Caragh M. O'Brien Quotes & Sayings

Love is for happy people, not me. — Caragh M. O'Brien

What happened to your face?' he asked. 'When I was little, my grandmother was making candles and she had a big vat of hot beeswax in the backyard,' she said. 'I walked into the vat.' Usually that ended the conversation. 'I don't remember it,' she added. 'How old were you?' he asked. She tilted her face slightly, watching him. 'Ten months.' 'You were walking at ten months?' he asked. 'Not very well, apparently,' she said dryly. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Though she could not see his shadowed eyes clearly, she sensed an emptiness in there that matched the controlled composure of his other features. It chilled her. — Caragh M. O'Brien

It hurts to love someone this much. I feel each place where our minds meet, and each little place were they don't, until we talk things over and line up again ... I've never had anything like this with anyone else. Now I'm never fully happy anymore unless you're with me. — Caragh M. O'Brien

I don't believe in worry. It doesn't change the outcome, but it make the now miserable, so I don't do it. — Caragh M. O'Brien

And for once, she was happy. Very. — Caragh M. O'Brien

What boy could resist you?"
"Will's hardly a boy."
"Don't give me that. He's a boy playing a game," Norris said. "The oldest game there is. — Caragh M. O'Brien

You always have a choice, Gaia. You can always say no." His voice was strangely hollow. "They might kill you for it, but you can always say no. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Would you have this?" the Protectorat hissed at his son.
Rafael's gaze narrowed in a slow inspection while she stared defiantly back. Rafael's gaze faltered, shot briefly toward Leon, and then down. His answer was obvious: no.
And in spite of everything, in the face of all the other more important dangers that threatened her, it still stung that someone, some boy, found her ugly. Gaia burned with sudden hate for all of them.
The Protectorat saw. He smiled slightly.
"I thought not," said the Protectorat, releasing her with a flick. He turned back toward his family. "I can't thrust her on any family I know, no matter what her genes are. She's a freak, not a hero. I'd rather make a hero out of Myrna Silk."
Leon had been standing tensely throughout this exchange. "I'd take Gaia," Leon said, his low voice resonating in the space. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Are we napping?" she asked.
"For a little," he said.
He wasn't napping. He concentrated every cell of his body on memorizing the weight of her against him, and the smell of her hair in the sun. His arms measured the slender curve of her torso. His fingers separated out a single strand of her hair. Her breathing slowed, easing, while his watchful heart chugged on, stupid and hungry, and the red bracelet stayed in his pocket. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Why did you come?" Gaia asked, passing over his shirt.

"I wanted to see you," he said.

"That's all? No problem with the crims or anything?"

It seemed like so long ago that he'd left the crims to come into the village to find her. He fingered his shirt, which was all but dry. "No. Just you."

"You're awfully untalkative for a guy who came all this way to see me," she said. He glanced up again, seeing the concern in her eyes when she smiled at him. His loneliness began to thaw.

"You were amazing in there, you know," he said.

She shook her head, turning his hat in her hands. "I hope I didn't boss you around too much. I can get a little single-minded."

"Hardly at all. 'Take yer boots off and git yerself in here,'" he drawled. — Caragh M. O'Brien

The tinkle of a wind chime stirred from over a window. Purple and white phlox cascaded cheerfully over the top of a nearby stone wall. Sunlight sifted through the weave of her straw hat, casting freckles of light on her nose and cheeks that shifted, out of focus, as she walked. — Caragh M. O'Brien

I'd take Gaia," Leon said — Caragh M. O'Brien

Please put your shirt on," she said.
He pulled it over his head, checking the buttons. "Better?"
She looked exhausted, and happy, and too bighearted to believe. So why did he still feel anguished? He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her onto his lap.
"Hey!" She laughed, hugging an arm around him.
He snuggled his nose in her hair and kissed her neck. Mine, he thought.
"They'll see," she muttered.
They'd better. "Let them. It's legal."
She laughed again and quickly kissed him. Finally. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Be good, Gaia," Capt. Grey told her, his voice grave. She still refused to look at him, but she could feel the heated flush of anger again in her cheeks. "Cooperate with the guards. For your own sake," he continued.
"Be good yourself, Captain," she said bitterly. "If you know how. — Caragh M. O'Brien

I guess that blows your theory, Paige. Niceness trumps art. — Caragh M. O'Brien

You make me sound like some kind of moral freak."
The Matrarc's eyebrows lifted slightly. "Isn't that what you are? — Caragh M. O'Brien

There"s nothing left between us at all, is there?" she asked.
For a long moment he said nothing, and the pebbles made a clicking noise in his fingers.
Then, as if it gave him no pleasure at all, he replied.
"Whose fault is that? — Caragh M. O'Brien

She'd heard of love triangles before, but a love square? — Caragh M. O'Brien

It isn't always easy between us. I admit that. But it's right between us, always. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Even the worst feeling, with time and familiarity, became tolerable. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Dream hard. Work harder. Shine. — Caragh M. O'Brien

She waited, unwilling to meet his eyes, hoping he would go on. When he didn't, the silence stretched between them like invisible cobwebs. In the dimmest part of her, she realized she might have wishes, too, elusive wishes that belonged more to a girl in a garden than they did to a captive. — Caragh M. O'Brien

My homesickness wasn't truly for home, I realized. It was for something more elusive. A silent, low-grade, unnamed yearning persisted inside me. It was always there, a reaching feeling that grew stronger when I was alone and listened for it. The rain understood what it was. — Caragh M. O'Brien

There are many ways to be a criminal or hero. Don't forget that. — Caragh M. O'Brien

I don't know what I'd do without you, Leon.
And there it was. That unlocking inside him. That thing only she could do to him. That was why he had come. Why he would always come.
Marry me, he thought. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Every tiny, happy thing makes me want to share it with you," he went on, leaning forward. "I thought I would get over this, but I can't, and I'm done trying. I understand you like no one else here ever can."
-Leon Grey — Caragh M. O'Brien

There are some things, once they are done, that we can never question, because if we did, we wouldn't be able to go on. And we have to go on, every single day. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Home was more about people than a place. — Caragh M. O'Brien

As she walked through the dark, stepping softly through the wet stones, she looked ahead to where the first cautious star managed to blink through the clouds (361). — Caragh M. O'Brien

Stalking's when you follow the person and won't leave them alone. Waiting is different. It's a form of tribute, like a vigil, and fate rewards it. — Caragh M. O'Brien

I can be loyal, Leon. I know what that is."
He laughed. "Finally, the girl gives me a crumb — Caragh M. O'Brien

You look like a decent young man."
Leon didn't smile. "I'm not. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Being brave alone does not make us smart. — Caragh M. O'Brien

She pivoted right, and sensed the vast, open space of the wasteland stretching before her under the opaque sky, a darkness as thin and final as the velvet lining of a shroud (360-361). — Caragh M. O'Brien

When you decide something's right, there's nothing that can stop you from doing it. — Caragh M. O'Brien