Before I Knew You Quotes & Sayings

I never really knew anything about friendship before I was in the Army. Did you Vince?"
"Not a thing. It's the best thing there is. Just About. — J.D. Salinger

But there's food if you know how to find it. My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing even to bury. I was eleven then. Five years later, I still wake up screaming for him to run. — Suzanne Collins

I was astonished to see Adrian watching me, a look of contentment on his face. His eyes seemed to study my every feature. Seeing me notice him, he immediately looked away. His usual smirky expression replaced by a dreamy one.
"The mechanic will wait," he said.
"Yeah, but I'm supposed to meet Brayden soon, I'll be-" That's when I got a good look at Adrian. "What have you done? Look at you! You shouldn't be out here."
"It's not that bad."
He was lying, and we both knew it.
"Come on, we have to get you out of here before you get worse. What were you thinking?"
His expression was astonishingly nonchalant for someone who looked like he would pass out. "It was worth it. You looked ... happy — Richelle Mead

Should've thought of that before you told my ex-girlfriend I eat live kittens for breakfast."
A tiny twinge of guilt. Then the cat wondered what Riley would think of her last successful "shoo-away." "Who knew she'd believe me?" [Mercy responded.]
"Oh no? When you 'accidentally' opened the cupboard to expose my 'kitten cage' full of the poor, sad kitties I was going to snack on?" A raised eyebrow. "Wasn't the cage next to my special 'kitten defurring' tools?"
"They were obviously fake."
Bas just stared at her. — Nalini Singh

The point I was trying to make before you interrupted with your inventory
of my personality is that neither of us is going to be able to stay celibate for the next six months."
She dropped her eyes. If only he knew that she'd stayed that way all her life.
We'll be living in close quarters," he went on. "We're legally married, and it's only natural that we're going to get it on."
Get it on? His bluntness reminded her that none of this meant anything to him emotionally, and contrary to all logic, she'd wanted to hear something romantic. With some pique, she said, "In other words, you expect me to keep house, work for the circus, and 'get it on' with you."
He thought it over. "I guess that's about the size of it. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I knew that no matter what door you knock on in a Cretan village, it will be opened for you. A meal will be served in your honor, and you will sleep between the best sheets in the house. In Crete, the stranger is still the unknown god. Before him, all doors and all hearts are opened. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The landscape started hard, sharp black mountains over my shoulder and thirsty young saguaros hugging patchy dirt. Gradually it let go, began to green on me a little. I crossed a river, watched succulents get fatter and farmland start to wave, hoarding the blue above and the few clouds it had to spare.

I knew the route somehow, knew the curves, the directions, the exact way to go. I knew it the way you know the stars are still up in the sky even though white sun obscures them. Everything that had happened before Lukeville and Sonoita began to liquify in memory, feeling more like fiction than personal history. Funerals and pain, girlfriends and mothers, roommates and priests all tumble away with the desert behind me. The only thing that's real is the road I see ahead. The only person in my life is the man sitting silently beside me. The place I'm going is the only place I've ever wanted to go. — Laurie Perez

I couldn't leave you. I remembered the look on your face, when I told you I was leaving. No one's looked at me that way before. No one's ever cried for me before. No one's asked me to stay before ... no one. I convinced myself you cared for me." He shook his head lightly and smiled. "I knew then, that I would stay with you ... even if it killed me." Kellan Kyle — S.C. Stephens

Shigure:"A summer home like this by the lake, you half expect JASON to show up!"
Yuki: "There he goes again ... "
Kyo: (Thinking to himself) Jieison ... Jaysun? Now where have I heard that before?
Shigure: "'Jason' is a new species of bear. You're so ignorant, Kyo-Kun."
Kyo: "SHUT UP! I KNEW THAT!!"
Hatori:"That's not it ... "
Tohru:"Is it a foreign kind of bear?"
Hatori:" ... — Natsuki Takaya

Of course I didn't think I'd heard him correctly. Why would he have told me something so important now, so casually, in the middle of a street fair?
Before I could stop myself, I blurted out the first thing I thought.
"Just one?"
The look he gave me was shattering.
Given everything I knew about him, though, I'd expected him to have killed a man.
It was the fact that his having taken a single life had resulted in his banishment to the Underworld for all eternity that I found so astonishing.
"I had no idea," he said, with a dry smile, "that you were so bloodthirsty, Pierce. Should we try to find you one of those pirate costumes? — Meg Cabot

In the old days, before I was married, or knew a lot of women, I would just pull down all the shades and go to bed for three or four days. I'd get up to shit. I'd eat a can of beans, go back to bed, just stay there for three or four days. Then I'd put on my clothes and I'd walk outside, and the sunlight was brilliant, and the sounds were great. I felt powerful, like a recharged battery. But you know the first bring-down? The first human face I saw on the sidewalk, I lost half my charge right there. — Charles Bukowski

