First Blush Quotes & Sayings

The first blush of love, when the self has lost its mooring, and, half-drowning, succumbs to a fearful tide. — Eleanor Catton

She gave a shiver, and suddenly clutched her arms about her body. She spoke, Gascoigne thought, with an exhilarated fatigue, the kind that comes after the first blush of love, when the self has lost its mooring, and, half-drowning, succumbs to a fearful tide. But addiction was not love; it could not be love. Gascoigne could not romanticize the purple shadows underneath her eyes, her wasted limbs, the dreamy disorientation with which she spoke; but even so, he thought, it was uncanny that opium's ruin could mirror love's raptures with such fidelity. — Eleanor Catton

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made. — Henry David Thoreau

Ah." He paused. "I see where this is going. You want to know my secret pain."
"Secret pain?"
"Oh, yes. My inner demons. The dark current of torment washing away little grains of my soul. That's what you're after. You think that if you keep me here in your pretty castle and cosset me with sixteen pillows, I'll learn to love myself and cease submitting my body to such horrific abuse."
Clio bit her lip, grateful it was too dark for him to see her blush. If she'd been flamingo pink the other day, she must be fuchsia now. "I don't know where you get these ideas."
He chuckled. "From every woman I've ever met. You're not the first to try it, and you won't be the last. — Tessa Dare

Damn, pity I can't bottle him, because I'd make a fortune - after I'd enjoyed him first of course. Her dirty thoughts made her blush even deeper, and she thanked the Dark Lord that the man couldn't read her mind even if her body seemed unable to stop betraying her. — Eve Langlais

Did you ever thing, Bryntastic, that I might want to be friends?" he whispers close, so close to me I feel his breath on my neck ... "That I remember the girl who used to love laughing? Who used to blush all the time? The first girl I ever danced with? — Nyrae Dawn

Rob came to me and I stood, his body fitting against mine so easy, my shoulder tucked under his, his hip against the curve of my waist. I looked up at him, and he ducked his head to give me a soft, gentle, easy kiss.
It were a husband's kiss, I rather thought. It weren't the first kiss, a thing of hunger and new tastes. It weren't all our sad kisses of leaving and coming back, full of desperation and scared. It were just a kiss. A kiss that felt like he'd done it before, a kiss that knew he could do it again.
Then again, it also sent lightning crackling down my back, and I remembered there were ways we weren't husband and wife just yet. I felt a blush running up my face and he stroked my cheek, kissing me again. — A.C. Gaughen

All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter. For me style is matter. — Vladimir Nabokov

Oh, Kendra, before I forget, Gavin asked me to give you this letter." He held out a gray, speckled envelope.
"Happy birthday to you!" Seth exclaimed, his voice full of implications.
Kendra tried not to blush as she tucked the envelope away.
"Dear Kendra," Seth improvised, "you're the only girl who really gets me, you know, and I think you're very mature for your age
"
"What about some cake?" Grandma interrupted, holding the first piece out to Kendra and glaring at Seth. — Brandon Mull

Boyfriend #10
Peter Sosa, Age Twenty-Nine
What is it? You're married, aren't you?"
"No, no, nothing like that." He paused, leaving Jane to imagine. "I have a girlfriend. I'm sorry. I'm not cheating, she's right over there, at the table by the window. She made me a bet that I couldn't make the first girl I asked out fall in love with me. Some movie she saw, thought it would be romantic, then it went too far ... "
Jane's language would have made Britney the longshoreman blush down to her boots. — Shannon Hale

I think, at first blush, the '60s always enticed me. There's something about the '60s, it's not hard to like it. — Demetri Martin

Vig walked back to his truck. That's when Stieg drily asked, "Do you need another minute to blush coquettishly and dream about your perfect white wedding?"
As Vig walked around the front of his vehicle, he grabbed Stieg by the hair and slammed him face-first into the hood. — Shelly Laurenston

Impingement, in other words, is all around, and this freedom business is much messier than it looks at first blush. — Garth Risk Hallberg

This was the first house where I'd unpacked every single box, wanting to stay. All because of a girl with a fiery attitude and a blush that let me know exactly what she thought of me. That's all it took, and I was hers. — Rebecca Donovan

