In the world of The Notebook, love overcomes all: class, logic, and even disease. Nicholas Sparks portrays love as an unstoppable power with the ability to change and bring purpose to one’s life. Indeed, when Noah Calhoun and Allie Nelson meet in New Bern, North Carolina in 1932, it is love at first sight. After a summer of love, they are torn apart when Allie’s family leaves town and Allie’s mother begins confiscating the letters Noah writes—but 14 years later, they find one another and discover that their love is stronger than ever. By showing how love comes to define Noah and Allie’s lives, Sparks ultimately suggests that love is a force which can steer one’s destiny.
Sparks uses Noah and Allie’s states of mind at the start of the novel to show how their lives have been defined by their love for each other—regardless of whether they want to accept that fact or not. When readers meet Noah, it is October of 1946—over a decade since his love affair with Allie. He lives alone in a renovated plantation home with only a three-legged dog for company. During conversations with his neighbor, Gus, Gus can tell that Noah is still hung up on his “first love.” “No matter what you do,” Gus warns Noah, “she’ll stay with you forever.” Though Noah tries to write off Gus’s words, everything about Noah’s life—a life lived on pause—demonstrates their truth. Sparks uses Noah’s self-imposed physical and emotional isolation to show how his life is defined by his love for Allie—even if he hasn’t heard from her in 14 years. Noah lives alone in a giant old house that he’s spent years working day and night to repair, and he admits that he worked so hard on the house in order to distract himself from the “ghosts” of his past—namely, Allie. Sparks uses the image of the house to demonstrate Noah’s longing to continue building his life with space in it for Allie: he fixes up a place they both loved in hopes that one day she will return to him.
Allie, too, is living a life defined by Noah’s absence at the start of the novel, further demonstrating how love can be a long-lasting, influential, and guiding force in one’s life. Even after an affair has ended, a past love can still define one’s destiny. Though Allie has, at first glance, moved on and found love with the wealthy lawyer Lon Hammond, Allie embarks on a trip to New Bern weeks before her wedding to see Noah one last time. Allie has chosen to risk her wealth, her status, and her reputation by coming to visit Noah, yet she finds that the love she and Noah shared years ago is a more profound force in her life than anything else in her present. Allie is compelled to drive to New Bern to tell Noah about her engagement after seeing his picture in the paper alongside an article about his renovated house. Within hours of reconnecting with Noah, exploring the house, and telling him about Lon, she admits to Noah that there is something missing in her life—she tells Noah she is still “look[ing] for the kind of love [the two of them] had.” While Allie has tried to move on, her life remains defined by her love for Noah. Allie privately admits to herself that she has created a psychological divide “to separate the pain from the pleasure”—in other words, Allie has attempted to use her relationship with Lon to distance herself from the pain of losing touch with Noah.
Sparks goes on to show how love has the power to guide one through even the most difficult decisions. After reconnecting, Allie and Noah experience a tumultuous series of events, as Allie’s mother, Anne, and Lon both show up in New Bern. Anne quickly realizes that Allie has never stopped loving Noah, and she even advises Allie to “follow [her] heart”—but Allie fears disappointing and hurting Lon. As she leaves Noah’s house and heads downtown to meet with Lon, Allie has no idea what to do—but when she reads Noah’s old letters in the parking lot of the inn where Lon is waiting for her, Allie is reminded of the overpowering force of the love she and Noah once shared, and she allows this love to guide her as she heads inside to tell Lon her decision. Then, portion of the story set in 1946 ends abruptly and the narrative flashes forward to the present, where Noah and Allie, elderly and frail, live together in a nursing home. This demonstrates that in spite of all the uncertainty Noah and Allie’s relationship faced, love won out over everything after all. In Sparks estimation, the details are unimportant: all that matters is that for Allie and Noah, love was ultimately a powerful enough force to blot out all indecision. Tired of their lives being defined by each other’s absences, Allie and Noah allowed their love to take the reins of their lives and define it in a different way. Decades later, the flash-forward shows, they are still together, and their lives still revolve around each other—even as Allie struggles with Alzheimer’s and Noah faces down a third bout of cancer. This demonstrates Sparks’ argument that love is a powerful enough force to subsume all else and steer two people’s lives forever.
“I am who I am because of you,” Noah writes to Allie in a letter shortly after he learns of her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Even in the face of an unpredictable turn of fate, Noah maintains that it is the love he and Allie share—not any other outside force—which has been, and will remain, the defining force of their lives. As Sparks tells their tale, he suggests that just as love transforms his characters’ lives, it can alter the life of anyone willing to surrender to it.
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Love and Destiny Quotes in The Notebook
I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
But he had been in love once, that he knew. Once and only once, and a long time ago. And it had changed him forever. Perfect love did that to a person, and this had been perfect.
