Casual She Quotes & Sayings

At her easiest, she was hard, because her brain was always working, working, working - I had to exert myself just to keep pace with her. I'd spend an hour crafting a casual e-mail to her, I became a student of arcana so I could keep her interested: the Lake poets, the code duello, the French Revolution. Her mind was both wide and deep, and I got smarter being with her. And more considerate, and more active, and more alive, and almost electric, because for Amy, love was like drugs or booze or porn: There was no plateau. Each exposure needed to be more intense than the last to achieve the same result.
Amy made me believe I was exceptional, that I was up to her level of play. That was both our making and undoing. Because I couldn't handle the demands of greatness. I began craving ease and averageness, and I hated myself for it, and ultimately, I realized, I punished her for it. I turned her into the brittle, prickly thing she became. — Gillian Flynn

If it was just a fling, brief and minimally emotional, then she could have the amazing sex she was sure Ben would deliver - and that she deserved, dammit - but she didn't have to worry that he would eventually let her down. She would know going in not to expect anything more. Could she have an affair and not want more? — Erin Nicholas

When she was eighteen years old she had almost drowned in the Kennebec River, not because of the pummeling current, but because she couldn't come up with a casual phrase with which to call for rescue. "Help!" was such a cliche. By the time she was willing to scream, she had no breath left, and it was just blind luck that somebody saw her gasping and floundering and pulled her to shore. "Why didn't you say something?" they wanted to know, and she said, "I'm not a screamer." "Jesus," said one of them, "couldn't you have made an exception this one time?" "Apparently not," she said. — Jincy Willett

I'd fallen in love with Amy because I was the ultimate Nick with her. Loving her made me superhuman, it made me feel alive. At her easiest, she was hard, because her brain was always working, working, working - I had to exert myself just to keep pace with her. I'd spend an hour crafting a casual e-mail to her, I became a student of arcana so I could keep her interested: the Lake poets, the code duello, the French Revolution. Her mind was both wide and deep, and I got smarter being with her. And more considerate, and more — Gillian Flynn

And you are?'
'Erm . . Professor N'gomo.' said Edith waving her badge in what she supposed was a casual way. — Anna Moore

She was going to get another glass of champagne, enjoy herself and get to know her new co-workers. The thought came to an abrupt halt as she opened the bedroom door and found Quinn leaning against the wall opposite her, almost casually. But she wasn't fooled by his stance.
Nothing about him was casual. Those muscular arms were crossed over his broad chest and there was an almost predatory gleam in those dark eyes. No, that look on his face couldn't be mistaken for anything but raw lust. — Katie Reus

She tried to sound casual and upbeat but in her heart she felt a sudden bleakness. — Katie Fforde

In an age of casual, cynical, indifferent routine, among people who held themselves as if they were not flesh, but meat-Dagny's bearing seemed almost indecent, because this was the way a woman would have faced a ballroom centuries ago, when the act of displaying one's half-naked body for the admiration of men was an act of daring, when it had meaning, and but one meaning, acknowledged by all as a high adventure. And this-thought Mrs. Taggart, smiling-was the girl she had believed to be devoid of sexual capacity. She felt an immense relief, and a touch of amusement at the thought that a discovery of this kind should make her feel relieved. The relief lasted only for a few hours. At the end of the evening, she saw Dagny in a corner of the ballroom, sitting on a balustrade as if it were a fence rail, her legs dangling under the chiffon skirt as if she were dressed in slacks. She was talking to a couple of helpless young men, her face contemptuously empty. — Ayn Rand

She re-marked her lips with her lipstick. I saw sprays of silver in her coarse hair. I saw inscriptions of her years around her mouth, a solid crease between her brows from a lifetime of cynicism. The posture of a woman who had stood in a casual spotlight in every room she'd ever been in, not for gloss or perfection, for self-possession. Everything she touched she added an apostrophe to. — Stephanie Danler

You called?" Sounding casual is difficult when it feels like you're heart's river-dancing in your rib cage.
"Yes. I just wondered where you were. You didn't answer your cell. Is everything okay?" She sighs, but I can't tell if it's in relief or parental aggravation.
"Everything's fine. My battery is dead, but Galen bought me a charger to keep over here, so it's charging."
"How sweet of him," she says, knowing good and well she instructed him to do so. "Well, just wanted to check in. Should I wait up for you? I don't appreciate you missing curfew the last few nights. Technically, staying over there until four in the morning is a coed sleepover, which I don't allow, or had you forgotten? Your trip to Florida with Galen's family was a special circumstance."
"I stayed the night at Chloe's all the time with JJ there." JJ is Chloe's eight-year-old brother. Not a great comeback, but it will have to do. — Anna Banks

Is this the girl?" Kieran's voice was very different: It sounded like waves sliding up the shore. Like warm water under pale light. It was seductive, with an edge of cold. He looked at Emma as if she were a new kind of flower, one he wasn't sure he liked. "She's pretty," he said. "I didn't think she'd be pretty. You didn't mention it."
Iarlath shrugged. "You've always been partial to blondes," he said.
"Okay, seriously?" Emma snapped her fingers. "I am right here. And I was not aware I was being invited to a game of 'Who's the Hottest?'"
I wasn't aware you were invited at all," said Kieran. His speech had a casual edge, as if he was used to talking to humans.
"Rude," said Emma. — Cassandra Clare