She had been to her Great-Aunt Willoughby's before, and she knew exactly what to expect. She would be asked about her lessons, and how many marks she had, and whether she had been a good girl. I can't think why grownup people don't see how impertinent these questions are. Suppose you were to answer:
"I'm the top of my class, auntie, thank you, and I am very good. And now let us have a little talk about you, aunt, dear. How much money have you got, and have you been scolding the servants again, or have you tried to be good and patient, as a properly brought up aunt should be, eh, dear?"
Try this method with one of your aunts next time she begins asking you questions, and write and tell me what she says. — E. Nesbit

You want to be French, Mary Frances, that's your problem, but instead you're just another American."
I went to the window for that one an saw a marriage disintegrate before my eyes. Poor Mary Frances in her beige beret ...
"Americans," he repeated. "We don't live in in France, we live in Virginia. Vienna, Virginia. Got it?"
I looked at this guy and knew for certain that if we'd met at a party he'd claim to live in Washington, D.C. Ask for a street address, and he'd look away, mumbling, "Well, just outside D.C. — David Sedaris

You could be kidnapping me and trying to do that thing where I grow to love my captors. I've seen it on TV before."
"You caught us. We knew you were going to walk out of the motel at three in the morning and we created this situation to freak you out into loving us. That's how fucked up we are. — Katie McGarry

It astonishes me already when I compare my condition today with what it was a month ago. Before that I knew well enough one could fracture one's legs and arms and recover afterward, but I did not know that you could fracture the brain in your head and recover from that too ... — Vincent Van Gogh

Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written. — Ernest Hemingway,

Each time I saw you, I felt like ... I felt like I knew you a little bit better. I never talked to you but seeing you always smiling or laughing ... or being peaceful ... " He shook his head, and my heart spasmed. "There's something about that ... it drew me in, Calla. Fuck. I fell for you before you even knew my name. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

She looked at me, confused. "He hardly knew me. My parents dated and got married before we knew what happened. Let's just say we were not
brought into the loop on that decision."
"That's weird. I wasn't brought into the loop with my parents' marriage either."
"Really? How old were you?"
"Twelve months."
She giggled. "I can't imagine why they didn't ask your opinion. — Darynda Jones

I barely knew I had skin before I met you. — Sarah Waters

I never knew what an extraordinary thing it could be to write a book. In the first place, the characters take the bit between their jaws and canter off with you into places you don't want and never catered for. I had smugly intended my book to be about a family rather like ours, but, lud love you! it's already turned into an account of a barmaid's career in an Edgware Road pub, and I can't squeeze us in anywhere!

Odd things happen, too. I had called my pub, 'The Three Feathers,' and counted on there being heaps of pubs in Edgware Road, not called that, but looking a bit like my description. Before we left home, I went down Edgware Road to investigate, and found my pub, even down to the old-fashioned phonograph on the table in the upstairs sitting-room. And I thought, 'I built that place. — Rachel Ferguson

He is a sodomite, and my sister is a whore, and perhaps a poisoner, and I am a whore. My uncle has been the falsest of friends, my father a time-server, my mother - God knows - some even say she had the king before the two of us! All of this you knew or you could have deduced. Now tell me, am I good enough for you? For I knew that you were a nobody and I came to find you all the same. If you want to rise to be a somebody in this court you will get blood or shit on your hands. I have had to learn this through a hard apprenticeship since I was a little girl. You can learn it now if you have the stomach." William — Philippa Gregory

It is as if I knew you before we spoke
Do our hearts know something we don't?
Conspiring, converging without giving us any say — Brooke Fraser

I never knew you could spend hours just kissing a girl. I never knew because I'd never done it before. In the last month, I'd learned just how erotic kissing could be. Many nights I'd left her place unsatisfied sexually, but completely content emotionally.
I sound like a fucking chick. I want to go drink a beer and punch something.
That's better. — J. Sterling

I love your kiss. Everything's sorted, and obvious, and understood, and civilised, your kiss says. It's a shut-eye lie, I know it is, because the music I didn't know before I knew you makes me open my eyes in a place of no sentimentality, where light itself is a kind of shadow, where everything is fragment-slanted. — Ali Smith

8 You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that l from before birth you were called a rebel. — Anonymous

Well, she knew the risks when she got the job," said the Dean. "What?" said the Senior Wrangler. "Are you saying that before you apply for the job of housekeeper of a university you should seriously consider being eaten by sharks on the shores of some mysterious continent thousands of years before you are born?" "She didn't ask many questions at the interview, I know that. — Terry Pratchett

I don't know how many people really knew who I was before the Olympics and that's the fun thing of the Olympics - you get to know someone who captures your heart, hopefully. — Kristi Yamaguchi

Where are the days we once held
So loose in our sure hands?
When did these racing streams
Carve depthless caves beneath our feet?
And how did this scene stagger
And shift to make fraught our deft lies
In the places where youth will meet,
In the lands of our proud dreams?
Where, among all you before me,
Are the faces I once knew? — Steven Erikson

