Top 149 Quotes & Sayings by Sarah Addison Allen

At any given time I'm listening to the Cory Branan, Leonna Naess, Eve 6, the King's Noyse, Sean Paul, Green Day, the BoDeans, Buddy Holly, Nowell Sing We Clear... the list goes on and on. But I rarely listen to music while I write. I start typing the lyrics.

Magical realism is a blending of the unusual or supernatural into an otherwise ordinary setting. And, to me, this perfectly describes the South. 'The Sugar Queen' involves a lot of magical happenings, but in a very down-home Southern setting. It's full of things that could almost be true.

I'm a huge fan of Alice Hoffman, Fred Chappell and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Cancer is too real, and too awful, and I can't make it good or magical. I couldn't even read a book where a character had cancer, for a while... But now I've reached a point where I don't think about cancer nonstop anymore, and sometimes I worry about that - I'm going to forget what I went through; I'm going to forget how horrible it was.

I love that my dad has stopped asking me when I'm going to get a real job.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

I'm a classic stress-eater, so I know a lot about how eating can become a way of hiding from what's really wrong. I escape into food. But some people escape into books. Some into relationships that might not be good for them. The three main characters in 'The Sugar Queen' struggle with each of these comforts-turned-crutches.

The thing most consistently on my desk as I write is a cat - a different one at different times of the day. I think I'm more a part of their ritual.

Don't give up because of the dark days. Succeed in spite of them. The dark days make the bright days seem even brighter. So bright you can hardly stand it.

Who I am, what I am, is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, a lifetime of stories. And there are still so many more books to read. I'm a work in progress.

Doctors say there's no such thing as chemo brain, but ask any chemo patient.

My favorite books are the ones that make me smile for hours after reading them. I want that for my readers, for the sweetness to linger. Sort of like chocolate, but without the calories.

There's an old hymn called 'How Can I Keep from Singing?' That's what writing feels like to me. I have to write. It's intrinsic to who I am. So it was a natural choice for me to try to pursue writing as a career. Truthfully, though, I still daydream about how fun it would be to ride on the back of a garbage truck.

I think my characters are more wish fulfillments than they are mirrors. They see things I don't and live in a world I can only enter through words.

She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.

Some people don't know how to fall in love, like not knowing how to swim. They panic first when they jump in. Then they figure it out.

The next morning dawned bright and sweet, like ribbon candy.

Magic is what we invent when we want something we think we cant have.

Men of thoughtless actions are always surprised by consequences.

Every life needs a little space. It leaves room for good things to enter it.

When your cup is empty, you do not mourn what is gone. Because if you do, you will miss the opportunity to fill it again.

Sometimes its necessary to embrace the magic, to find out what's real in life, and in one's own heart.

When someone needs help, you help. Right?

That's the fairy tale. You meet, you fall in love, you kiss, and neither of you is revolted by it. You get married and have kids and live happily ever after.

all we have is our deep and abiding love for each other. We can't loose that or we loose ourselves. If we don't help each other, who will?

You can't change where you come from, but you can change where you go from here. Just like a book. If you don't like the ending, you make up a new one.

...she was still water in his hands. He didn't know how to hold on.

I've never seen you hide from anyone before. He must do something crazy to you.

Safe is just another word for scared.

Embarrassment felt a lot like eating chili peppers. It burned in the back of your throat and there was nothing you could do to make it go away. You just had to take it, suffer from it, until it eased off.

There was a mood of magic and frenzy to the room. Crystalline swirls of sugar and flour still lingered in the air like kite tails. And then there was the smell-the smell of hope, the kind of smell that brought people home.

Don't let anyone see your vulnerable spots. Once they knew how to hurt you, they would do it again and again.

I think Heaven will be like a first kiss.

Coffee, she'd discovered, was tied to all sorts of memories, different for each person. Sunday mornings, friendly get-togethers, a favorite grandfather long since gone, the AA meeting that saved their life. Coffee meant something to people. Most found their lives were miserable without it. Coffee was a lot like love that way. And because Rachel believed in love, she believed in coffee, too.

I just don't know where home is. There's this promise of happiness out there. I know it. I even feel it sometimes. But it's like chasing the moon - just when I think I have it, it disappears into the horizon. I grieve and try to move on, but then the damn thing comes back the next night, giving me hope of catching it all over again.

I needed to stop being what everyone thought I was.

Books can be possessive, can't they? You're walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention. Sometimes what's inside will change your life, but sometimes you don't even have to read it. Sometimes it's a comfort just to have a book around. Many of these books haven't even had their spines cracked. 'Why do you buy books you don't even read?' our daughter asks us. That's like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat. For company, of course.

Superstitions are man's way of trying to control things he has no control over.

Right now everyone is drinking bad wine made of sour grapes and hysteria. Let them drink it, and let them regret it in the morning.

Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people's legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.

It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.

If we measured life in the things that almost happened, we wouldn't get anywhere.

But one thing she [Rachel] did believe in was love. She believed that you could smell it, that you could taste it, that it could change the entire course of your life.

She never thought she was good at making friends. But maybe she was just trying to be friends with the wrong people.

No one should ever compromise the dignity of another human being.

How we see the world changes all the time. It all depends on our mood.

She looked like autumn, when leaves turned and fruit ripened.

But relying on one person for your every need is so dangerous. One set of hands isn't enough to keep you from falling.

Fate never promises to tell you everything up front. You aren't always shown the path in life you're supposed to take. But if there was one thing she'd learned in the past few weeks, it was that sometimes, when you're really lucky, you meet someone with a map.

We're connected, as women. It's like a spiderweb. If one part of that web vibrates, if there's trouble, we all know it, but most of the time we're just too scared, or selfish, or insecure to help. But if we don't help each other, who will?

It was the best first kiss in the history of first kisses. It was as sweet as sugar. And it was warm, as warm as pie. The whole world opened up and I fell inside. I don't know where I was, but I didn't care. I didn't care because the only person who mattered was there with me.

Why were girls in such a hurry to grow up? Agatha would never understand. Childhood was magical. Leaving it behind was a magnificent loss.

It was like the way you wanted sunshine on Saturdays, or pancakes for breakfast. They just made you feel good.

When you're happy for yourself, it fills you. When you're happy for someone else, it pours over.

When you're a teenager, your friends are your life. When you grow up, friendships seem to get pushed further and further back, until it seems like a luxury, a frivolity, like a bubble bath.

Adolescence is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you.

We have history, you and I. You just don’t know it yet.

Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.

Your peers when you're a teenager will always be the keepers of your embarrassment and regret. It was one of life's great injustices, that you can move on and be accomplished and happy, but the moment you see someone from high school you immediately become the person you were then, not the person you are now.

After you finish a book, the story still goes on in your mind. You can never change the beginning. But you can always change the end.