Sherry Thomas Quotes & Sayings

The explanation for her absence had been staring him in the face all the while, but he hadn't wanted to acknowledge it: The affair meant nothing to her. He'd been the only one bewitched body and soul. For her, he'd been but a temporary source of entertainment, a way to pass the otherwise tedious hours in the middle of an ocean.
He'd been the one to press for a continuation of their affair beyond the voyage. He'd been the one to offer his heart, his hand, his every last secret. She never even gave her real name.
And, of course, never showed her face. — Sherry Thomas

What is withdrawal?"
"Let's see, since you know your scripture so well, was that Onan? Yes, that bugger. What he did."
"Spilling his seed on the floor?"
"Yes," continued her husband, "it would be lovely if I could take you and spill my seed somewhere else. Not on the floor, mind you. But perhaps on your very soft belly. Perhaps even on your splendid breasts. and perhaps, if I'm in a really terrible mood, I'll make you swallow it.
- Vere to Elissande — Sherry Thomas

I live for you, and you alone. — Sherry Thomas

I despaired for a while during the rail journey-how did one deal with such ingrained
cowardice? Then I realized that there is no such thing as courage in the absence of cowardice.
Courage is also a choice: It's what happens when one refuses to give in to fear."
She rested her head against the bedpost and gazed at him. "Your trust gives me courage."
He understood her perfectly. "And your courage gives me faith."
She smiled a little. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes," he answered without any hesitation.
"Then trust me when I say that we will be all right."
He trusted her. And he knew then that they would be all right, the two of them. Together. — Sherry Thomas

Her hand reached up and took a strand of his hair between her fingers. "Simple as that."
She gently pulled on that curl and let it go. "It's so springy."
They'd barely grazed at the truth, but I she was satisfied - and distracted. By his hair, of all things.
"I feel like a sheep that has been overlooked during spring shearing," he murmured.
"Yes, adorably fluffy."
Another time he might have protested the use of that adjective. But now he was all too relieved. "Would you like me to pull my chair closer, so you may fondle my hair with greater ease?" he asked.
She beamed at him. "Why, yes, I'd like exactly that. — Sherry Thomas

Are you sure? I might take it as permission to further push my company on you. — Sherry Thomas

Hastings sat down and braced his arm along the back of the chaise, quite effectively letting it be known he did not want anyone else to join them.
"You look frustrated, Miss Fitzhugh." He lowered his voice. "Has your bed been empty of late?"
He knew very well she'd been watched more closely than prices on the stock exchange. She couldn't smuggle a hamster into her bed, let alone a man.
"You look anemic, Hastings," she said. "Have you been leaving the belles of England breathlessly unsatisfied again?"
He grinned. "Ah, so you know what it is like to be breathlessly unsatisfied. I expected as little from Andrew Martin."
Her tone was pointed. "As little as you expect from yourself, no doubt."
He sighed exaggeratedly. "Miss Fitzhugh, you disparage me so, when I've only ever sung your praises."
"Well, we all do what we must," she said with sweet venom.
He didn't reply - not in words, at least. — Sherry Thomas

Was unhappiness really so invisible? Or did people simply prefer to turn away, as if from lepers? — Sherry Thomas

There was a great deal of skill in her smile, a smile meant to make a boy who had done nothing with his life make him feel accomplis and remarkable-vile even. — Sherry Thomas

His climax began gathering again, rising toward a point of no return. He didn't know if he could restrain himself this time: He was too close, too near to being overwhelmed.
She cried out, trembling exclamations.
He lost all control, his release hot, violent, and endless. — Sherry Thomas

What do you do when you despair, and there isn't an August Rain to drown your sorrow? — Sherry Thomas

There was no idiocy bigger than that committed by a man who believed himself the cleverest creature under the sun. — Sherry Thomas

I always think I cannot love you more if I tried, but I always do. — Sherry Thomas

But sometimes the males of the species brought home shiny, beautiful things,
with hope burning in their hearts. — Sherry Thomas

What did you do to your hair? I don't like it as
much."
His brow knitted. "How do you like it?"
"I prefer the curls."
He looked as if she'd told him she preferred him with three eyes. "You used to make fun of them. You told me that if Bo Peep had a child with one of her sheep it would have hair like mine."
She burst out laughing - and gasped at the pain that shot through her scalp. "You are not making it up, are you? Did I really say that?"
"Sometimes you called me Goldilocks."
She had to remind herself not to laugh again. "And you married me? I sound like a very odious sort of girl."
"I was a very odious sort of boy, so you might say we were evenly matched."
She didn't know enough to comment upon that, but when he was near, she was ... happier. — Sherry Thomas