Suddenly, as Avis clung to her father's neck and ear while, with a casual arm, the man enveloped his lumpy and large offspring, I saw Lolita's smile lose all its light and become a frozen little shadow of itself, and the fruit knife slipped off the table and struck her with its silver handle a freak blow on the ankle which made her gasp, and crouch head forward, and then, jumping on one leg, her face awful with the preparatory grimace which children hold till the tears gush, she was gone - to be followed at once and consoled in the kitchen by Avis who had such a wonderful fat pink dad and a small chubby brother, and a brand-new baby sister, and a home, and two grinning dogs, and Lolita had nothing. — Vladimir Nabokov

She tucked her lips in and eyed the pancakes Tristan pulled from the pan. "Making a midnight snack?"
She tried to sound light and casual. Normal. Friendly.
Not because Tristan deserved it, but because she wanted pancakes. And Tristan, apparently, was keeper of the pancakes. — Chelsea Fine

Then she thought bitterly that it would be much easier to resist chocolate if her life were less stressful. — J.K. Rowling

What a relief, Nadya thought; in that light he would not be able to tell that she had been crying.
"You mean if it weren't for the blackout you wouldn't have come?" Dasha took up Shchagov's tone, flirting unconsciously, as she did with every unmarried man she met.
"By no means, never. In bright light women's faces are deprived of all their charm; it reveals their spiteful expressions, their envious glances, their premature wrinkles, their heavy cosmetics."
Nadya shuddered at the words "envious glances" - it was as if he had overheard their argument.
Shchagov went on:" If I were a woman, I would make it a law that lights be kept low. Then everyone would soon have a husband."
Dasha looked disapprovingly at Shchagov. He always talked that way, and she didn't like it. All his phrases seemed memorized, insincere. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

And wished with all her power to wish anything, that the woman would simply continue her last words and say, "Are you really so glad to have met me? Then why can't we see each other again? Why can't we even have lunch together today?" Her voice was so casual, and she might have said it so easily. — Patricia Highsmith

When a film's heroine innocently coughs, you know that two scenes later, at most, she'll be in an oxygen tent; when a man bumps into a woman at the train station, you know that man will become the woman's lover and/or murderer. In everyday life, where we cough often and are always bumping into people, our daily actions rarely reverberate so lucidly. Once we love or hate someone, we can think back and remember that first casual encounter. But what of all the chance meetings that nothing ever comes of? While our bodies move ever forward on the time line, our minds continuously trace backward, seeking shape and meaning as deftly as any arrow seeking its mark. — Lucy Grealy

Ian stared until she disappeared inside the elevator. Then he glanced back at me.
"Don't fret, poppet. I'll get her."
"We need to do this discreetly. If I wanted to make a colossal scene, I'd just drag her off kicking and screaming now," I said, not adding, "dumb ass" only because he was family.
"She'll come without a fuss," Ian said with confidence.
"You can't green-eye her in the elevator, it'll have video surveillance. So will the garage," I retorted.
"I don't need these," Ian said, flashing emerald in his turquoise gaze for a split second, "when I have this."
With a casual swipe of his hand, he ripped his shirt open, causing buttons to fly everywhere. Another swipe took his sleep mask all the way off. Finally, he finger-combed his shoulder-lenght hair and smiled at his reflection in the rearview mirror.
"I am after all, irresistible. — Jeaniene Frost

I understand that you have an urgent task for me."
"I do."
"What is it?"
"I want you to go to the coffee shop and get me something to eat."
"That-" Lauren choked. "That's your idea of urgent?"
"Very urgent," Nick replied imperturbably. "I happen to be starved."
Lauren clenched her hands into fists. "To you I may mrely be some frivolous, amusing sexual object, but downstairs I have an important job to do, and Jim needs me."
"I need you,honey.I've been here since-"
"Don't you dare call me honey!" she burst out, reeling with unwanted joy at the casual endearment.
"Why not?" he cajoled, a smile lighting his face. "You're sweet."
"You won't think so if you call me honey again," Lauren promised.
His brows drew together at her tone, and Lauren had to remind herself that he was still her boss. "Oh all right!" she capitulated ungraciously. "What do you eat for breakfast?"
"Irritating secretaries," he mocked. — Judith McNaught

Maxine will sometimes compliment us on our hair or other aspects of our scruffy appearance. The next day, or even later the same day, she'll send an all-caps e-mail asking why a certain form is not on her desk. This will prompt a peppy reply, one barely stifling a howl of fear:

Hey Maxine!
The document you want was actually put in your in-box yesterday around lunchtime. I also e-mailed it to you and Russell. Let me know if you can't find it!
Thanks!
Laars

P.S. I'm also attaching it again as a Word doc, just in case.