The beauty with modest smile, whose secrecy of silent love had just been stolen, beamed at this wonderful offer and she replenished herself with his love as a carefree child cossetted with luxurious warmth after a cold shower. — Ashmita Acharya

This was the hospital where they'd first met, when Lucia was so young and lovely, innocent and saucy in the same breath. Here she had loved him instantly and completely. Though she was too young for Daniel to show he loved her back, he had never discouraged her affection. She used to slip her hand inside his when they strolled under the orange trees on the Piazza della Repubblica, but when he squeezed her hand,she would blush. It always made him laugh, the way she could be so bold, then suddenly turn shy. She used to tell him that she wanted to marry him one day. — Lauren Kate

Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment. — Tim O'Brien

Joanna, like her daughters, was neither old nor young, and yet their physical appearances corresponded to their particular talents. Depending on the situation, Freya could be anywhere from sixteen to twenty-three years of age, the first blush of Love, while Ingrid, keeper of the Hearth, looked and acted anywhere from twenty-seven to thirty-five; and since Wisdom came from experience, even if in her heart she might feel like a schoolgirl, Joanna's features were those of an older woman in her early sixties. — Melissa De La Cruz

I think a big part of marriage is not going anywhere on those days you feel you really want to. It's like in the Barrier Islands. If you want to stay together, don't leave. I think just culturally - in the media, in movies, in books - we're trained to divorce when that first blush of sexual longing starts to fade. That's just where marriage starts. — Tony Earley

Thinking about her again caused his body to harden, to ready ... "Uh, I'm happy to sit close to you and everything, but I had no idea you would like it so much," Paris muttered. For the first time in hundreds of years, Maddox felt a blush creep into his cheek, "It's not for you." "Thank the gods," was his friends reply. -Maddox and Paris — Gena Showalter

He pats his way around the the bed and slides back in. "Ow," he says.
"yes?"
"My belt. Would it be weird ... "
I'm thankful he can't see me blush."Of course not." And I listen to the slap of leather, s he pulls it out of his belt loops. He lays it gently on my hardwood floor.
"Um," he says. "Would it be weird-"
"yes"
"Oh, piss off. I'm not talking trousers. I only want under the blankets. That breeze is horrible." He slides underneath, and now we're lying side-by-side. In my narrow bed. Funny, but I never never imagined my first sleepover with a guy being, well, a sleepover. — Stephanie Perkins

I am such a strong admirer and supporter of George W. Bush that if he suggested eliminating the income tax or doubling it, I would vote yes on first blush. — Jerry Falwell

It is important to remember that at first blush, going sane feels just like going crazy. — Julia Cameron

He pats his way around the bed and slides back in. 'Ow,' he says.
'Yes?'
'My belt. Would it be weird ... '
I'm thankful he can't see me blush. 'Of course not.' And I listen to the slap of leather as he pulls it out of his belt loops. He lays it gently on my hardwood floor.
'Um,' he says. 'Would it be weird - '
'YES.'
'Oh, piss off. I'm not talking trousers. I only want under the blankets.That breeze is horrible.' He slides underneath, and now we're lying side by side. In my narrow bed. Funny, but I never imagined my first sleepover with a guy being, well, a sleepover.
'All we need now are 'Sixteen Candles' and a game of Truth or Dare.'
He coughs. 'Wh-what?'
'The movie, pervert. I was just thinking it's been a while since I've had a sleepover.'
A pause. 'Oh. — Stephanie Perkins

The hope you feel when you are in love is not necessarily for anything in particular. Love brings something inside you to life. Perhaps it is just the full dimensionality of your own capacity to feel that returns. In this state you think no impediment can be large enough to interrupt your passion. The feeling spills beyond the object of your love to color the whole world. The mood is not unlike the mood of revolutionaries in the first blush of victory, at the dawn of hope. Anything seems possible. And in the event of failure, it will be this taste of possibility that makes disillusion bitter. — Susan Griffin