No," she replied, her voice barely audible. "I thought we might create some sparks together. But now I know nothing we do will ever rival the passionate embrace between a hunting rope and a snake. — Sherry Thomas

You can live forever for me. — Sherry Thomas

Some turn the soil and plant seedlings. We garden with words and nurture affinity. — Sherry Thomas

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that you used to shatter easily. But
now you've become less brittle. — Sherry Thomas

a drunk did not expect the bottle to love him back,and she only wished to drink him in whenever she could. — Sherry Thomas

Tenderness, that most alien and disconcerting of emotions, swelled and billowed in her. She picked up a cherry and stared down at the soft, bright-red fruit. "I love you."
The last time she'd declared her love he'd thrown it right back in her face. She waited uncertainly for his response. She didn't even have to wait a second. He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. "I love you more."
- Gigi and Camden — Sherry Thomas

And in the depth of her eyes were all these years - seasons they'd known, paths they'd trod.
Slowly he entered her again. Everything reflected in her gaze: shyness, yearning, ripples of pleasure.
The pleasure turned fierce, then ferocious. He labored to draw breath. In the wash of her climax, she closed her eyes. He closed his own eyes and yielded to the moment. — Sherry Thomas

She touched him, placing her hand over his curled fingers, straightening them so that they were palm to palm, then she interlaced her fingers with his. Her fingertips were icy. A silent, dangerous thrill coursed through him. He wanted to pull her atop him and show her what awaited a foolish young woman who slipped into a man's bedroom in the dead of the night after having devoured him all evening with those dark, intense eyes of hers, setting his blood to simmer over three long hours. — Sherry Thomas

Did the
two of you marry again? Please tell me yes. If he is my brother-in-law again, he is less likely
to kill me for what I did."
Bryony looked at her a moment, then leaned in and whispered in her ear. "He won't kill
you. He just wants you committed to an asylum. — Sherry Thomas

To the beginning of the rest of our lives.

- Leo — Sherry Thomas

He was a god above her, powerful, beautiful, larger than life. The light brought out the latent gold of his hair. The shadows contoured the perfect form of his body. Light and shadows converged in his eyes, bright lust, dark anger, and something else. Something else entirely. She recognized it because she'd seen it in the mirror so many times: a bleak, austere loneliness. — Sherry Thomas

He did not look like an archangel - if archangels looked as he did, there would be no women of virtue left in Paradise. — Sherry Thomas

He'd never encountered beauty of such magnitude and intensity. It was not allure, but grace, like the sight of land to a shipwrecked man. And he, who hadn't been on a capsized vessel since he was six - and that had only been an overturned canoe - suddenly felt as if he'd been adrift in the open ocean his entire life.
Someone spoke to him. He couldn't make out a single word.
There was something elemental to her beauty, like a mile-high thunderhead, a gathering avalanche, or a Bengal tiger prowling the darkness of the jungle. A phenomenon of inherent danger and overwhelming perfection.
He felt a sharp, sweet ache in his chest: His life would never again be complete without her. But he felt no fear, only excitement, wonder, and desire.
Christian's thoughts upon seeing Venetia for the first time (Beguiling the Beauty, Fitzhugh Trilogy 1, by Sherry Thomas) — Sherry Thomas

He kissed her on her ear, a kiss with the barest hint of moisture to it. She could not breath for the electricity of it, a violent spark of pleasure that shook and scarred. His fingers caressed her shoulders. His lips pressed into her exposed nape. Dark, hot sensations spiked into her. — Sherry Thomas

During terms, Professor Marsden lives in Cambridge with his wife, chess player
extraordinaire and distinguished physician and surgeon Bryony Asquith Marsden. His
favorite time of day is half past six in the evening, when he meets Mrs. Marsden's train at the
station, as the latter returns from her day in London. On Sunday afternoons, rain or shine,
Professor and Mrs. Marsden take a walk along The Backs, and treasure growing old
together. — Sherry Thomas

He liked seeing the world through her eyes. The night, to him, was rather ordinary, overlaid with London's crowded odors and a damp that promised a deeply unlovely fog in the near future. But she preferred to consider the commonest patch of grass and the most unremarkable clump of trees worthy of a Constable canvas - in which case this night could very well have graced the ceiling of a great cathedral. — Sherry Thomas