You don't have to pick me up," I said in a rush.
"Considering you have no idea where we're going and I have no intention of telling you, I'm quite sure that I do."
"I can meet you somewhere centrally located."
Noah sounded amused. "I promise to press my trousers before meeting your family. I'll even bring flowers for the occasion."
"Oh, God. Please don't." I said. Maybe honesty is the best policy. "My family is going to screw with my life if you come over." I knew them far too well.
"Congratulations
you just made the prospect all the more enticing. What is your address? — Michelle Hodkin

I loved your country [America] before I knew it. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

It is the same with all these new countries and wonderful sights. They are very beautiful, and they astonish me, but I am not collected enough - not familiar enough with myself, if you can quite understand what I mean - to have all the pleasure in them that I might have. What I knew before them, blends with them, too, so curiously. — Charles Dickens

Travis walked in and shut the door behind him. "I was mad. I heard you spitting out everything that's wrong with me to America and it pissed me off. I just meant to go out and have a few drinks and try to figure some things out, but before I knew it, I was piss drunk and those girls ... ," he paused. "I woke up this morning and you weren't in bed, and when I found you on the recliner and saw the wrappers on the floor, I felt sick."
"You could have just asked me instead of spending all that money at the grocery store just to bribe me to stay."
"I don't care about the money, Pidge. I was afraid you'd leave and never speak to me again. — Jamie McGuire

I hate nice girls.
Just exchanging greetings with them will get them on your mind.
Start texting each other, and your heart will be set a flutter.
If they call you, you're done for.
Enjoy staring at your logs and grinning like a fool.
However, I won't get fooled again. That's what your kind calls kindness.
If you're nice to me, you're nice to others.
I always end up nearly forgetting that. Reality is cruel,
So I'm sure lies are a form of kindness.
Thus, I say kindness itself is also a lie.
I always ended up with these expectations.
And I always ended up with these misunderstandings.
And before I knew it, I stopped hoping.
A highly trained loner is once bitten, twice shy.
As a veteran on this battlefield of life, I've gotten used to losing.
That's why I always hate nice girls. - Hachiman Hikigaya — Wataru Watari

Will you be my best man?" Furi didn't answer. He stared at his best friend for a few long seconds before he stood up and Doug knew what Furi wanted to do. He grabbed him and hugged him tight right there in the middle of the restaurant. He kissed Doug on the cheek when he pulled back. "Fuck yeah! I'd be honored, man." They — A.E. Via

The idea of going back to basketball drills made her stomach tighten, but she stood up on her tiptoes and leaned into Jay, whispering against his cheek. "I got your note last night. Would've been better if I'd have found you in my bed instead."
Jay groaned and grabbed her by the shoulders. There was the hint of accusation buried behind his breathy chuckle as he set her away from him. "You're playing with fire, Vi. You shouldn't tease me at school. Besides, I think if I hid in your room, your father - check that, your mother - would skin me alive."
Violet heard the coach shouting her name, and she knew she'd be getting a demerit for slacking off. But she didn't care.
She flashed him her most wolfish smile. "Next time, you should totally take that chance. It could've been fun," she promised before sauntering away. — Kimberly Derting

Some people say he engineered his own arrest to gain an insight into modern methods of policing for a thriller he had planned. But you know what happens to artistic rats in prison: they have their rectums stretched, and not by overindulgence in Michelin-star food; they have their columns examined, and not by internet humorists or a qualified medical practitioner. I'm sure Rat knew this, too. Although he likes to accumulate a wide general knowledge, he would rather have a narrow rectum. A colon comes in handy here, before examples: two dots on top of one other, like the cowboys who copulate on Brokeback Mountain, on a slope so far away you need binoculars to see them properly. In prison there are too many insights and examples. Rat would never risk it. — Graham Spaid

That is not my car!"
"Correction. You used to drive a falling apart Toyota. B.A."
Had his lips just brushed her hair? She shivered. And though she knew better than to ask, she did it anyway.
"Okay. You got me. What's B.A.?"
"Before. Adam. After Adam, you drive a BMW. I take care of what is mine. That Toyota wasn't safe."
Figured that arrogant beast would define himself as the dawning of an epoch.
"I'm not yours. It was too, and you can't just go around stealing."
"I didn't, and I filled out the paperwork myself. — Karen Marie Moning

White Sky. Trees fading at the skyline, the mountains gone. My hands dangled from the cuffs of my jacket as if they weren't my own. I never got used to the way the horizon there could just erase itself and leave you marooned, adrift, in an incomplete dreamscape that was like a sketch for the world you knew -the outline of a single tree standing in for a grove, lamp-posts and chimneys floating up out of context before the surrounding canvas was filled in-an amnesia-land, a kind of skewed Heaven where the old landmarks were recognizable but spaced too far apart, and disarranged, and made terrible by the emptiness around them. — Donna Tartt

Before I knew that a man could kill a man, because it happens all the time. Now I know that even the person with whom you've shared food, or whom you've slept, even he can kill you with no trouble. The closest neighbor can kill you with his teeth: that is what I have Learned since the genocide, and my eyes no longer gaze the same on the face of the world. — Philip G. Zimbardo