There's so much wrong here: the fake-vague around lunchtime, the nonsensical Thanks, the quasi-casual postscript. The exclamation points look downright psychotic. — Ed Park

She couldn't survey the wreck of the world with an air of casual unconcern. — Margaret Mitchell

But that was long ago. She has long since lost interest in motives, in the details of other women's crimes. Even the hatchet makes its usual sense. A mother who loves her child with all her self is only so far from the hatchet anyway; one casual swing and it's done. Hatred, love, all muddled up in that space inside a whisper, when the words don't matter anymore, when the baby's half asleep and you can carry it all the way there if you want, on nothing but the tone of your voice. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. Sing it as softly as you like - the words clench their own teeth. The child still falls. — Emily Ruskovich

She was temptation wrapped in casual elegance. — Christine Feehan

I love working with Erica [Durance]. She's so much fun. And I love how flippant, comfortable, and casual the relationship is. There is so much humor there, and they make each other laugh. It is obvious how much they adore each other. I really like that. — Allison Mack

From long experience she knew that she wore her loneliness like armor. Very few people ever recognized it for what it was. To the casual observer it looked very much like arrogance. Sometimes it was. — Nevada Barr

I've always loved Helena Christensen's style because she looks casual and comfortable, while being chic and cool. — Louise Nurding

And it wasn't just the subjugation of human beings that distressed her but the level of daily, almost casual brutality. Even for routine punishments there were blood-stained stakes, lead-tipped whips. She's always rather admired the Romans, for their literacy, their order, their engineering, their respect for the law. Now, she was finding, she'd never fully imagined this side of their civilisation. — Stephen Baxter

She isn't a storm or a leader or a king or a war or anyone whose life and death makes noise. The problem is words. There is skin, yes. And then, inside that, there is your language, the casual, inherited magic spells taht make your skin real. It's too late now
even if we could say "Shut up" or "Where's my dinner?" in the first language, the real language, the words weren't born in us. And unless your skin and your language touch each other without interruption, there is no word strong enough to make you understand that it matters that you live. The things that really "stay" are an Orisha, a kind night, a pretended boy, a garden song that made no sense. Those come closer to being enough. — Helen Oyeyemi

Quite suddenly she understood the impulse that caused men to engage in casual blasphemy. — Diana Gabaldon

Got some more customers for ya," said Camden, taking off his baseball cap to bend the brim, and then putting it back on again.
"Wait, she deals drugs too?" asked Brad. I couldn't tell if he was serious or not. Apparently, neither could the student teacher passing by us in the hallway; she whipped her head around to stare suspiciously for a moment before either deciding that we were harmless or deciding to stroll on over to Principal Davis's office in an exceedingly casual manner. — Cherry Cheva

There was a dark aura about him, a hint of caged power in that deceptively casual, sprawled poise. Danger personified.
If this had been a film she would have expected to hear the warning wail of an electric guitar creep over the soft background bustle of the city. — Heather R. Blair

You're very different from the man I pictured you to be."
I smirk at her, amused. What, so she didn't think I'd be a fucker with a drinking problem who is obviously very much into casual sex and reckless driving on a classic bike? I arch an eyebrow at her and run a hand along my square jaw. "I hope you find me sexier. — Stephanie Witter

When the finally pulled apart, Rishi's mouth tingling still, Dimple smiled shyly and looked down at their hands, entwined between them on the bench. "So," she said softly. "That was unexpected."

He leaned over and kissed her forehead, like it was the most natural thing to do. Was this going to be their thing now, casual kissing? He hoped so. "Unexpected but awesome." Rishi paused. "Right?"

She laughed and looked up at him. "Definitely."

He grinned, his heart soaked in happy. — Sandhya Menon

In summary, she did jump off a cliff, but she wasn't trying to kill herself. Bella's all about the extreme sports these days."
I flushed and turned my eyes straight ahead, looking after the dark shadow that I could no longer see. I could imagine what he was hearing in Alice's thoughts now. Near-drowings, stalking vampires, werewolf friends ...
"Hm," Edward said curtly, and the casual tone of his voice was gone. — Stephenie Meyer

His blue-black hair fell over his face when he moved, like tiny arrows pointing to pronounced cheeckbones. "Starting to think you were going to bail on me." "Didn't know you were expecting me," she said in what she hoped was a casual voice. He gets sexier every day. "Not Expecting, but hoping. Always hoping — Melissa Marr

Taraza cleared her throat. "No need. Lucilla is one of our finest Imprinters. Each of you, of course, received the identical liberal conditioning to prepare you for this." There was something almost insulting in Taraza's casual tone and only the habits of long association put down Odrade's immediate resentment. It was partly that word "liberal," she realized. Atreides ancestors rose up in rebellion at the word. It was as though her accumulated female memories lashed out at the unconscious assumptions and unexamined prejudices behind the concept. "Only liberals really think. Only liberals are intellectual. Only liberals understand the needs of their fellows." How much viciousness lay concealed in that word! Odrade thought. How much secret ego demanding to feel superior. — Frank Herbert