They were good friends, weren't they? The best of friends. She ought to be able to walk into his room and ask him the reason for his absence this evening - and the reason for his absence from her bed.
But she couldn't, because it was all a sham, their friendship, at least on her part, a disguise for her true feelings, an awful solace for not being his one and only.
A thing without wings. — Sherry Thomas

As long as I live and breathe, I will be with you. — Sherry Thomas

Her jaw dropped. She grabbed him by the shoulders. "I think I have formed an attachment to you. You know, what the English call a desire to have symphonic concerts with someone at all hours of the day?"
He smiled. "And I love you too, darling."
-Lizzy and Will — Sherry Thomas

A messy business, rescuing princes. — Sherry Thomas

Every story must have such a terrible moment, or it wouldn't be interesting. — Sherry Thomas

Wait, here comes Cooper. In which case, carry on with your melodramatic moaning, but put some majesty into it. You know he lives to hear you judge everything as unworthy. — Sherry Thomas

I will keep you safe, he murmured. He meant it. As long as he was safe, she was safe. But how long would he remain safe? — Sherry Thomas

Better be unromantic than thoroughly used and still poor. — Sherry Thomas

Never mind what a man says; watch what he does. — Sherry Thomas

Did you ever find yourself considering matters from the Chinese point of view?'
'It would be strange if I never did, wouldn't it? Everyone should be able to consider matters form someone else's perspective. — Sherry Thomas

Rain came down in sheets. It had been a miserable spring. Already he despaired of ever again walking under an unclouded sky. — Sherry Thomas

If she hadn't been at peace, then at least she
wasn't at war with herself. — Sherry Thomas

The success of my rule does not rely on my ability to recite obscure Latin verse. — Sherry Thomas

Once the
exhilaration of their reunion wore off, once the newness of their lovemaking was no longer so
new, how would she see him? No matter how careful he was, invariably someday he would
do something to make her angry. What then? Would all the old unhappiness rush to the fore?
Would she remember that he had once betrayed her and regret that she'd ever given him a
second chance?
Or would she protect herself from the beginning by keeping a certain distance from him, so
that their closeness would always fall short of true communion, always denying him that final
forgiveness so that he could never hurt her again? — Sherry Thomas

Some hopes were weeds, easy to eradicate with a yank and a pull. Some, however, were vines, fast growing, tenacious, and impossible to clear. — Sherry Thomas

Two characters and sexy banter do not a book make, damn it. — Sherry Thomas

The hero is a secret agent? Well, who gives a crap about the rest of his case once he has met the heroine. Time for moody angst! — Sherry Thomas

He'd gone into their marriage determined that she would never be alone again. In the end,
she'd made him as alone in the world as she. — Sherry Thomas

The air had that pellucid mountain clarity that made shapes sharper and colors truer. The green of the paddy fields wasn't just green, but a lusty green, full of hunger for sunlight and moisture. And the slopes weren't mere hulks of rock, but the ribs of the valley, protecting the delicate strip of fertile soil from the worst of the harsh elements. — Sherry Thomas

Before you lie courage, perseverance, kindness, friendship, and love. Before you lie men and women who could have chosen otherwise, who could have inured themselves to the injustices of the world, rather than giving their lives to change it. Tonight we honor them. Tonight we also honor all who have gone before and paved the way, the ones we remember and the ones we have forgotten.
But nothing is lost in Eternity. A moment of grace resonates forever, as does an act of valor. So honor the dead- and live in grace and valor. — Sherry Thomas

What cricket? Grasshopper? — Sherry Thomas

The summer night sky over the Hindu Kush, domed by the Milky Way's mage light, was infinitely splendid. Strewn against this craggy luminosity, millions of tiny stars shone, a diamond heist gone awry. — Sherry Thomas

What is it?" she mumbled.
"Something that will make my kisses taste like chocolate. — Sherry Thomas

He smiled at her. And it hit her like a mallet to the temple, the realization that she was in love with him. Stupidly, dreadfully in love with him.
Overnight, she'd become a fool. — Sherry Thomas

He took a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her chignon between his fingers. The gesture shocked her, not because his self-control seemed to have snapped, but the exact opposite - it felt like a deliberate choice on his part. — Sherry Thomas

Was it possible - was it at all possible that she could come out of her most desperate choice with a man as clever as Odysseus who looked like Achilles and made love like Paris ... ? — Sherry Thomas

It doesn't matter where I am; I'm yours. — Sherry Thomas

Sometimes people change, said a voice inside him.
And sometimes they don't. — Sherry Thomas

At her incendiary words, he drove deeper - far deeper - into her, unable to help himself.