You're not alone anymore. You have me.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. I had been alone for so long with my questions and theories and anger
and now this beautiful, fantastic girl was saying she believed me.
When she closed her eyes and kissed me, I finally let go of myself. Everything I had held in before, didn't have to be hidden anymore
not from Cassie. My eyes drifted shut as she kissed me harder, her arm winding around my shoulders to pull me close.
Without having to say anything more, I just knew now
maybe I always had
Cassie was the answer. — Melanie Cusick-Jones

The Salimbeni genes," I observed, rolling my eyes, "are yet again rearing their ugly head. Let me guess, if we were married, you would chain me in the dungeon every time you left the house?"
He considered it, but not for long. "I wouldn't have to. Once you get to know me, you will never want anyone else. And" - he finally put down the teaspoon - "you will forget everyone you knew before. — Anne Fortier

Why did you laugh right before you lost consciousness."
"Death's an adventure. I lived big. Rigor mortis makes your face stick. So, who knew how to thaw me?"
"Death's an insult."
"At least an affront," I agree. — Karen Marie Moning

Oh, my love," Erienne breathed as he pressed his lips to her brow, "I was afraid you would come, and yet I hoped you would."
Light kisses rained upon her cheek and brow as he held her close, savoring the nearness of her while he could. "I would have come sooner had I known where they had taken you. I had not expected this of your father, but he will answer. I promise you that."
Erienne shook her head and replied in the same muted tone. "He is not my real father."
Christopher held her away, looking down at her wonderingly. "What is this?"
"My mother married an Irish rebel and got with child before he was hanged. Avery married her, knowing the facts, but he never told her that it was he who had given the final orders to hang my father."
Christopher gently brushed a tumbled curl from off her cheek. "I knew you were too beautiful to be kin to him."

-Erienne & Christopher — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

I am in love with you. When I look at you, think about you, I can't decide if I want to fuck you, strangle you, or just hold you in my arms. Usually all three. And if that's not love, I don't know what is" ... "You're everything I've been searching for, before I even knew I was looking. — Emma Chase

I shan't be a minute," said Pridmore. Matilda knew better. She settled herself to wait, and swung her legs miserably. She had been to her Great-Aunt Willoughby's before, and she knew exactly what to expect. She would be asked about her lessons, and how many marks she had, and whether she had been a good girl. I can't think why grown-up people don't see how impertinent these questions are. Suppose you were to answer: "I'm the top of my class, auntie, thank you, and I am very good. And now let us have a little talk about you, aunt, dear. How much money have you got, and have you been scolding the servants again, or have you tried to be good and patient, as a properly brought up aunt should be, eh, dear?" Try this method with one of your aunts next time she begins asking you questions, and write and tell me what she says. Matilda — Neil Gaiman

NO!" She shouted through my lips.
Jared caught her hands, then caught me against the wall before I could fall. I sagged, my body confused by the conflicting directions it was receiving.
"Mel? Mel!"
"What are you doing?"
He groaned in relief. "I knew you could do it! Ah Mel!"
He kissed her again, kissed the lips that she controlled, and we could both taste the tears that ran down his face.
She bit him.
Jared jumped back from both of us, and I slid to the floor, landing in a wilted heap.
He started laughing, "That's my girl. You still got her, Wanda?"
"Yes," I gasped.
What the hell, Wanda? She screeched at me.
Where have you been? Do you have any idea what I've been going through trying to find you?
Yeah, I can see that you were really suffering. — Stephenie Meyer

You think I don't know pain?" Puck shook his head at me. "Or loss? I've been around a lot longer than you, prince! I know what love is, and I've lost
my fair share, too. Just because we have a different way of handling it, doesn't mean I don't have scars of my own."
"Name one," I scoffed. "Give me one instance where you haven't - "
"Meghan Chase!" Puck roared, startling me into silence. I blinked, and he sneered at me. "Yeah, your highness. I know what loss is. I've loved that
girl since before she knew me. But I waited. I waited because I didn't want to lie about who I was. I wanted her to know the truth before anything else.
So I waited, and I did my job. For years, I protected her, biding my time, until the day she went into the Nevernever after her brother. And then you
came along. And I saw how she looked at you. And for the first time, I wanted to kill you as much as you wanted to kill me. — Julie Kagawa

Jedediah pulled out his pocketknife, reached over her, and snipped the rose to place in her hair. "Looks better there." In the moonlight, he wasn't sure if she blushed or not. Her eyes seemed all soft and glowing, her lips the color of the pink rose, slightly parted and tempting him. Before he knew what he was doing, his arms had circled her in a swift embrace. Heat filled his face, and his heart pounded so hard he was sure Patience could hear it. Would she let him kiss her? But she was already pulling away, visibly shaken. Her fingers touched her hair, patting it into place, and her eyes, large with surprise, looked into his, then quickly away. "I . . . Jed . . . I think we'd better go back inside and join the party." "I'm - I'm truly sorry, Patience. I don't know . . . I'm not sure what came over me just now. It must be the moonlight and the roses." And you, he said only to himself. — Maggie Brendan