"So that's the ghost you been running from." When asked what he meant, Gus said, "You know, the ghost, the memory. I been watchin' you, workin' day and night, slavin' so hard you barely have time to catch your breath. People do that for three reasons. Either they crazy, or stupid, or tryin' to forget. And with you, I knew you was tryin' to forget. I just didn't know what. […] This girl you been tellin' me about was your first love. And no matter what you do, she'll stay with you forever."
Most of the summer, [Allie] had to make excuses to her parents whenever they wanted to see each other. It wasn't that they didn't like [Noah]—it was that he was from a different class, too poor, and they would never approve if their daughter became serious with someone like him. "I don't care what my parents think, I love you and always will," she would say. "We'll find a way to be together."
"You did a wonderful job restoring it. It looks perfect, just like I knew it would someday."
[Noah] turned his head in the same direction as hers while he wondered about the small talk and what she was holding back.
“Thanks, that's nice of you. It was quite a project, though. I don't know if I would do it again."
"Of course you would," she said. [Allie] knew exactly how he felt about this place.
"When's the big day?"
"Three weeks from Saturday. Lon wanted a November wedding."
“Lon?"
"Lon Hammond Jr. My fiancé."
[Noah] nodded, not surprised. The Hammonds were one of the most powerful and influential families in the state. Cotton money. […] "With his name, he must be busy."
"He is. He works a lot."
He thought he heard something in her tone, and the next question came automatically.
"Does he treat you well?"
"It's unbelievable, Noah. How long did the restoration take?"
He looked up from the last bag he was unpacking. "Almost a year."
"Did you do it yourself?"
[…] "I started that way. But it was just too much. It would have taken years, and so I ended up hiring some people . . . actually a lot of people. But even with them, it was still a lot of work, and most of the time I didn't stop until past midnight."
"Why'd you work so hard?"
Ghosts, he wanted to say, but didn't.
"I don't know. Just wanted to finish, I guess.”
"Do you remember sneaking over here the night you first told me about this place? […] I got home a little late that evening, and my parents were furious when I finally came in. […] My mother had a long talk with me later that night. She said to me, 'I'm sure you think that I don't understand what you're going through, but I do. It's just that sometimes, our future is dictated by what we are, as opposed to what we want.’ […] It was a terrible thing for a girl to learn. That status is more important than feelings."
"Lon's handsome, charming, and successful, and most of my friends are insanely jealous. They think he's perfect, and in a lot of ways he is. "But there's always going to be something missing in our relationship." […]
"Why?"
[…] "I guess I still look for the kind of love we had that summer."
"C'mon," he said, reaching for her hand, "I want to show you something."
She got up and followed him through the door to the living room. He stopped in front of the fireplace and pointed to the painting that hung above the mantel. […]
"You kept it?"
"Of course I kept it. […] It makes me feel alive when I look at it. Sometimes I have to get up and touch it. It's just so real—the shapes, the shadows, the colors. I even dream about it sometimes. It's incredible, Allie—I can stare at it for hours."
"Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can't control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That's what it was like for me. I didn't plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created.”
Though he wasn't Noah, Lon was a good man, the kind of man she'd always known she would marry. With Lon there would be no surprises, and there was comfort in knowing what the future would bring. He would be a kind husband to her, and she would be a good wife. She would have a home near friends and family, children, a respectable place in society. […] And though she wouldn't describe theirs as a passionate relationship, she had convinced herself long ago that this wasn't necessary… […] Passion would fade in time, and things like companionship and compatibility would take its place.
The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they always have been and will be. Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we've found each other. And maybe each time, we've been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both a goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come.
'What are you going to do?" her mother asked, pulling back. There was a long pause.
"I don't know," Allie finally answered. They stood together for another minute, just holding each other. […]
On her way out the door, Allie thought that she heard her mother whisper, "Follow your heart," but she couldn't be sure.
"You can't live your life for other people. You've got to do what's right for you, even if it hurts some people you love."
"I know," she said, "but no matter what I choose I have to live with it. Forever. I have to be able to go forward and not look back anymore. Can you understand that?"
You and I were different. We came from different worlds, and yet you were the one who taught me the value of love. You showed me what it was like to care for another and I am a better man because of it. I don’t want you to ever forget that.
There is beauty where we sit this afternoon, Allie and I. This is the pinnacle of my life.
This is why Allie is considered a miracle, because sometimes, just sometimes, after I read to her, her condition isn't so bad. There is no explanation for this.
I open a drawer and find the flowers I'd once given her long ago, old and faded and tied together with ribbon. They, like me, are dry and brittle and difficult to handle without breaking. But she saved them. "I don't understand what you want with them," I would say, but she would just ignore me. And sometimes in the evenings I would see her holding them, almost reverently, as if they offered the secret of life itself.