There's a word for the first blush of youthful love free of desire. For longing to be with someone so much you would rather throw yourself to the tides than be without them. For the stale but steady relationship between faithful members of an arranged marriage. For how to feel about someone you thought was everything but ended up never feeling the same way about you. For the poison left over when you love someone and it ends so badly you cannot release the feelings. For the love between a mother and her children, a father and his children, a grandmother and her progeny, the love between two dear friends, the love that is the first building block of a lifelong affair. There's even a word for a love so devastating nothing before or after is ever seen the same. — Kiersten White

He's holding my hand! A boy is holding my hand! This is happening! I should let go. I should blush and act shy. Like a girl from the movies. But that's not what I do. I hold on. — G. Willow Wilson

I love America for an idea. The reality is important but ambiguous. In Senegal, there stands a building where slaves were stored before they were sent on to the New World. It was built in the same year as the American Declaration of Independence. I love America for the clear idea behind the cloudy reality. Without the idea, the joys of America would be mere accident, the ephemera tossed up by the hand of fate, to disappear in the wind. And what is that idea? It is the idea of hope, that grand, audacious idea that makes the Britisher blush with embarrassment. It may be an idea not everyone cares for, but it is one I need, I want. I love her for her thought, first, of where you're going, not where you're from; for her majestic optimism against the gray resistances of Europe, most pure in Britain, so that in America I feel like - I am - a sexual being. — Zia Haider Rahman

Shayna thinking about Jensen:
... From my first glance I knew he was atleast three or four inches taller than me and I could tell his lightweight sweater hid a well muscled chest and arms, but lean, not meaty. I was aware of an excess of saliva in my mouth and forced myself to swallow, trying not to blush when I heard Jodi snicker quietly next to me. — Shauna Granger

Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky - but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all. — Malcolm Gladwell

That the objective world would exist even if there existed no conscious being certainly seems at the first blush to be unquestionable because it can be thought in the abstract, without bringing to light the contradiction which it carries within it. But if we desire to realize this abstract thought, that is, to reduce it to ideas of perception, from which alone (like everything abstract) it can have content and truth, and if accordingly we try to imagine an objective world without a knowing subject, we become aware that what we then imagine is in truth the opposite of what we intended, is in fact nothing else than the process in the intellect of a knowing subject who perceives an objective world, is thus exactly what we desired to exclude. For this perceptible and real world is clearly a phenomenon of the brain; therefore there lies a contradiction in the assumption that as such it ought to exist independently of all brains. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Man," amended Karou, rising and
bending again in mock prayer. "Thank
you, gods, for this man - " She interrupted herself to ask Zuzana, in her normal voice, "Wait. Does that make you a woman?"
She only meant that it was strange to
go from thinking of Zuzana - and herself, too - as a girl to a woman. It just sounded weirdly old. But Zuzana's response, employing full eyebrow power in the service of lechery, was, "Why, yes, since you ask. This man did make me a woman. It hurt like holy hell at first, but it's gotten better." She grinned like an anime character. "So. Much. Better."
Poor Mik blushed like sunburn, and
Karou clamped her hands over her ears.
"La la la!" she sang, and when Ziri asked her what they were saying, she blushed, too, and did not explain - which only made him blush in turn, when he grasped the probable subject matter. — Laini Taylor

At first blush, it seems odd that loser lit books are rejected initially, then go on to be fiercely loved by legions of readers. This apparent contradiction might be due to the fact that if they didn't screw up their lives, most losers would be the kind of power-elite, Type A go-getters whom readers love to hate. — Kate Christensen

They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. — Tim O'Brien

So, what's the plan?" I asked as I sat down at the table not really big enough for two. Liam grabbed my bag and tossed it onto the table. "First we unpack, and then I expect to see you on your knees." After the exchange with Diaz my brain automatically went somewhere very, very bad. "W-w-what?" I could feel the blush stretching over every inch of my body. Seriously, I think my feet were even embarrassed and angry. "I'm not ... I won't ... " I knew the moment Liam realized what I was thinking because his face also shot up in flames. "No! Not ... That." He looked as though he was having some sort of episode, like maybe an aneurysm. "You were supposed to get down on your knees and beg me for forgiveness because you were wrong about the pizza guy. I don't want ... I mean, I wasn't asking you to
" I held up a hand. "Please don't say it. I think we've both been traumatized enough. — Tammy Blackwell

