Quotes from Elin Hilderbrand

With this in mind, Ava tells herself to be present and celebrate the holiday instead of wishing it was over. After all, one is given only a certain number of Christmases in one's life.

The only person who wants the soldier to live more than the soldier himself is the soldier's mother. Kate

First you love the music that your parents love—and then, later in life, you love the songs your kids love.

It's not a house to us. It's a home. And it's not a home, it's s way of life. Our summertime happens here. This house is part of our past, it's our present, it'll be our future. It's who we are.

And maybe, just maybe, this summer will end up being one that people write songs about.

What I think is that every family is happy in their own fashion, and every family is unhappy in their own fashion. Every family is both functional and dysfunctional.

Meredith immersed herself in the novels. For some reason, fiction hit on the meaning of life so much more concisely than real life itself did.

Nick was chocolate and cigarettes and whiskey and danger, and everything I should stay away from.

Venting your anger on anyone - especially complete strangers - is not a winning tactic. Be especially sweet to bartenders and people serving you food.

I may not want to write every day, but I have no choice - there are deadlines to meet.

Sometimes you regret the things you do, but they're over and done. Regretting the things you didn't do is tougher because they're still out there, haunting you with the what ifs.

When you peered into the windows of someone else's life, you could only guess what was going on.

I'm not going to give quotes about inventing the 'beach book,' but I was certainly at the forefront of it.

The moment their eyes meet, the moment their hands touch. That certainty. That recognition. You. You are the one. This is what it feels like. Nothing, as it turns out, can take the place of love.

June and July are foggy months. In the early summer on Nantucket, warm moist air flows over the colder water. The moist air cools to its dew point and a cloud forms at the water's surface. This is fog.

And Margot should have made a rule about no cell phones. What was it about life now? The people who weren't present always seemed to be more important than the people who were.

She could hear the voices and laughter coming from the yard, and she thought, really, this was the best part of any wedding, not the ceremony or the cake or the dancing but the downtime when they were all together without the lights shining on them.

And here," she said. "Let me fix your tie." She tugged on his bow tie, her eyes appraising him, and he basked in it. He had left his tie crooked on purpose, just so she could straighten it.

He'd learned that when you love someone purely enough, all you wanted was for that person to be happy. (p. 419)

If everyone slept with the person he or she had secretly fallen in love with, the world would be chaos.

When deep August arrives, a certain melancholy sets in, the kind people get on a Sunday afternoon.

no one can judge a relationship except for the two people in it.

Stuart and Jenna exchanged rings-platinum band for Stuart, and platinum with diamonds for Jenna, but they could have been aluminum or plastic. Expensive rings did not guarantee a happy life together.

Love is scary! Taking a vow to love someone through sickness and health, for richer for poorer, forsaking all others, until death do us part, is the most terrifying experience a person can have. Why pretend any differently?