Where are we going?" Desandra asked.
"We're going to Blue Ribbon Stables," I said. "It's the closest place to rent a horse.
"Why?" Desandra asked.
"Because I can't keep up with you on foot," I said.
"And she runs like a rhino." Derek added. "You can hear her a mile away."
Traitor. "I thought you had my back?"
"I do," Derek said. "The rhino running is nice. Makes it easy to keep track of you. If I ever lose you, I just have to listen and there you are."
"Yes," Desandra agreed. "It's convenient."
I laughed.
"Are you always this casual?" Robert asked.
"Derek and I worked together for a long time," I told him. "He's allowed some leeway."
"What about Desandra?"
"She only bothers with protocol when she wants something. The rest of the time it's lewd jokes and descriptions of plums."
Desandra snickered.
Robert's eyebrows crept up. "Plums?"
I waved my hand. "Don't ask. — Ilona Andrews

They didn't account for Lucy, only for her face. And maybe they couldn't. She was too huge for casual consideration. But how can you operate on the face without understanding what the face means to the girl? How can the meaning of kissing, swallowing, speaking, be completely ignored in favor of mechanics? — Ann Patchett

I found the world of the Little House books to be so much less confusing, not just because it was "simpler," as plenty of people love to insist, but because it reconciled all the little contradictions of my modern girlhood. On the Banks of Plum Creek clicked with me especially, with its perfect combination of pinafores and recklessness. (I will direct your attention to the illustration on page 31 of my Plum Creek paperback, where you will note how fabulous Laura looks as she pokes the badger with a stick; her style is casual yet feminine, perfect for precarious nature adventures!) At an age when I found myself wanting both a Webelos uniform and a head of beautiful Superstar Barbie hair, On the Banks of Plum Creek was a reassuring book. Being a girl sometimes made more sense in Laura World than it did in real life. — Wendy McClure

We could sit around and talk if you'd like."
"Okay." She crossed her arms and tried to look casual. "So what's up?"
"Considering what you're wearing beneath that sheet, and what we just heard in the hallway, you might want to rephrase that particular statement. — Jill Shalvis

A nurse interrupted the conversation by appearing in the doorway to tell a beaming Matt Holden and Leta that they'd just become grandparents. It was a fine, healthy boy, and as soon as they had Mrs. Winthrop in a room, everyone could come and see him in the nursery. She darted a worried glance toward a group of taciturn men in sunglasses and dark suits, facing another group in casual dress but looking at windows as if they might be contemplating a break-out. And one of those men bore a striking resemblance to a mobster ...
She beat a hasty retreat back into the safety of the surgical ward. That baby was going to have some very odd visitors. — Diana Palmer

I watched her peel off the slip, The bra closed in the front like the other. Ah, my teeth clenched seeing her tighten the clasps, breasts gathered like that. The she smoothed the flesh into the cups, lifted each breast, dropped it, her fingers casual, rough. I got hard watching it. Then the panties came up stretched sheer over her pubic hair. I could see the silk seal itself over her secret lips. Little crack. Hair a dark shadow underneath. — Anne Rampling

I'm thinking about Bert.'
Without hearing any more about it, she knew what this meant: Wally had had his fun, and now he was getting ready to get out from under. She waited a moment or two, as she often did when angered, but in spite of her effort to sound casual, her voice had a vibrant sound to it. 'And what about Bert? — James M. Cain

But let's not be casual about this body, okay?" She nuzzled him back. "It may be your soul that I love, but I'm pretty keen on its vessel, too."
Her voice had dropped lower as she spoke, and his response was low and husky in kind. "I can't say I'm sorry to hear that," he said, and brushed his face past hers to kiss a place beneath her ear, sending instant, electric frissons coursing through her body. — Laini Taylor

I don't have casual sex," she said.

He almost smiled. It was merely an expression in those pale eyes, rather than an actual movement of his mouth. "My dear, I promise you there wouldn't be anything casual about it. — Linda Howard

He had felt viable being near her or knowing she was listening to him or having the comfort of their casual meeting within a dream. With her, he simply and effortlessly felt better. They all felt better, unburdened, cared for, and heard. Being connected to her eased his suffering as he gave her his. It was only when she began to drown in the cumulation of commingled torments that to save whatever part of her was left, she disconnected, and when she did, his suffering returned and remained with him longer than she had. But instead of saving herself, it was the additional burden of her own anguish from letting them all go that took her breath and inevitably pulled her under. — Donna Lynn Hope

Sarai had treasured every stage of Rachel's childhood, enjoying the day-to-day normalcy of things; a normalcy which she quietly accepted as the best of life. She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things - the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal. — Dan Simmons

It was insane to let a creature so perfectly beautiful and artlessly spirited and vulnerable as his wife venture out into a world that could crush her with casual unconcern, and he had no choice but to allow it. But he had no illusions about ever being comfortable with it. For the rest of his life, he would feel a stab of dread every time she walked out the door, leaving him there with his heart wide open. — Lisa Kleypas

What are you doing?"
"Ya!" said Jane, whirling around, her hands held up menacingly.
It was Mr. Nobley with coat, hat, and cane, watching her with wide eyes. Jane took several quick (but oh so casual) steps away from Martin's window.
"Um, did I just say, 'Ya'?"
"You just said 'Ya,'" he confirmed. "If I am not mistaken, it was a battle cry, warning that you were about to attack me.
I, uh ... " She stopped to laugh. "I wasn't aware until this precise and awkward moment that when startled in a startled in a strange place, my instincts would have me pretend to be a ninja. — Shannon Hale

If it took eons to get to the edge of one's galactic yard, she could not imagine the neighbors dropping by for a casual visit, especially since the heavenly houses were uninhabitable well into the next state. — Thomm Quackenbush

Mom talks about moving to Canada as though my father had requested she start wearing fun hats. "Why not try it?" she thought, instead of "This fucking lunatic wants me to go to a country made of ice and casual racism. — Scaachi Koul

One never owns a book. It sits on your shelf in a fine edition like a piece of furniture, and you are its admiring ward until it flies off from you in a time of financial hardship. If it is a tattered paperback, she is your casual mistress you use a few times. If you have read it a hundred times then it is your wife, and a source of infinite mystery. — Bauvard

There was nothing ugly in the small, unprepossessing figure of this emancipated woman, but the expression on her face made a bad impression on the viewer. One felt inclined to ask: "What's the matter? Are you hungry? Bored? Afraid? Why so tense?" Just like Sitnikov, she was always anxious. She spoke and moved in a rather casual, though awkward,manner: she obviously considered herself a good-natured, simple creature; at the same time, no matter what she did, it always seemed that she didn't want to be doing that. Everything she did appeared to be done on purpose, as children say, that is, neither simply nor naturally. — Ivan Turgenev

I love that girl, Bertie," he went on, when he'd finished coughing.
"Yes. Nice girl, of course."
He eyed me with deep loathing.
"Don't speak of her in that horrible casual way. She's an angel. An angel! — P.G. Wodehouse

I almost said - trying to find some casual remark - 'I wonder sometimes what has become of the little McCoo girl, did she ever get better?' - but stopped in time lest she rejoin: 'I wonder sometimes what has become of the little Haze girl ... — Vladimir Nabokov

Why, Maddy asked herself lately, had she ever decided to have a baby? She wasn't ready for this, and neither was Peter. Very recently, it seemed, they had been staying up late and having lots of sex, and eating in a variety of cheap restaurants and going to many movies, and once even going to a tiny jewelry store on Avenue A on a Saturday night to have Maddy's nose pierced. Then, on a whim almost as casual as the nose-piercing decision, they had decided to stop using birth-control. She had taken her circular packet of pills one night, put them in an ash-tray, and ceremonially burned them, although the plastic had only curled and smoked and stank up the apartment, leaving the pills themselves intact behind their transparent bubble windows. — Meg Wolitzer

She didn't take her eyes off him, and that expression on her scowling face demanded an answer.
He cast about desperately in his mind and then hit on a way out. He shrugged, trying to look casual as well as impressed. "You managed such a great illusion, looking slim earlier, it was hard to remember it was an illusion." There. A compliment. He hadn't stepped into the mud and sunk - yet. She was still looking at him, hands on her hips, waiting for more. He was beginning to sweat. Hell. — Christine Feehan

And he wondered, suddenly, what sort of divide it created between them, that he knew pieces of her that she had never shared with him - facts and stories and moments and memories to which she had no idea he was privy. He had collected them for so long, denying to himself that this acquisition was anything more than casual amusement, when in fact it was zealous, and jelaous besides; diwowning as accidental the fact that he never forgot a single remark she made, or that others made about her, and that he approved of these other people, or disdained them, according to their treatment of her. Such a lopsided intimacy existed between him and her. Inevitably, it created a chasm whose depth neither of them could know until they tried to chart it. Would this chasm prove impossible to bridge? — Meredith Duran

Even in her casual white shirt and cotton pants, she was clearly an independent woman in charge of her destiny. She was so ... He paused, searching for words. So sophisticated, so self-assured. — Jan Moran

His voice almost undid her. It was exactly as she remembered from school, casual, familiar, polite. Not arrogant, because arrogance implied one had to establish one's superiority. Denovo's voice assumed it. — Max Gladstone

She had argued for a broad interpretation, which imposed a duty to answer questions truthfully, and not to hide facts which could give a different complexion to a matter, but on subsequent thought she had revised her position.
Although she still believed that one should be frank in answers to questions, this duty arose only where there was an obligation, based on a reasonable expectation, to make a full disclosure. There was no duty to reveal everything in response to a casual question by one who had no right to the information. — Alexander McCall Smith

Later we can go to dinner."
"I suppose that might work," she said.
She sounded so damn casual, he thought. As if the decision she had just made weren't staggering in its implications. As if it weren't going to alter destinies and change the fate of nations. — Jayne Ann Krentz

He looked nearly inconspicuous, a handsome man in faded Levi's and tennis shoes. A Yankees baseball cap covered his dark hair, the bill shadowing his features. Casual. Beautiful. A day's growth of beard on his jaw did little to detract from his excruciating attractiveness.
"She's eight months old, but she knows how to flirt," the baby's mother said. "Let go of the nice man's shirt, Gabbi." She dislodged the child's hand, then told Adrian, "I'm sorry. She must like the colors on your T-shirt."
Eight-month-old Gabbi's big blue eyes were fixed on Adrian's face, not on his T-shirt. Billie released a shaky breath. Good God. Even babies weren't immune. — Shelby Reed

Nicole did what she'd been taught since she was little and her parents had moved into an all-white neighborhood: She smiled and made herself as friendly and non threatening as possible. Its what she did when she met the parents of her friends. There was always that split second- something almost felt rather than seen- when the parents' faces would register a tiny shock, a palpable discomfort with Nicole's 'otherness.' And Nicole would smile wide and say how nice it was to come over. She would call the parents Mr. or Mrs., never by their first names. Their suspicion would ebb away, replaced by an unspoken but nonetheless palpable pride in her 'good breeding,' for which they should take no credit but did anyway. Nicole could never quite relax in these homes. She'd spend the evening perched on the edge of the couch, ready to make a quick getaway. — Libba Bray

I'm so happy," she whispered. "I never thought I would ever be this happy." Richard put his arms around her and held her to him. He rested his cheek against her hair and let her words sink deep into his heart. "Any reason why?" he asked, trying to sound casual. "You, of course," she said. "How . . ." She pulled her head back and looked up at him. "Because you are a sweet, tender, passionate man and you treat me like you might just love me." He smiled weakly. "Indeed." She reached up and touched his mouth. "There's that smile again." "A poor one." "It's better than no smile at all. Don't grin, though. I have to be sitting down for that." She brushed past him and started down the steps. "Have a nice day, dear." "Dear? How mean you that?" he asked. — Lynn Kurland

I'd stopped trying to greet her ages ago. She was one of those people that didn't wave back. I'd never understood how you could do that, just ignore a wave or a greeting, but it seemed to be a consistent attribute for crazy people. I mean, how hard was it to stop pretending you didn't see anyone around you and just wave? Why wouldn't you want to be friendly in the most casual of waves with the people that lived next door to you? Because crazy. — R.K. Lilley

You float like a feather," sings Radiohead, "In a beautiful world." I've listened several times to the Radiohead songs, because it was nice of Raymond to say he heard a bit of them in what I sang. I'm not sure I hear it myself, but I am pleased and touched. Sometimes that's what you need, just a quick casual word of knowledgeable encouragement. Radiohead reminds me a little of the songs in Garden State soundtrack. Now, that's a soundtrack. They were all songs that Zach Braff liked, so he put them in his movie. And there's that beautiful moment near the beginning where Natalie Portman hands him the headphones and she watches him listen to the song and she smiles her huge, innocent Natalie Portman smile. — Nicholson Baker

Maintaining a safe distance, she practiced extreme caution as they headed further and further away from the center of the city. She tried to act casual when passing people on the street while simultaneously keeping an eye on the elusive John Smith. That part wasn't hard of course because most of the people headed in their direction moved submissively to the other side as her mysterious new neighbor passed. Choking down a feeling of dread, she wondered if she'd be smart to do the same and head back to the apartment. Against her better judgment, Evangeline pushed on. — Shawn Kirsten Maravel

The knot of her hands and the pulses in her throat rejected any possibility that their meeting might be a casual one. But, of course, she could not explain, nor was her face of any more assistance than her tongue; in fact, as she herself knew, in moments of stress she could resemble a congested turkey. — Patrick White

I wanted to show how humans can have ugly feelings that they might prefer not to acknowledge; how we're all caught up in our own problems and limited by our own life experience," she says. "To judge somebody else, to declare them substandard, to conclude that their misfortunes are due to inherent character flaws, can be a way of boosting our own self-esteem, because it must follow that our comparative success or happiness is not mere luck or chance, but the reward for superior morals or talent. — J.K. Rowling

She was the storm, she was the lightning, she was the adult world with all its power and all its secrets and all its foolish casual cruelty. — Neil Gaiman

On Work and Charity
Likewise (Maria) watched (Martin's) toils and knew the measure of the midnight oil he burned. Work! She knew that he outdid her, though his work was of a different order. And she was surprised to behold that the less food he had, the harder he worked. On occasion, in a casual sort of way, when she thought hunger pinched hardest, she would send him in a loaf of new baking, awkwardly covering the act with banter to the effect that it was better than he could bake. And again, she would send one of her toddlers in to him with a great pitcher of hot soup, debating inwardly the while whether she was justified in taking it from the mouths of her own flesh and blood. Nor was Martin ungrateful, knowing as he did the lives of the poor, and that it ever in the world there was charity, this was it. — Jack London

This was exhausting. If she was going to make this kind of emotional investment in someone, he should at least be a proper boyfriend. But for a casual fling? She could drive herself crazy. — Lauren Weisberger

She was tall, and dressed in the kind of casual clothes that will let you kill someone easily and won't draw attention from passersby. Khakis are good for this sort of thing. — Daniel O'Malley

Oh come on, don't look that way. You have nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'm not," she says, trying to act casual. "I just want to know if you're disappointed in me for admitting this."
How could she ever understand that there isn't any way I could be disappointed since I no longer find anything worth looking forward to?
"You don't know much about me, do you?" I ask teasingly. — Bret Easton Ellis