Did you make a picnic, Jordan Matthews?' For the first time EVER, I see a blush in his cheeks. 'I might have' he mumbles and sets off walking. — Samantha Towle

The door of the jail being flung open, the young woman stood fully revealed before the crowd. It seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom that she might conceal a certain token which was wrought or fastened to her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush and yet a haughty smile, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

At first blush I am tempted to conclude that a satisfactory hobby must be in large degree useless, inefficient, laborious, or irrelevant. — Aldo Leopold

What was most annoying was that at first blush people usually took me to be good, to be kind, generous, loyal, faithful. Perhaps I did possess these virtues but if so it was because I was indiferent: I could afford to be good, kind, generous, loyal, and so forth, since I was free of envy. Envy was the one thing I was never a victim of. I have never envied anybody or anything. On the contrary, I have only felt pity for everybody and everything. — Henry Miller

On first blush this looks to be about money, but it is about power. Is power going to go to the information monopolies, or will it go to developers and users?. — Eric S. Raymond

Let's go get dressed."
I looked down at him and saw that he was in his underwear still. I couldn't help but smile, but then we heard a door open. Gran came out of her room, stopping dead in her tracks at seeing her grandson in his skivvies.
I waited for her to blush, or something, anything, but she just stood there. Caleb coughed uncomfortably and pulled me in front of him. It was the first time he'd ever put me in front of him. Usually it was the other way around. And then Gran's cackle started. She laughed so hard and pointed, even doubling over as she did so.
"Gran, come on," Caleb complained to her and then bent his head to look at me when I started laughing too.
"I'm sorry," I said,"but its funny!" "Caleb," Gran laughed and gasped for breath, "just tell me you didn't walk all the way from your cell that way and I'll be fine. — Shelly Crane

He felt greedy for something. He'd wanted to kiss Wylan since he'd first seen him stirring chemicals in that gruesome tannery - ruddy curls damp with the heat, skin so delicate it looked like it would bruise if you breathed on it too hard. He looked like he'd fallen into the wrong story, a prince turned pauper. From then on, Jesper had been stuck somewhere between the desire to taunt the pampered little merchling into another blush and the urge to flirt him into a quiet corner just to see what might happen. But sometime during their hours at the Ice Court, that curiosity had changed. He'd felt the tug of something more, something that came to life in Wylan's unexpected courage, in his wide-eyed, generous way of looking at the world. It made Jesper feel like a kite on a tether, lifted up and then plummeting down, and he liked it. — Leigh Bardugo

The language, feminine desires to speak, and her first phrase to express her love to him - *blush* — Saravana Kumar Murugan

His crush went from exciting to depressing, as if he'd gone from the first blush of infatuation to the terminal nostalgia of a former lover without even the temporary relief of an actual relationship in between. — Lev Grossman

It made me giddy. It made me blush, worse than before. It was like liquor. It made me drunk. I drew away. When her breath came now upon my mouth, it came very cold. My mouth was wet, from hers. I said, in a whisper,
'Do you feel it? — Sarah Waters

And, though reading may not at first blush seem like an act of creation, in a deep sense it is. Without the enthusiastic reader, who is really the author's counterpart and very often his most secret rival, a book would die. — Henry Miller

I have missed you so much I could kiss you," he whispered.
September's face fell. "Oh, but Saturday! I've had my First Kiss and I didn't mean to, I didn't want to, but your shadow is very rude and impulsive, and he took it before I could say two words! And I've had my second and third and maybe fifth, too. Come to think of it, this has all involved rather a lot of kissing."
Saturday furrowed his brow. "Why should I care about your First Kiss?" he said. "You can kiss anyone you like. But if you sometimes wanted to kiss me, that would be all right, too." His blush was so deep September could feel the heat of it.
She leaned in, and kissed her Marid gently, sweetly. She tried to kiss him the way she'd always thought kisses would be. His lips tasted like the sea. — Catherynne M Valente

At first blush, it seems that the young people who were shot down in the parking lot at the base of Blanket Hill gave up their lives for a dream that died with them. — William Kunstler

