Quotes from Susan Wiggs

At the centre of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power

I love my life, my family and my friends, and I'm drawn to 'relationship' novels because of their affirming focus on the power of love to heal wounds and transform lives.

When you're with the person you love, you're home.

What's difficult to understand about German opera? It's always the same. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, girl gets devoured by horrible winged creature with claws.

Everybody's in love when they're eighteen. And everybody gets dumped.

I lived in upstate New York until I was ten years old and we moved overseas. I have a lot of nostalgic memories of that part of the world, and I love going back there by writing the Lakeshore books.

Tell the story that's in your heart, and don't hold back. Write a book the reader will want to melt into.

Scary thought - what if I get to know myself and I'm someone I don't want to be?

You're never alone when you're reading a book.

She knew with painful certainty that the opposite of love was not hate, but indifference.

There is something about losing your mother that is permanent and inexpressable - a wound that will never quite heal.

She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different worlds.

at the center of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power.

When you're with the person you love, you're home.

Here's the thing about broken hearts. You can always survive them. Always. No matter how deep the hurt, the capacity to heal and move on is even stronger.

She was the living, breathing proof that the hard things in life didn't have to defeat you - or even define you.

The time for falling in love was when you were emotionally available and free of cares, when it didn't matter what time you came home or how late you were getting up the next day. When you had hours and hours to spend gazing into each other's eyes and even longer hours making love, uninterrupted. If you wait for the perfect time to fall in love…it'll never happen.

Kids aren't supposed to have to figure out how to be happy. They just are.

The human heart was such a complex organ, fragile and sturdy all at once.

I see the way he looks at you when you're not aware of his gaze. I see the way you care for him. And so when you think he wants you gone, it is not that. He is simply afraid to lose you.

If you're drowning for real, and nobody believes you, then you sure as hell better figure out how to swim.

There's a kind of love that has the power to save you, to get you through life. It's like breathing. You have to do it or you'll die. And when it's over, your soul starts to bleed, Livvy. There's no pain in the world like it, I swear. If you were feeling that now, you wouldn't be able to sit up straight or have a coherent conversation.

I know you got your heart broken but I know the heart can heal, too. And I know what it feels like to love again. I love you so much, I can't sleep at night. Sometimes I forget to breathe. And in a hundred years, that's never going to change.

Sometimes if you want something badly enough, you make it happen through sheer force of will.