Bookish Mardi: Nicholas Sparks' Dear John
"What does it mean to truly love another?"
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Book Summary
Dear John is about a boy, John, that lives in North Carolina. After high school John enlists in the army. While home on a leave, John meets Savannah who is in North Carolina doing mission work. Their attraction is mutual and they quickly fall in love. John has to leave two weeks after they met to go back to the army. Savannah agreed that she would wait for him to finish his tour of duty. They write letters to eachother and picked up where they left off when he comes back on another leave. However they start to drift apart when 9-11 occurs and John is forced to re-enlist in the army. They begin to grow apart and eventually Savannah sends him a letter that says she is in love with someone else. John was heartbroken and stops communicating with her. A little while later, John's father died and left John all the coins from his coin collection that is worth a lot of money. While John is home for his fathers funeral, he decides to go visit Savannah. It turns out she married her best friend she grew up with,Tim, who John became friends with when he met Savannah. Tim has Melanoma and there is nothing the doctors can do anymore. Savannah wants to send him to a better hospital that can run experiments and tests on him but she can't afford it. Before John leaves to go back to Iraq, he donates all the money his father's coin collection was worth to Tim's fund. He never spoke to Savannah again and goes on living his life in the army.
Remarkable Quotes from the Book
". . . the key to happiness was achievable." - John
"In the army you learn to blend into your surroundings." - John
"When a person sets a thing in motion, there's a feeling of unease, almost regret, until you learn the truth." - John
". . .I've learned that memories can have a physical, almost living presence. . . " - John
"To me, she will always be twenty-one and I will always be twenty-three." - John
"I feel in love with her when we were together, then fell deeper in love with her in the years we were apart. Our story has three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. And although this is the way all stories unfold, I still can't believe ours didn't go on forever." - John
"I was as blind as a snail and dumb as a camel, but even if I told you I regret my immaturity now, I can't undo the past." - John
"I used to think that military life was for losers." - John
". . . the most important lesson in life, . . .you have to live up to your responsibilities, and you'd better do it right." - John
". . . we do what we do for each other. For friendship. Not for country, not for patriotism, not because we're programmed killing machines, but because of the guy next to you. You fight for your friend, to keep him alive, and he fights for you, and everything about the army is built on this simple premise." - John
". . . the evening would bring the first night of the full moon." - John
"I'm no romantic, and while I've heard all about love at first sight, I've never believed in it, and I still don't." - John
"Surfing is a solitary sport, one in which long stretches of boredom are interspersed with franctic activity, and it teaches you to flow with nature, instead of fighting it, . . .it's about getting in the zone." - John
"I've always loved full moons. Ever since I was a kid. I liked to think that they were an omen of sorts. I wanted to believe they always portended good things. Like if I was making mistake, I would have the chance to start over." - John
"Passion is passion. It's the excitement between the tedious spaces, and it doesn't matter where it's directed." - John
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". . . someone else's happiness is usually infectious." - Savannah
"A little mystery is good for the soul." - Savannah
". . . good teachers are priceless. They inspire you, they entertain you, and you end up learning a ton even when you don't know it." - Savannah
"I don't have to do what everyone does. I can do what's right for me." - Savannah
". . . when you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through." - Savannah
"Everyone judges. It's human nature." - Savannah
In the end, it's only God's judgement that matters, and I've learned enough to know that no one can presume the will of God." - Savannah
". . . no one's perfect." - Savannah
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". . . being unpredictable adds to the mysteriousness of women." - John
". . .meeting you has been the best thing that's ever happened to me." - John
". . . what mattered most was knowing that love was mine to give, without strings, or expectations." - Savannah
"I knew that I could live to be a hundred and visit every country in the world, but nothing would ever compare to that single moment when I first kissed the girl of my dreams and knew that my love would last forever." - John
" I would like to spend every morning for the rest of my life waking up beside her." - John
"I know we can write and talk on the phone, and we could see each other when you come home on leave. But it wont be the same. I won't be able to see your silly expressions. We won't be able to lie on the beach together and stare at the stars. We won't be able to sit across from each other and talk and share secrets. And I won't fee your arms around me, like I do now." - Savannah
". . . when we're together, anything is possible." - Savannah
"A person with autism lives in his own world, while a person with Asperger's lives in our world, in a way of his own choosing."
"It's strange how knowledge changes perception." - John
John: I'm going to marry you one day, you know.
Savannah: Is that a promise?
John: If you want it to be.
"We write letters to those people who we care a lot about. We tell them what they mean to us and how much we look forward to the time when we'll get to see them again." - Savannah
". . . it's not that I'll never see you again. That's what I finally realized. Yeah, it'll be hard, but life moves fast - we'll see each other again. I know that. I can feel that. Just like I can feel how much you care for me and how much I love you. I know that in my heart it isn't over, and that we'll make it through this." - Savannah
... excerpts from Savannah's letters
"When I think of you, I can't help smiling, knowing that you've completed me somehow. I love you, not just for now, but for always, and I dream of the day that you'll take me into your arms again."
". . . you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"I just wish those people could know you like I know you, because then you'd be safe. Just like I feel safe when I'm in your arms."
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". . . but parents were funny when it came to their own kids." -John
"I suddenly understood that even love and caring weren't always enough. They were the concrete bricks of our relationship, but unstable without the mortar of time spent together, time without the imminent separation hanging over us." - John
Our relationship, I felt a heaviness in my chest, was beginning to feel like the spinning movement of a child's top. When we were together, we had the power to keep it spinning, and the result was beauty and magic and almost childlike sense of wonder; when we separated, the spinning began inevitably to slow. We became wobbly and unstable, and I knew I had to find a way to keep us from toppling over." - John
"The world was changing fast." - John
"You're a hero and a gentleman, you're kind and honest, but more than that, you're the first man I ever truly loved. And no matter what the future brings, you always will be, and I know that my life is better for it." - Savannah
"Wars always come back to the quest for power among the competing interests." - John
". . . in the real world, in real time, decisions weren't always easy." - John
". . . some things are best kept in secret." - John
Savannah: The truth comes out.
John : "That's the funny thing about the truth. It usually does."
"I knew with certainty that I was still in love with her. despite the letter, despite her husband. Despite the fact that we could never be together now." - John
"Everybody needs somebody to talk to." - Savannah
"It's strange how fate works." - Savannah
"What happened between us was beautiful." - Savannah
. . . and the most "ouchy" answer
"If you want my honest answer, I think you should have waited for me." - John
". . . it's possible to go on no matter how impossible it seems, and that in time, the grief. . . lessens. It may not ever go away completely, but after a while, it's not overwhelming." - John
". . . miracles were always possible no matter how sick a person might be." - John
"Love should bring joy, it should grant a person peace. . ." - John
"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. You were my best friend and my lover, and I don't regret a single moment of it." - Savannah
"Saying good-bye was the hardest thing I ever had to do." - John
"What does true love really mean?" - John
"In any marriage, there's room for only two people." - John
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