Love is a journey from the first blush of physical attraction to a marriage of souls. — Virginia Henley

Let me digress a moment to talk about beginnings. How much simpler life would be if we were wise enough to stop at the first blush of romance, the start of a business transaction or a casual friendship. If we knew enough to pause and think: this is as good as it gets. Everything will go downhill from this moment on. So once again our instincts are the opposite of what they should be, propelling us forward exactly when they should be holding us back. — Francine Prose

The pistol had been one hell of a find, because it hadn't quite been what she'd thought it was at first blush. Not simply the S&W Mk 39, but rather a modified version of the same, the Mk 22 Mod 0, also called the "hush puppy". It was Vietnam-era, not the most reliable gun in the world, but wonderfully silent, not only equipped with a silencer to eliminate the sound of gunfire, but also with a slide lock, to keep the actual mechanical operation of the gun quiet as well. She'd test-fired the gun at the market before purchasing, and been stunned that it still worked. The Uzbek vendor had offered to sell it to her cheap.
"It's too quiet," he'd explained. "No one wants it."
Chace shut her eyes, half smiling at the memory. — Greg Rucka

On first blush, Hold 'em seems like a ridiculously simple game. — Richard Roeper

When guilt is in its blush of infancy, it trembles in a tenderness of shame; and the first eye that pierces through the veil that hides the secret brings it to the face — Thomas Southerne

He chuckled. "I cannot speak for other men, but I want the woman who stumbles over a word like virgin and can say whore without raising a blush." His smile faded and he spoke soberly. "Your soldier ... your first love ... and every circumstance that followed in some way brought you to me, and while I can wish that you had never had your heart hurt, that you had never suffered even a moment of doubt, of pain, of sadness ... of betrayal, I also know that you would in some way be changed. It would have made your life different. Mine also." North gave her hand a light squeeze. "Whether we are shaped by the circumstances of our lives, or by our perceptions of them, I still find I very much admire the shape you have become. — Jo Goodman

It is a hard message to swallow at first blush because it brings into question everything that we think we are, which for the most part seems to come from what we identify with, our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, our values, our work, our expectations of what is "supposed" to happen and how things are "supposed" to work out for me in order for me to be happy, our stories of where we came from and where we are going and of who we are. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

When you get up, the night and day is a contradiction. But you get up at 4 A.M. That first blush of blue is where the night and day are trying to find harmony with each other. Harmony is the notes that Mozart didn't give you, but somehow the contradiction of his notes suggest that. All contradictions of his notes suggest the harmony. — Shekhar Kapur

Is there anything you won't do?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I've never done anything like this."
"Well, when you've had sex, was there anything that you didn't like doing?"
For the first time in what seems to be ages, I blush.
"You can tell me, Anastasia. We have to be honest with each other or this isn't going to work."
I squirm uncomfortably again and stare at my knotted fingers.
"Tell me," he commands.
"Well ... I haven't had sex before, so I don't know." My voice is small. I peek up at him, and he's gaping at me, frozen, and pale-really pale.
"Never?" he whispers. T shake my head.
"You're a virgin?" he breathes. I nod, flushing again. He closed his eyes and looks to be counting to ten. When he opens them again, he's angry, glaring at me.
"Why the fuck didn't you tell me?" he growls — E.L. James

The poet believed that 'Beauty' first entered the world not at its creation, nor with the first garden, the first sunrise, the birth of the first man and woman and their first sexual act. The poet believed that 'Beauty' entered the world the day the first child blushed. — Roman Payne

Her first glance at me would be bound to hold the question: have you forgiven me? And perhaps that still more critical question: will you bear with my love, and can you return it? That first moment when she would gaze up with a blush, a look of controlled and yet uncontrollable impatience, might be at once the most hazardous and decisive. — Stefan Zweig

I pick up my sandwich and take a small bite, chewing extra slow in order to delay having to respond. He's freaking me out again, with his confident gaze and his matter-of-fact tone. I've never met a guy who can throw out phrases like "love at first sight" and "something magical happened" without at least having the decency to blush or look mortified — Elle Kennedy