Emily Giffin Archive

"'Well, that's just great, Ellen. That's great,' Andy says, his voice drenched in sarcasm. 'Your ex-boyfriend is important to you. Just what every husband wants to hear.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"'You look sad,' she says softly. 'Are you sad?' I can't muster the energy to lie so I nod and tell her yes--although in truth, downright disconsolate is closer to the mark." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"If you never contact someone even once after your final breakup, isn't it, by definition, clean?" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"What I had yet to learn, though, is that things are seldom as neat and tidy as that starry-eyed anecdote you share documentary-style on a couch. What I figured out over time is that almost always, when you hear those stories from married couples, there is a little poetic license going on, a romantic spin, polished to a high shine over time. And unless you marry your high school sweetheart (and even sometimes then), there is usually a not-so-glorious back story. There are people and places and events that lead you to your final relationship, people and places and events you'd prefer to forget or at least gloss over. In the end, you can slap a pretty label on it--like serendipity or fate. Or you can believe that it's just the random way life unfolds. But no matter what you call it, it seems that every couple has two stories--the edited one to be shared from the couch and the unabridged version, best left alone." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"Andy loved me, and I'm not ashamed to say that this topped my reasons of why we were together, of why I loved him back." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"They say timing is everything, and when I look back, I am a big believer in this theory." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"There were things I considered saying in an enclosed note. Thank you . . . I'm sorry . . . I'll always love you. They were all true--and still are--but were better left unsaid, just as I decided never to confess to Andy how close I came to losing everything. Instead, I hold that day deep within myself, as a reminder that love is the sum of our choices, the strength of our commitments, the ties that bind us together." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I mostly saw Leo for what he was--a past love who was never coming back, and I saw myself as a wiser, more complete woman for having lost him. In other words, I was ripe for a new relationship, a better man." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I can no longer neatly categorize what he was during our time together. He was not the man of my dreams, the perfect guy I once put on a pedestal; nor was he the villain who Margot had done her best to demonize; nor really any guy on that particular continuum. He was just the wrong guy for me at the time. Nothing more, nothing less." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"'I've chased you in my dreams for a long time now, Ellie.' Just like that. From anyone else, the words would sound contrived. But from Leo, they are an honest line from our own epic ballad, written from the heart." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin