made in the past once you know you'll never make them again. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I'm under absolutely no obligation to make sense to you. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

didn't get it back then. I thought . . . I thought choosing him meant you didn't love me. I thought because we didn't work out, it meant we were a failure or a mistake. But I understand it now. Because I love her. I love her so much I can't see straight. But it doesn't change how I felt about you or how thankful I am to have loved you once. It's just . . ." "I'm the past. And she's the present." "Yeah," he says, relieved that I've put it into words for him, that he doesn't have to try to find them himself. "That's exactly it." I — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It's just a small, good thing in a situation that totally fucking sucks. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It all hurts so bad and feels so good that I'd swear my heart is bleeding. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It's always my impulse to ignore the bad, to run toward the good. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

The sun rises the next day after mothers lose their babies, after men lose their wives, after countries lose wars. The sun will rise no matter what pain we encounter. No matter how much we believe the world to be over, the sun will rise. So you can't go around assessing love by whether or not the sun rises. The sun doesn't care about love. It just cares about rising. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Now I wonder if grief isn't something like a shell. You wear it for a long time and then one day you realize you've outgrown it. So you put it down. It doesn't mean that I want to let go of the memories of you or the love I have for you. But it does mean that I want to let go of the sadness. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I breathe in sharply, and then I breathe out slowly. Life is just a series of breaths in and out. All I really have to do in this world is breathe in and then breathe out, in succession, until I die. I can do that. I can breathe in and out. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Just . . . just do me a favor."

"Anything."

"Don't stay with me if you want to be with him," he says. "Don't do that to me. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Your parents don't understand why you're asking and you can't quite explain it to them. You just say, "This one is tainted." But what you mean is that you feel like it absorbed your suffering. You know it sounds crazy but you believe your pain is in the mattress and you don't want to absorb it back into your own body.

You know it's not that simple. But it feels like it is. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I realized that I had stopped seeing him as someone who, you know, was attractive, I guess. I was taking him for granted in that way. And now that I know that he is dating, it's very clear to me what I had when I had it — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You're not really famous if anyone still likes you. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You spend so much time being upset about being in the hospital in the first place that it is almost jarring to realize how many people don't ever leave. I could have been just like his sister. I could have never woken up. But I did. I'm one of the ones who did. I consider for a moment what would have happened if I'd been standing just a little bit farther in the road or a little bit off to the side. What if I'd been thrown to the left instead of to the right? Or if the car had been going five miles per hour faster? I might not have ever woken up. Today could have been my funeral. How weird is that? How absolutely insane is that? The difference between life and death could be as simple and as uncomfortably slight as a step you take in either direction. Which means that I am here today, alive today, because I made the right choices, however brief and insignificant they felt at the time. I made the right choices. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Looking at him now, recalling what it used to be like between us, how I liked myself around him, how I felt good about the world and my place in it with him by my side, how I ached when he left for college, I remember what it feels like to truly love someone. For the right reasons. In the right way. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I nod but what I want to do is tell him about what Marie said, that she told me this isn't about who I love but rather who I am. I want to tell him that I've been asking myself that question over and over and it's starting to seem glaringly obvious that I am different from the person Jesse loves. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I feel awful for giving up on Jesse. For thinking he was dead. For moving on. For falling in love with someone else. I'm actually furious at myself for that. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It would feel good to work at the Benjamin S. Ross Foundation for Not Eating Fruity Pebbles. But I know there isn't actually anything to rally against for him. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You don't own Ryan. You brought him into this family, and you asked us to love him. And we do. And you can't control that. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You and I aren't going to spend our lives together," Jesse says. "But I finally understand that that doesn't take away any of the beauty of the fact that we were right for each other once. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

don't move from place to place on purpose. It's not a conscious choice to be a nomad. Although I can see that each move is my own decision, predicated on nothing but my ever-growing sense that I don't belong where I am, fueled by the hope that maybe there is, in fact, a place I do belong, a place just off in the future. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You wonder what it must be like to be a man, to be so confident that the final say is yours. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Hollow and empty are terrible ways to feel when you're used to being full of joy. But it's not so bad when you're used to feeling full of pain. Hollow feels okay. Empty feels like a beginning. Which is nice, because for so long you have felt like you were at the end. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I love you," I say. I say it because I mean it right now, but I also say it for every single time I couldn't say it then. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Just because something isn't meant to last a lifetime doesn't mean it wasn't meant to be. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You read all the way through to the end of one, only to find out that the husband dies. You hurl the book across the room, breaking the bedside lamp. When your mom comes home that night, you tell her what happened. You ask her for books to read where no one dies.