The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with three flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round — Charles Dickens

Sometimes a cloudless swatch of sky would blow past the moon, and Pella could see the outline of Mike's face in a slightly sharper relief. It was strange the way he loved her: a sidelong and almost casual love, as if loving her were simply a matter of course, too natural to mention. Like their first meeting on the steps of the gym, when he'd hardly so much as glanced at her. With David and every guy before David, what passed for love had always been eye to eye, nose to nose; she felt watched, observed, like the prize at the zoo, and she wound up pacing, preening, watching back, to fit the part. Whereas Mike was always beside her. She would stand at the kitchen window and look out at the quad, at the Melville statue and beyond that the beach and the rolling lake, and realize that Make, for however long, had been standing beside her, staring at the same thing. — Chad Harbach

Her mother likes to say that novels have ruined Amelia for real men. This observation insults Amelia because it implies that she only reads books with classically romantic heroes. She does not mind the occasional novel with a romantic hero but her reading taste are far more varied than that. Furthermore, she adores Humbert Humbert as a character while accepting the fact that she wouldn't really want him for a life partner, a boyfriend, or even a casual acquaintance. She feels the same way about Holden Caulfield, and Misters Rochester and Darcy. — Gabrielle Zevin

Why are you here?"
"Oh - I came to tell the chieftain we're going to die." The girl said it quickly and with the same casual indifference as if she were announcing that the sun sets in the evening.
Persephone narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me? What did you say? Who's going to die?"
"All of us."
"All of whom?"
"Us." The girl looked puzzled, but this time Persephone wasn't certain if it was the tattoos or not.
"You and I?"
Suri sighed. "Yes - you, me, the funny man with the horn at the gate, everyone. — Michael J. Sullivan

She can kill with a smile. She can wound with her eyes. She can ruin your faith with her casual lies. And she only reveals what she wants you to see. She hides like a child, but she's always a woman to me. — Billy Joel

I search the chaos - through a knot of Resistance fighters descending on a pair of legionnaires, past a Mask fighting off ten rebels at once, to the rubble of the tunnel, where my mother stands. An old Scholar slave trying to escape the havoc makes the mistake of crossing her path. She plunges her scim into his heart with a casual brutality. When she yanks the blade out, she doesn't look at the slave. Instead, she stares at me. As if we are connected, as if she knows my every thought, her gaze slices across the square. She smiles. — Sabaa Tahir

All of the casual conversation openings I'd been practicing in my head, as I trudged through the basic tasks in the lab, were instantly forgotten when I saw Cassie. She looked beautiful and for some reason, today of all days, after I'd been so careful, I let myself be honest.
"Beautiful," I murmured, not quietly enough that she wouldn't hear me now that I was so close. — Melanie Cusick-Jones

I figured I had kept her from being too depressed after fucking
it's hard for a girl with any force in her and any brains to accept the whole thing of fucking, of being fucked without trying to turn it on its end, so that she does some fucking, or some fucking up; I mean, the mere power of arousing the man so he wants to fuck isn't enough; she wants him to be willing to die in order to fuck. There's a kind of strain or intensity women are bred for, as beasts, for childbearing when childbearing might kill them, and child rearing when the child might die at any moment: it's in women to live under that danger, with that risk, that close to tragedy, with that constant taut or casual courage. They need death and nobility near. To be fucked when there's no drama inherent in it, when you're not going to rise to a level of nobility and courage forever denied the male, is to be cut off from what is inherently female, bestially speaking. — Harold Brodkey

He gave her a quick, casual kiss on the cheek first. Then came the hug, and it was the hug that always made Laurel's heart mush. Serious grip, cheek to the hair, eyes closed, just a little sway. Del's hugs mattered, she thought, and made him impossible to resist. — Nora Roberts

That woman could raise her children in whatever substandard fashion she saw fit, but how dare she let the consequences of her casual neglect injure someone else's. — Kimberly McCreight

But love gets in the way of her paper flowers, love keeps them secret from Papi. Chabella and Papi have ways of looking at each other, ways of touching that are full of stunned caution. They trip over each other constantly, marvel each time. When Mami sits down at the table, wiping her hands on her cooking skirt after she's set dishes down before us, Papi takes her hand, strokes her fingers, says her name as if he's asking it. Mami nods at him; her lips smile, her eyes smile. I grew up doubting that anyone would ever look at me in the same way. My doubt contains no great trauma; it's casual, the way people doubt they can jump off a bridge and fly. — Helen Oyeyemi

What plan of action? What can be done? We can't fight the whole society."
"I was thinking we could use you as bait and draw them into a trap," Gregori said, straight-faced.
Gary's eyes widened in alarm. "I'm not sure I like that plan. Sounds a little risky to me." He looked at Savannah for support.
Gregori shrugged his broad shoulders in a casual shrug. "I do not see a risk."
Savannah's small clenched fist thumped his stomach in retaliation. Gregori glanced down at her with surprise. "Is this when I am supposed to say ouch?"
Savannah and Gary exchanged a long, mournful groan. "Why did I want him to have a sense of humor?" she wondered.
Gary shook his head. "Don't be asking me. You created the monster. — Christine Feehan