"So," she said, her fingers on his cheek, "now I've made you mine."

He took her fingers in hand and kissed them one by one. "You made me yours long ago, but now you finally claimed me. — Sherry Thomas

I've always loved you," he said, his eyes a blue that was almost violet. "You know this." She swallowed a lump in her throat. "I only wonder whether I deserve such devotion."
"Sometimes people fall in love with those who do not return the same strength of feelings. It is as it is," he said with a quiet intensity. "What I give, I give freely. You owe me nothing, not love, not friendship, not even obligation. — Sherry Thomas

Now he could work her likeness into any story of his choosing. Now he could fight dragons for her. And now he could kiss her again. — Sherry Thomas

But I can only pray ardently that Fortune walks with you, that you discover hitherto unimagined strength in yourself and encounter unexpected friends along this perilous path that you must now tread. — Sherry Thomas

You don't know how to converse. Sometimes I think the spaces between the
stars are filled with your silence. — Sherry Thomas

Amah would not have approved of her meekly standing aside, twisting her hands as if she had no more resources than those girls who hung themselves without first exacting any retribution from their heartless lovers.
He would not get away with it.
She walked, like an automaton, to her horse. Her fingers dug out the jar of salve, but left behind the pilules that must be taken while one used the salve. He was already mounted when she approached him.
A quartet of birds trilled raucously as she presented the jar to him. Perhaps they were trying to warn him. Or her.
'Here, a parting gift,' she said softly. — Sherry Thomas

How did one deal with such ingrained cowardice? Then I realized that there is no such thing as courage in the absence of cowardice. Courage is also a choice: It's what happens when one refuses to give in to fear. — Sherry Thomas

There was an intimate connection between them, as if they'd known each other always. They were not strangers; they'd merely never met before. — Sherry Thomas

P.S. I fear that in person I shall prove to be a sore disappointment. With pen and paper I am at ease; in the solitude of my own company my thoughts and ideas flow without obstruction. But before others it takes me the greatest effort to string two words together, and more often than not my words emerge awkward and off-putting. — Sherry Thomas

I wonder now how we got by when you weren't here."
"I have no doubt the devastation was widespread, the suffering universal."
"Indeed, it was the Dark Ages in the annals of Mrs. Dawlish's house. Ignorance was thick on the ground, and unenlkghtenment befogged all the windows. — Sherry Thomas

How do you find the grace to face
the shadows? — Sherry Thomas

You, sir, are a scoundrel. As if he'd heard her thought, he glanced her way. Their gazes held, a pair of miscreants recognizing each other in a roomful of upstanding people. — Sherry Thomas

Titus's jaw dropped. 'Those caravanists, they were mages?'
'They most certainly were.'
'But one fainted and two reached for their rifles when they saw the sand wyvern.'
'It's a good policy for at least one member of the group to pretend to fall unconscious at a mage sighting. And I always think the rifles are a touch of genius - any time you see someone holding a firearm, your instinct is to dismiss that person as a nonmage. — Sherry Thomas

Humans, herself included, held no
interest for her except as living machines, mind-bogglingly intricate, beautiful systems that
somehow housed individuals not quite worthy of the miracle of their physical bodies. — Sherry Thomas

How ironic that when they'd been married, she'd never thought of growing old with him.
Yet now, years after the annulment, she should think of it with the yearning of an exile, for
the homeland that had long ago evicted her. — Sherry Thomas

Fortune favors the brave."
Another moment of silence. And then, Iolanthe found herself shouting at the top of her lungs, her voice nearly drowned by the bellow of all the rebels present, "And the brave make their own fortune! — Sherry Thomas

You've changed, Fitz.'
'It's been eight years. Everyone changes.'
'I haven't changed.'
The insight came to him like a match flaring. 'I can see how you've tried to remain the same. But no, you have changed, too. Once you thrilled to new horizons. Now all you want is to live in a monument to the way things might have been. — Sherry Thomas

A reflection of
their story: imperfect, but to him the most beautiful of stories. — Sherry Thomas

The entire point of life was the ability to make one's own choices. Foreknowledge of anything - especially the circular kind, such as Kashkari's presence at Eton because he'd dreamed of it - was terribly limiting and ran counter to the concept of free will. — Sherry Thomas