Two days later, you find both of your parents in the living room with a pile of novels on the coffee table. They are skimming through them one by one, making sure every character lives to the end. That night, you have a new stack of books to read and you open up the first one, confident it won't break you down.

It is the first time in a long time that you have felt safe. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Relationships aren't neat and clean. They're ugly and messy, and they make almost no sense except to the two people in them. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Why have I spent so long settling for less when I know damn well the world expects more? — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Hi," he says.

Just hearing that one word makes me feel as though I have gone back in time, to a part of my life when things made sense, when the world was fair. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I am stronger than when I knew them. I stand straighter. I am more patient. I hold fewer grudges. I am more thankful for what I have, less resentful for what I don't. I am less restless. I read a lot more books. I play the piano. I'm engaged. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

We have to face those consequences head-on, for better or worse. We don't get to erase them just by saying we didn't mean to. Fate or not, our lives are still the results of our choices. I'm starting to think that when we don't own them, we don't own ourselves. Mark — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I miss him all the time. But it's moments like this, when I'm on the precipice of finally doing work that might just expand my heart, that I wish I could at least send him a letter, telling him what I'm doing. And I wish that he could send me one back. I already know what he would write. Something like "I'm proud of you. I love you." But still, I'd like to get one anyway. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

There is so much guilt lying around here, just waiting for me to pick it up and carry it with me. There is so much I can torture myself about. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Look at the things we are capable of in the name of the people we love. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

When you lose someone you love, it's hard to imagine that you'll ever feel better. That, one day, you'll manage to be in a good mood simply because the weather is nice or the barista at the coffee shop on the corner remembered your order.

But it does happen.

If you're patient and you work at it. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

At the time, I could not, for the life of me, understand why he told me this, why he trusted me with the truth about his life more than anyone else. I thought it meant that I was special, that maybe he had always felt about me the way I felt about him.

Now, looking back on it, I know it was just the opposite. I was a girl in the background of his life - that's what made me safe. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Do you think I don't deserve to grieve as much as someone who lost their son after forty years? Twenty-seven years is a short time to have a son. Just because it was short, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. It was just short. That's all. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I don't want to be back in this bed. I want to be up and moving and living and doing and seeing. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It is hard to be so honest, so vulnerable, so exposed. But I find that it always leads you someplace freer. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You won't realize just how young you are until you aren't that young anymore. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Hearts are just like legs, I guess. They mend. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I remember seeing it on him the next day thinking that I never knew how sexy a wedding ring was on a man until it was my ring, until I put it there. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You know this is called self-pity. You don't care. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I now understand why people sometimes describe the air as 'bitter cold'. The cold is not bitter. They are bitter about the cold. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Isn't it nice," he says, "once you've outgrown the ideas of what life should be and you just enjoy what it is?" Of — Taylor Jenkins Reid

We don't know what would have happened. But whatever would have happened wasn't supposed to happen. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

If you love someone, if you think you could make them happy for the rest of your life together, then nothing should stop you. You should be prepared to take them as they are and deal with the consequences. Relationships aren't neat and clean - they're ugly and messy, and they make almost no sense except to the two people in them. If you truly love someone, you accept the circumstances, you don't hide behind them — Taylor Jenkins Reid

No place has felt like home. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Thank you," he said as he gathered his bags and looked at me. "I love you more than anyone has ever loved anyone in the history of the world. Do you know that? Do you know that Antony didn't love Cleopatra as much as I love you? Do you know that Romeo didn't love Juliet as much as I love you?"