Claudia was either unaware of her expression, or didn't care that he knew of her interest in his nakedness. Once he had hoped to find a mistress who would look at him with such undisguised longing.
He had never dared hope to find lust in a wife. The perfect woman sat before him, and she was his. Life was very good indeed. He propped his hands behind his head. "I am at your mercy, my lady. Do with me as you will."
"You wish to be ravished, Baron?"
"'Tis my fondest desire. — Elizabeth Elliott

A lady?' Jem raised his head. His face as scarlet. 'After all those things she said about you, a lady?'
'She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different than mine, maybe ... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her-I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see through it no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.' (p.112) — Harper Lee

that I had to know you, that I needed you in my life. I've never felt that way about anyone, ever. Whatever happens will be up to you, but I'll be a different man if I can't have you. I will never breathe as deeply as I did when I was with you. I'll never see the range of color on a perfectly cloudless sky. I will never smell anything as sweet as you or hear a voice that fills my heart up as much as yours does. That night in my truck, when I had the low, I knew without a doubt, even though I had never been in love before . . . I knew that I was in love with you. — Renee Carlino

I was wrong, Gabby, and I'll apologize for it forever if you want me to. But the truth is I couldn't face you. If I came to you and you sent me away, if I knew for certain that you didn't want me anymore...God in heaven, Gabriella Waverly, I've never been so bloody afraid of a lass before. — Page Morgan

Like a comet pulled from orbit,
As it passes a sun.
Like a stream that meets a boulder,
Halfway through the wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
I have been changed for good

It well may be,
That we will never meet again,
In this lifetime.
So let me say before we part,
So much of me,
Is made of what I learned from you.
You'll be with me,
Like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have re-written mine,
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring,
By a wind off the sea.
Like a seed dropped by a skybird,
In a distant wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
Because I knew you,
I have been changed for good. — Stephen Schwartz

I love Prince Harry. Good looking and a bit of a rebel. Me and his dad are as thick as thieves and I knew Harry before I knew his dad so we've met a few times. I think he's amazing. And I think you can relate to him because he's made mistakes. He's cool. — Cheryl Cole

As soon as he had her safe again in his arms he broke down and kissed her. Helen was so stunned she stopped crying before she had a chance to start and nearly fell out of the sky. Still the
better flyer, Lucas caught her and supported her as they tumbled on the wind, holding and kissing each other as he tumbled on the wind, holding and kissing each other as he guided them safely back down to the catwalk. As their feet touched down, the light inside the lighthouse switched on
and projected the shadows of their embracing figures out onto the choppy waves of the ocean.
"I can't lose you," Lucas said, pulling his mouth away from hers. "That's why I didn't tell you the whole truth. I thought if you knew how bad it was you'd send me away. I didn't want you to give up hope. I can't do this if you give up on us."
(Starcrossed) — Josephine Angelini

At my age an hour's reading before bedtime is essential, and I wisely brought Pamela with me. If any of you has trouble sleeping, I will read aloud to you. I never yet knew anyone who could not fall asleep with Richardson being read aloud to him. — Shirley Jackson

Your mother and I had one conversation a little before she died. She was sitting in the garden one evening when I came home from work, and she said, "I have to confess something. When we played 'chicken' from KDA to Clifton and I said I made you run three red lights, I lied. I made you stop even when they were only just turning amber." And I replied, "Samina, I didn't love you because you were the girl who ran red lights. I loved you because when you covered my eyes with your hands, I knew I could trust you to get me home." She was afraid of running red lights, Aasmaani. She wasn't an unbreakable creature of myth. She was entirely human, entirely breakable, and entirely extraordinary. — Kamila Shamsie

A rap at the back door made her jump, and she peered through the window for a long time before she eased open the door a crack. She left the security chain on. 'What do you want, Richard?'
Richard Morrell's police cruiser was parked in the drive. He hadn't flashed any lights or howled any sirens, so she supposed it wasn't an emergency, exactly. But she knew him well enough to know he didn't pay social visits, at least not to the Glass House.
'Good question,' Richard said. 'I guess I want a nice girl who can cook, likes action movies, and looks good in short skirts. But I'll settle for you taking the chain off the door and letting me in. — Rachel Caine

She taught me everything I knew about crawfish and kissing and pink wine and poetry. She made me different.
I lit a cigarette and spit into the creek. "You can't just make me different and ten leave," I said out loud to her. "Because I was fine before, Alaska. I was fine with just me and last words and shool friends, and you can't just make me different and then die. — John Green

I have a theory that there's almost this primal viewpoint on women in the business, that once you're beyond childbearing age, you are perceived as nonthreatening, nonsexual, noncastable. Sure, I already knew it before I got into it. I just didn't know I'd end up making my living from low-budget, independent films. — Marcia Gay Harden

This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people ... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave. — Joss Whedon