Now what I want to know is what happened when you found Bryony, Leo," said Will.
"Did you just say your sister sent me, pack up everything and come with me this moment?"
"More or less."
"And she came away with you?"
"More or less." Leo tossed Bryony a mischievous look. "Although there might have been
laudanum, drugging, and a midnight abduction involved."
"Now that's a much better story," said Matthew. "I would pay to read that one."
"And for his knavery, Leo lost one of his - more important parts," said Bryony.
"No!" Matthew and Will shouted in unison.
"Bryony!" Callista squeaked.
"Kidney," Leo cried. "It was just a kidney. A man can live a perfectly vigorous life with
one kidney."
"You can call it a kidney if you want," said Bryony. — Sherry Thomas

Nothing," he said. "Just that I have loved you, even when I was nothing and no one to you, when you didn't know my name and barely knew my face. — Sherry Thomas

You might be the scariest girl I've ever met," he told her.
"Let's not be dramatic," she said drily. "I'm the only girl you can remember ever meeting. — Sherry Thomas

Some things are not meant to be, Leighton Atwood had said the night before. But if they were not meant to be, then why did the forces of destiny keep bringing them together? — Sherry Thomas

This time he could no longer hold back his tears. And with them came words that he'd never been able to say to her his entire life. I love you, Helena. I have always loved you. Wake up and let me prove it to you. — Sherry Thomas

Love was not blind, but it might mimic a deteriorating case of cataracts. — Sherry Thomas

He stopped and looked at her. "Your laughter is the same," he said. "I used to think you all sophisticated and worldly, until you laughed. You still laugh like a little girl getting tickled, all hiccupy and breathless. — Sherry Thomas

But you do not need to worry, Cooper. What is mine, I keep. — Sherry Thomas

Do you think I should be paying my addresses to Mrs. Martin, my dear Miss Fitzhugh?" he whispered. "Martin doesn't
look the sort to have enough stamina to service two women.
And goodness knows you could probably exhaust Casanova himself."
Again this insinuation that she must be a sufferer of nymphomania. Behind her fan, she put her lips very close to his ear. "You've no idea, my Lord Hastings, the heated yearnings
that singe me at night, when I cannot have a man. My skin burns to be touched, my lips kissed, and my entire body passionately fondled."
Hastings was mute, for once. He stared at her with something halfway between amusement and arousal.
She snapped shut her fan and rapped his fingers as hard as she could, watching with great satisfaction as he choked back a
yelp of pain.
"By anyone but you," she said, and turned on her heels. — Sherry Thomas

You have been all my moments of grace. — Sherry Thomas

Love without friendship is like a kite, aloft only when the winds are favorable. Friendship is what gives love its wings. — Sherry Thomas

They say that when an elemental mage called forth flame, she stole a little from every fire in the world. That would make Iolanthe Seabourn quite the thief. — Sherry Thomas

Just that I have loved you, even when I was nothing and no one to you, when you didn't know my name and barely knew my face.
- Leo — Sherry Thomas

Her Leo, so bright, so beautiful.
And in the end, so catastrophically flawed. — Sherry Thomas

The buttons on her back gave way as if before a Mongol horde. — Sherry Thomas

That's right. Carrington didn't want to marry the likes of me. He had to be dragged kicking and screaming
to the negotiation table."
"Did you enjoy the dragging?" He glanced down at her.
"Yes, I rather did," she confessed. "It was amusing threatening to strip his house bare to the last plank on the floor and the last spoon in the kitchen."
"My parents are convinced of your grief." She heard the smile in his voice. "They said tears streamed
down your face at his funeral."
"For nearly three years of hard work down the drain, I cried like a bereaved mother. — Sherry Thomas

Some things in life were truly difficult. Finding the source of the Nile, for example. Or exploring the South Pole. But falling out of love with a man who never looked at her twice, why should that prove an insurmountable challenge? — Sherry Thomas

It won't be disagreeable," he said. "It can be made quite enjoyable."
"Oh, it had better be," she said tartly. "I've heard plenty over the years on your amatory prowess. If I'm not on the roof crowing, I will consider myself disappointed. — Sherry Thomas

Perhaps unrequited love was like a specter in the house, a presence that brushed at the edge of senses, a heat in the dark, a shadow under the sun. — Sherry Thomas

That the loss of a man, even if he had been the love of her life, was not the end of a woman's existence. — Sherry Thomas

He used to believe that to forgive was to allow an offense to go unpunished. Now he finally understood that forgiveness was not about the past, but the future. — Sherry Thomas

She wanted to run her hands over him as he whispered the impassioned corollaries of non-Euclidean geometry. — Sherry Thomas