I laughed. "I love you, too," I said. "More than Liz Taylor loved Richard Burton. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I'm overwhelmed by the stunning incredibility of the truth. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It occurs to me that my memory of him was a poor substitute for the real thing. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

We were in love, high on the novelty of marriage. The words husband and wife felt as if they had a shine to them. They were simply more fun to say than all the other words we knew. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I want to be with someone who lives for me. I want to be with someone who considers me the love of her life. I deserve that. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

There are, of course, many songs dedicated to the glory of a backside, and if my thirties have taught me anything so far, it's that I'm ready to try to be myself with no apologies. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

How I wish I'd had time to find him positively mind-numbing. When you love someone so much that you've stuck around through all the interesting things that have happened to them and have nothing left to say, when you know the course of their day before they even tell you, when you lie next to them and hold their hand even though they haven't said one interesting thing in days, that's a love I want. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I know there may be universes out there where I made different choices and they led me somewhere else, led me to someone else. And my heart breaks for every single version of me that didn't end up with you. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

What I'm mad about is that you forgot about me! That you moved on and replaced me! That I'm back and I still don't have you. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

From experience, I can tell you that if you go around trying to figure out what's fair in life or whether you deserve something or not, that's a rabbit hole that is hard to climb out of. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Falling out of love with someone you still like feels exactly like lying in a warm bed and hearing the alarm clock.

No matter how good you feel right now, you know it's time to go. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I was going to wake up early tomorrow and go into the bathroom and write 'I love you' on the mirror with a bar of soap. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

what's the point of a promise anyway? How can we expect people to stick to their word about anything when the world around us is so arbitrary, unreliable, and senseless? — Taylor Jenkins Reid

If there are an infinite number of universes, I don't know how I got so lucky as to end up in this one. Maybe there are other lives for me out there, but I can't imagine being as happy in any of them as I am right now, today. I have to think that while I may exist in other universes, none is as good as this. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I know it will be OK because everything is OK in the end. And if it's not OK, it's not the end. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

But he's wrong, isn't he? Everything isn't always fine. Terrible things happen in this world. Awful things. You have to do your best to prevent them. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Widows don't accidentally flash their underwear at anyone. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I have no apartment and no job. I have no steady relationship or even a city to call home. I have no idea what I want to be doing with my life, no idea what my purpose is, and no real sign of a life goal. And yet time has found me. The years I've spent dilly-dallying around at different jobs in different cities show on my face. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

My eyes are bloodshot. I look at my face and I think that I had someone who loved this face. And now he's gone. And now no one loves my face anymore. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Romantic love is a beautiful thing under the right circumstances. But those circumstances are so specific and rare, aren't they?

It's rare that you love the person who loves you, that you love only the person who loves only you. Otherwise, somebody's heartbroken. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You know how every once in a while you look back on your life and you wonder how so much time has passed? You wonder how each moment bled into the next and created the days, months, and years that now all feel like seconds?

That's how I feel.

Right now.

In this moment.

It feels like our entire past together spans eons and the time I've spent without him is an insignificant little flash. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I have changed over time. That's what people do.

People aren't stagnant. We evolve in reaction to our pleasures and our pains. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Our friendship had been a long-distance one since we went off to college. But I never met another woman who meant to me what she did. No one else could make me laugh like she could. So my oldest friend remained my best friend, despite however many miles kept us apart, and it was for that reason that I made her my maid of honor. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

My heart is truly broken. And I know that even if it mends, it will look different, feel different, beat differently. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I decided to no longer wonder what would have happened if things had worked out differently. And instead, I would focus on what was in front of me. I would focus on reality instead of asking myself questions about fictions. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I find myself smiling, finally. I guess I do remember how to do it. You just turn the corners of your mouth up. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I desperately want to simply love him - unequivocally and without reservation - the way I did back then ... — Taylor Jenkins Reid

What happens to the relationship you never had with your mother-in-law when your husband dies? — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You feel like you stopped living when he went missing. You feel like the rest of your days are killing time until it's time to die. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

And here's why it worked: man or woman, gay, straight, bisexual, you name it, we all just want to be teased. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

don't think that true love means your only love.

I think true love means loving truly.

Loving purely. Loving wholly.

Maybe, if you're the kind of person who's willing to give all of yourself, the kind of person who is willing to love with all of your heart even though you've experienced just how much it can hurt . . . maybe you get lots of true loves, then. Maybe that's the gift you get for being brave. — Taylor Jenkins Reid