Get off me, baby, gotta shower." I rolled off but he rolled right on top of me. "I thought you had to shower," I asked when I caught his eyes. He held my gaze for a moment and I couldn't read his face before his head dipped and I felt his nose tweak my ear. "I'm sorry I was a dick," he whispered there. There it was. That was all he had to do and I knew at that moment there would be times when he'd be a jerk and that was all he'd ever have to do. My arms slid around him. "Honey," I whispered back. He gave my shoulder a bristly kiss and then he was gone. — Kristen Ashley

I tried out for my basketball team every year and I never made it. You had to buy the shoes before you knew if you were on the team because it took a few weeks for them to ship. I bought the shoes every year, never once made the team, had a ton of high school basketball shoes. — Adam DeVine

I knew a sudden shyness. There was a look on his face, a stillness to his body that had never been there before. Though I couldn't give the emotion a name, I felt it, too. We had something special. Something hard to define. Something past friendship.

"I must go now," I said and rose up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, marveling at its velvet skin. "Thank you for the book."

He drew me into his embrace and sighed. "Thank you for the stars. — Elizabeth Langston

And I recognized then the process by which I had always attempted difficult things. I had simply not allowed myself to think of the consequences, but had closed my eyes, jumped in, and before I knew where I was, it was impossible to renege. I was basically a dreadful coward, I knew that about myself. The only way I could overcome this was to trick myself with that other self, who lived in dream and fantasy and who was annoyingly lackadaisical and unpractical. All passion, no sense, no order, no instinct for self-preservation. That's what I had done, and now that cowardly self had discovered an unburnt bridge by which to return to the past. As Renata Adler writes in Speedboat: I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort. — Robyn Davidson

I thought about how the past can become so small. An entire day, 24 separate, heavy hours, becomes the size of a tiny brown leaf falling from a tree. Before you know it, a whole year is just a pile of dead leaves on the ground. The year or so I'd spent in love with Chad was starting to feel so long ago, swept away by the wind. I knew that this year would soon feel far away too. — Kimberly Novosel

I knew from the moment I met you that we would end up here. I didn't know how, but I was determined. Now it's time for you to realize what I've know all along"
" Really? And what's that?"
" That despite our differencies and all the obstacles we have before us, there couldn't be two people in the world more perfect for each other. — Nadia Aidan

Tania, we desperately need to have a minute," he said. "And you know it." She knew it. "This isn't right." "It's the only thing that's right." "All right. Go." "Will you come?" "I will try. Now, go." "Lift your - " Before he stopped speaking, Tatiana raised her face to him. They kissed deeply. "Do you have any idea what I feel?" Alexander whispered, his hands in her hair. "No," Tatiana replied, holding on to him, her legs numb. "I only have an idea what I feel. — Paullina Simons

I knew what she was asking, of course. I'd been asking it myself a moment before. But I wasn't sure how you went from dreams to reality without the magic leaking out - or becoming too wild and powerful. — Scott Westerfeld

He moved so suddenly that before I knew it, he had already picked me up and thrown me to the bed.
"What the heck? What do you think you're doing?"
"Let's go to sleep."
Was that the code for 'let's have sex'? — Alyloony

You're my rain, Eric. You've been keeping me safe before I even knew you. — Melyssa Winchester

He couldn't believe it!
He knew her intent before she dove for her sgian dubh. But he couldn't react quickly enough. He wasn't about to allow her to arm herself again. He dropped his sword, needing both hands free and lunged for her, only with his body this time. Tackling her, he took her down, her back cushioned by the wealth of leaves, and planted his body on top of hers.
She grew very still then, and he smiled a little at her. "If you had done just as I asked, we wouldna be like this, now would we lassie?"
Sorcha was fuming mad and scared witless as the braw Highlander pressed his body on top of hers. She felt his staff growing against her belly the longer he remained between her legs. He was beautiful, his dark brown eyes swimming with lust, his long brown hair hanging about her face as she looked up at him, panting for breath, trembling, despite wishing to show he didn't frighten her one bit. But he did. — Terry Spear

Oh my fucking - " Ruxs heaved underneath him, taking the burn and stretch like the man Green knew he was. "Fuck!" "Just as tight as I knew this virgin ass would be." Green panted in Ruxs ear. He hadn't moved, knew if he did it would be over before it even began. "Fuck you," Ruxs grunted. "Augh. Do something, Chris." "I'm gonna make you feel real good, baby." Green slowly pulled out, just halfway, and slid back in again. "You trust me don't you?" "I did. Before you lied and said this fuckin' felt good." Ruxs turned a little, positioning most of his weight on side, making Green maneuver with him. Green — A.E. Via

Before I got to Juilliard I remember that I had learned the first few bars to all the Sachse etudes in several different keys because I knew what was coming. So in the first year he was throwing these Sachse etudes at me and I would knock off the first eight bars and fly right through it. He would say, 'Alright, that's good enough.' But, in my third year, he said 'Get out the Sachse book.' I couldn't understand why. So I pull it out and he said, 'Here, start in the middle.' I was in trouble! He said, 'Hey Balm, I took you for a guy who knows how to transpose-you're nothing but a bugler!' — Neil Balme