I got into the ICS in a pleasantly casual fashion. When I went to England my mother had impressed on me the need to appear for the competitive examinations which I had no intention of doing . (my heart was set on a carrier as a photo journalist). After I had refrained from taking my first shot at the exam , my mother lost patience - and also perhaps some of her abounding faith in an only child and sent me all the forms duly filled up for the ICS. She also indicated delicately that if I did not appear, my allowance would die a sudden death. I appeared; much to my surprise, I got in. Even more to my surprise I topped the list of Indian candidates, and ever since then I have had no faith in competitive examination — R.P. Noronha

If a girl starts out all casual with a guy and she doesn't tell him that she wants a relationship, it will never become a relationship. If you give the guy the impression that casual is okay with you, that's all he'll ever want. Be straight with him from the start. If he gets scared and runs away, he wasn't right for you. — Susane Colasanti

Listen, Ryker. I'm giving you an easy out here. Take it," she snapped.
"I don't want out."
Her head jerked. "Casual sex doesn't work for me any longer."
"There ain't nothin' casual about our sex, and you know it. — Rebecca Zanetti

Alex smiled as the duke and Will began to scold her friends, causing Gavin to lean down and whisper in her ear, "I am happy to see you smiling again." She turned to him. "I remain vexed with you, my lord. I cannot believe you did not tell me about Montgrave!" "Alex, I will not argue with you. You can be angry if you need to be, but I almost lost you today and there are other things I would prefer to do than spar." "For example?" Alex asked. "For example." He wrapped his arms around her again, and her heart began to pound as he continued, "I'd prefer to remind myself that you are safe. And that you are mine." She smiled up at him. "I am yours, my lord. As much as you are mine." He clasped her to him, holding her tightly until a throat cleared from across the room, and Alex and Gavin remembered that they had an audience. "Blackmoor," the duke said, his casual tone belying his intent gaze, "perhaps you would like to explain exactly why your arms are wrapped around my daughter? — Sarah MacLean

Such frankness, even over good tidings, was a further offense to Mr. Fremlin. He felt that it was casual and indecent. Like most countrymen, he had a great respect for traditional mysteries. A little skill decently wrapped up impressed him far more than twice the amount flung nakedly at his feet. Old Dr. Milsom had satisfied his sense of propriety. Never, never would he have told a patient whether or not she was going to live or die; the temperature was his secret, even the name of the complain transpired only in dark hints. Standing by the bedside he would shake his head and purse his lips and consult his gold turnip-watch, so that you felt you were getting the benefit of a rare and esoteric wisdom. — Dennis Parry

I had great plans to surgically excise the quaking, complaining teenager within someday. If I could just get rid of her and her thousands upon thousands of issues - Do I look fat? Am I ugly? Will anyone ever love me? Will I always be alone? Is she fatter than me? How ugly am I? Are they making fun of me? - I was convinced I would immediately become the sort of casual and laid back adult person who was forever smiling and was genuinely unconcerned with the size and/or shape of her body.
I wasn't holding my breath. — Megan Crane

She wished she could give Isabel a shield, like the ones riot police held, to protect her from male attention, that feeling of being scored each time you walked down a street, the demeaning comments yelled out of cars, that casual sweep of the eyes. — Liane Moriarty

She wasn't used to kisses that were simultaneously startling and wonderful, casual and memorable. Her world was so much smaller than that. — Sarah Cross

And the third reason was that it suggested permanence. Blue had acquaintances at school, people she liked. But they weren't forever. While she was friendly with a lot of them, there was no one that she wanted to commit to for a lifetime. And she knew this was her fault. She'd never been any good at having casual friends. For Blue, there was family - which had never been about blood relation at 300 Fox Way - and then there was everyone else. When the boys came to her house, they stopped being everyone else. — Maggie Stiefvater

A demon seduced an angel in the middle of the night
and they gave the stars a glimpse.
There was nothing casual about it,
it was tender skin and battle scars
breathless passion under storm clouds
a rapid river stream mirroring the moon light.
Until one day, he left her with nothing,
just a bruised heart and carved memories
iridescent wings chipped on the edges
heat under her skin, like an ember burning low.
I asked her, "What do you do after a love like that?"
She laughed.
And madness danced behind her eyes.
But she flew so high the world was jealous. — M.J. Abraham

The anger that had flooded her veins was so pure, she thought it must have turned her blood to acid. You could read a hundred books about the attitudes and beliefs of the past, but the impact of witnessing this casual, ignorant cruelty firsthand was like having a bucket of ice upended over your head. It forced Etta to see that the centuries padding this time and hers, along with simple privilege, had protected her from the true ugliness of it. People believed this trash, and they were spreading it around like it was nothing. Like they weren't even talking about humans. Etta — Alexandra Bracken

The one radio voice that I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I'd sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words. — Doris Day

Esther liked books out where everyone could see them, a sort of graphic index to the intricate labyrinth of her mind arrayed to impress the most casual guest, a system of immediate introduction which she had found to obtain in a number of grimy intellectual households in Greenwich Village. — William Gaddis