43 pages 1 hour read

Nicholas Sparks

The Longest Ride

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Important Quotes

Quotation Mark Icon

“Still, it’s funny what a man thinks about when he believes death to be imminent.”


(Chapter 1, Page 4)

Ira/Ruth’s storyline is a take on the conventional idea that when a person is about to die, their entire life flashes before their eyes. Ruth is a desperate figment of Ira’s imagination constructed as a survival mechanism. He does not want to die alone. He wants to die with the only person who ever comforted him.

Quotation Mark Icon

“She’d always been a bit of a loner, and, unlike a lot of people in the house, she didn’t live and die by the rules of the sorority.”


(Chapter 2, Page 23)

The four principal characters in the novel share a common trait: They do not fit in. Ruth is a Jewish Austrian woman fleeing Nazis; Luke is a cowboy, deeply wary of entangling relationships; Ira is a small business owner in an age of big department store growth. Here, we see that Sophia also is an outsider: a displaced New Jerseyite, an art major surrounded by friends in more practical fields, someone who’s never embraced the sorority lifestyle.

Quotation Mark Icon

“But the girl on the railing interested him. There was something different about her, though he couldn’t pinpoint what. Maybe, he thought, it was the unguarded, almost vulnerable way she stared into the distance.”


(Chapter 3, Page 43)

The romance novel genre places huge value on the moment of initial attraction. Here, when Luke first spies Sophia at the off-campus mixer, he instantly experiences a mystical connection with her, seeing in her the opposite of his own social affect: She is emotionally open, not closed off.

Related Titles

By Nicholas Sparks

Plot Summary

logo

A Bend in the Road

Nicholas Sparks

A Bend in the Road

Nicholas Sparks

Study Guide

logo

Dear John

Nicholas Sparks

Dear John

Nicholas Sparks

Study Guide

logo

Dreamland

Nicholas Sparks

Dreamland

Nicholas Sparks

Plot Summary

logo

Message In A Bottle

Nicholas Sparks

Message In A Bottle

Nicholas Sparks

Plot Summary

logo

Nights in Rodanthe

Nicholas Sparks

Nights in Rodanthe

Nicholas Sparks

Study Guide

logo

Safe Haven

Nicholas Sparks

Safe Haven

Nicholas Sparks

Study Guide

logo

The Best of Me

Nicholas Sparks

The Best of Me

Nicholas Sparks

Study Guide

logo

The Choice

Nicholas Sparks

The Choice

Nicholas Sparks

Plot Summary

logo

The Last Song

Nicholas Sparks

The Last Song

Nicholas Sparks

Study Guide

logo

The Notebook

Nicholas Sparks

The Notebook

Nicholas Sparks

Plot Summary

logo

The Rescue

Nicholas Sparks

The Rescue

Nicholas Sparks

Plot Summary

logo

The Wedding

Nicholas Sparks

The Wedding

Nicholas Sparks