You ever hear about that experiment an American journalist did in Moscow in the 1970s? He just lined up at some building, nothing special about it, just a random door. Sure enough, someone got in line behind him, then a couple more, and before you knew it, they were backed up around the block. No one asked what the line was for. They just assumed it was worth it. I can't say if that story was true. Maybe it's an urban legend, or a cold war myth. Who knows? — Max Brooks

The three of us stood there for a minute. I don't know what Stew was thinking, and the filing cabinet wasn't thinking anything. But I was thinking, is this the world? Is this really the place in which you've ended up, Snicket? It was a question that struck me, as it might strike you, when something ridiculous was going on, or something sad. I wondered if this was really where I should be, or if there was another world someplace, less ridiculous and less sad. But I never knew the answer to the question. Perhaps I had been in another world before I was born, and did not remember it, or perhaps I would see another world when I died, which I was in no hurry to do. In the meantime, I was stuck in the police station, doing something so ridiculous it felt sad, and feeling so sad it was ridiculous. The world of the police station, the world of Stain'd-by-the-Sea and all of the wrong questions I was asking, was was the only world I could see. — Lemony Snicket

Before 'Twilight,' occasionally I would get the 'Hey are you that girl from that movie?' but no one knew my first and last name. The fans of the saga are amazing, and it's very flattering. — Nikki Reed

And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat ... I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after I had children I would feel differently, I wouldn't want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state. — Sylvia Plath

I thought I was good before I had any right to. But I think you got to feel that way. You got to think that. I wasn't delusional. I knew I had talent. — Diane Warren

My aunt made me an offer I had to refuse," said Jared. He looked forbidding.
Kami knew that expression, and remembered the feeling that used to go with it: he was unhappy. "So you ran away from home," she said. "To become a tavern wench."
"I'm not a tavern wench," said Jared. "That's not a job." His voice was slightly less stern than before, as if he was taken aback.
"It sounds like you're a tavern wench," Kami told him. "Fleeing persecution, you have to take up a menial occupation to keep your body and soul together. But at least its honest work, though as you labor, many predatory customers make advances and offer indignities."
"One can only hope," Jared responded. — Sarah Rees Brennan

He didn't operate on the same frequency as everyone else. On one hand, he was more dangerous than anyone I'd ever met.
He could slip into a room, kill you with a spatula, and be out of town before anyone knew about it. On the other, he was the most pure, untarnished soul I'd ever come across. It was an odd mix so uniquely Kale, and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. — Jus Accardo

It was hard to understand, and all I knew was that you had to run, run, run without knowing why you were running, but on you went through fields you didn't understand and into woods that made you afraid, over hills without knowing you'd been up and down, and shooting across streams that would have cut the heart out of you had you fallen into them. And the winning post was no end to it, even though crowds might be cheering you in, because on you had to go before you got your breath back, and the only time you stopped really was when you tripped over a tree trunk and broke your neck or fell into a disused well and stayed dead in the darkness forever. — Alan Sillitoe

When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it. But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along. — Francis Collins

I knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
I knew I loved you before I met you
I have been waiting all my life — Savage Garden

Dear Diary,
We flew to the other side of the world, and I never stopped holding you close to my chest. You were empty and so was I. My only friend in the world. The only one who understood where I began and where I was going. We flew together and everything we knew before was gone. — Diane Rene Christian

For that you should read the original. In very great poetry the music often comes through even when one doesn't know language. I loved Dante passionately before I knew a word of Italian. — Donna Tartt

I looked at other couples and wondered how they could be so calm about it. They held hands as if they weren't even holding hands. When Steve and I held hands, I had to keep looking down to marvel at it. There was my hand, the same hand I've always had - oh, but look! What is it holding? It's holding Steve's hand! Who is Steve? My three-dimensional boyfriend. Each day I wondered what would happen next. What happens when you stop wanting, when you are happy. I supposed I would go on being happy forever. I knew I would not mess things up by growing bored. I had done that once before. — Miranda July

I LOVE YOU SO MANY REASONS '

---
Before i met you
I spent a lot of time
meeting all kinds of people
i had a lot of fun
and learned a lot
Though each person I met
had great characteristics
something was missing
No one person
had all the qualities that
I had hoped a person could have-
someone whose every action
and thought I could respect
someone who was very intelligent
yet could also be fun-loving
someone who was sensitive, yet virile
exciting and sensuous
someone who knew what they wanted
out of life.
a beautiful person inside and out
I could not find a person like this
until i met you — Susan Polis Schutz

Look who's talking,' Darren repeated, angrier this time. 'I might've welcomed her along in hunts, but I wasn't tripping over myself to talk to her every night. Everyone could see the way you looked at the girl. You weren't exactly subtle, you know. Ruth nearly had kittens every time the two of you went off to do something. So don't lecture me about getting attached, Zeke. You were falling for that vampire - we all knew it. Maybe you'd better check your own neck before you go pointing fingers at other people. Seems to me the vampire could've bitten you anytime she wanted - — Julie Kagawa

If you focus your eyes towards the horizon, everything and everyone walking in front of you becomes a blurry mass. That's what everyone else became. All of their dark wool suits began to mesh into one, and they began to rhythmically march in unison, all while I gazed at the sliver of sky that seemed to be pressed tightly in between the skyscrapers. I kept on walking and staring at the sky, and I began to notice the skyscrapers becoming larger and larger, and before I knew it, I had to turn to get to my building, and of course, the automat. — Cristina Martin

As you know, I was one of the original grunters. But Jimmy Connors used to grunt way before I was born. I never knew I was grunting, it was just part of my strokes. — Monica Seles

Well,'said Ernest, 'by some strange coincidence I know this story.'
Boddichek was not good at irony. 'I knew that there was that possibility,' he said, 'but we have a great new way to treat it, and I thought you might want to reread it before taking a meeting.'
'Reread it?' said Mayday. 'We are talking about Cinderella, and the wicked stepmother and the Ugly Sisters and Buttons the page and the Fairy Godmother, "Cinders, you shall go to the ball but be sure you're home by midnight or you'll turn into pumpkin"?'
'Hey, you know it pretty well,' said young Casey with admiration in his voice. 'But I've found a new directionality for this story.'
'Do you mean direction?' asked Mayday.
'I guess I do.'
'Then', snapped Mayday, 'why don't you fucking say so? — Jonathan Lynn

Do you know I ate frog legs once?" Jonah asks. Uh-oh. "You what?" screams a horrified Frederic. "It's true!" Jonah says, clearly not catching the stop talking look I'm shooting him. "We went to a French restaurant for our dad's birthday and he ordered an appetizer of frog legs. Remember, Abby? We tried them! Both of us did!" "It was before I knew you," I tell Frederic apologetically. "They tasted like chicken!" Jonah exclaims. He's right. They did taste like chicken. "I think I'm going to throw up," Frederic moans. — Sarah Mlynowski

Here. (Zarek)
What is it? (Astrid)
Arsenic and vomit. (Zarek)
Really? And yet you managed to hack that up so quietly. Who knew? Thanks. I've never had vomit before. I'm sure it's extra special. (Astrid) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Seeing that guy touch you was too much. I couldn't stop myself. Before I knew it, I was flying across that bar thinking, he touched you and I was going to have to pound him for it. No one fucking touches you except me." His mouth came down over mine again. He held me so tightly, I was sure he'd squeeze the breath from me. "Since I had you pressed up against the wall in that closet, I knew that you had to be mine," he whispered against my mouth. — Tess Oliver

I have a new nickname. A few of the guys have noticed that I am reading the bible on my free time. I am now 'preacher.' Not very fitting, if you ask me. Don't preachers have to stand up and teach people? I guess it could be worse. Some of the guys were talking about their favorite kind of music. Nobody said classical. I wasn't surprised, and I didn't volunteer my preference. Later on, I was talking to Tyler Young, and he asked me what I liked to listen to, so I told him about Beethoven. He asked me what songs I liked. I told him I especially liked Air on a G String - big mistake!! He thought I was talking about women's underwear. He's calling me 'G' now. I think I prefer Preacher. Tyler has a big mouth, especially when he thinks he's going to get laughs, and before I knew it, he'd told everyone about Air on a G String. Now I'm 'Preacher G. — Amy Harmon

Just as before, Cale moved swiftly into his next hold. His arm shot out like a whip, giving her no time to react. Powerful hands wrapped around her small throat, and he squeezed with a gentle pressure, enough to be uncomfortable, but not enough to really hurt her. He meant to prove a point, but Analia knew this hold well, had been on the receiving end of it many times. This was a hold that could easily render her unconscious. She kept steady, oddly feeling safe even though her pulse spiked wildly.
'How should you counter?' Cale asked.
'I could kick you in your bollocks.'
He smiled at her candor. 'Aye, you could, but a man of any brains would expect a move like that in this position. A better move would be to raise your arm up and bring your elbow down across my arms. If you learn to do it right, you will break my hold, and will be able to get yourself in a more suitable position for a counterattack. Then you go for the bollocks.'"

-Cale & Analia — Kiersten Fay

Until I met you," she said, "I never realized how precious each day could be. When I was working, each day was over before I knew it, and then a week just flew by, and then a whole year ... What have I been doing all this time? Why didn't I meet you before? If I had to choose a whole year in the past, or a day with you-I'd choose a day with you ... — Shuichi Yoshida

You were you,
and I was I;
we were two
before our time.
I was yours
before I knew,
and you have always
been mine too. — Lang Leav

Just before you went into the ICU, I started to feel this ache in my hip." "No," I said. Panic rolled in, pulled me under. He nodded. "So I went in for a PET scan." He stopped. He yanked the cigarette out of his mouth and clenched his teeth. Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but A Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile. He flashed his crooked smile, then said, "I lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel Grace. The lining of my chest, my left hip, my liver, everywhere. — John Green