Just When You Thought You Had It All Quotes & Sayings

I think there's a whole book being written about it in the UK. I don't know if you can get it here. It's about all the hidden messages and meetings in this and the fact that it is about women and the fact that this cave is full of blood and all this kind of stuff. And when I was making it, I didn't make it with that specifically in mind, but I always had it in the back of mind and I thought, 'Let's just throw it in there and see what people make of it.' And people seem to be making quite a lot of it. So I don't want to spell it out or say this, that or the other. — Neil Marshall

How much farther?" Sammy asks. It will be dark soon, and the dark is the worst time. Nobody told him, but he just knows that when they finally cone it will be in the dark and it will be without warning, like the other waves, and there will be nothing you can do about it, it will just happen, like the TV winking out and the cars dying and the planes falling and mommy wrapped up in bloody sheets.
When the others first came, his father told him the world had changed and nothing would be like before, and maybe they'd take him inside the mothership, maybe even take him on adventures in outer space. And Sammy couldn't wait to go inside the mothership and blast off into space just like Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing starfighter. It made every night feel like Christmas Eve. When morning came, he thought he would wake up to all the wonderful presents the Others brought would be there.
But all the Others brought was death. — Rick Yancey

More than once, while staring at the wall, I'd thought of Our Lady. I wanted to talk to her, to say, Where do I go from here? But when I'd seen her earlier, when August and I had first come in, she didn't look like she could be of service to anybody, bound up with all that chain around her. You want the one you're praying to at least to look capable. I dragged myself out of bed and went to see her anyway. I decided that even Mary did not need to be one hundred percent capable all the time. The only thing I wanted was for her to understand. Somebody to let out a big sigh and say, You poor thing, I know how you feel. Given a choice, I preferred someone to understand my situation, even though she was helpless to fix it, rather than the other way around. But that's just me. Right — Sue Monk Kidd

Jessica planned on having her very last Craigslist date the following night. "I just want to find a guy worth keeping in touch with," she said.

I thought about that. In fact, I thought about everything she'd written me. Everything so many had written me. All the talk of orgasms and lovers. Having many of one and unable to have even one of the other. Especially when it came to lovers -- the inability in both men and women to find that one person, that one partner, who totally "gets" you. No matter what anyone said, they 'all' seemed to want that. — Suzy Spencer

It was funny how just when you thought you knew yourself through and through, you stumbled on a new kind of strength, a fresh reserve of power inside you that you never knew you had, and all at once you found yourself burning a little brighter and hotter than you ever had before. — Lev Grossman

He stared right back at Blaylock and let everything he had in his heart show in his face.
He just let that shit fly.
Because there was a lesson in this Fade ceremony tonight: You could lose the ones you loved in the blink of an eye - and he was willing to bet, when it happened, you weren't thinking about all the reasons that could have kept you apart. You thought of all the reasons that kept you together.
And, no doubt, how you wished you'd had more time. Even if you'd had centuries ...
When you were young, you thought time was a burden, something to be discharged as fast as possible so you could be grown-up. But it was such a bait-and-switch - when you were an adult, you came to realize that minutes and hours were the single most precious thing you had.
No one got forever. And it was a fucking crime to waste what you were given.
-Qhuinn — J.R. Ward

When is Colton coming over again?"
I straightened magazines on the coffee table and pretended the subject didn't bother me. "When he realizes the truth about either me or Bryant."
Julianne's head popped up from behind the couch, where Ken and a collection of tiny plastic picnic food had fallen. "When will that be?"
"Oh probably around the same time hell freezes over."
"I thought Colton was your friend," Evelynn said. "I thought you liked him."
"I do-well, I used to." It made me feel sad just to say the words.
Rebecca gave me a long look. "But you're not going to talk to him until hell freezes over?"
I straightened another magazine. "Well, anything is possible. After all, Colton is in the same business as the devil, so he probably has some pull down there. Hell might be cooling as we speak. — Janette Rallison

What else did he say?"
"Just that. He's going to The Eye, and he's sorry." She screwed up her face. "Oh, and some weird thing about telling you that he still feels the same way about that tent, and he promises to say it to you in person next time he sees you."
I gave a bark of laughter that was more of a sob, "That asshat," I blubbered.
Elodie nodded in sympathy. "Such an asshat."
When I'd left Thorne Abbey, I'd held Archer's sword and had a sense that somehow things would turn out all right. Please, I thought. The rest of my magic is back, so let me have that power, too.
But there was no reply except the whistling of the wind. — Rachel Hawkins

I speak in cosmological terms because it seems to me that is the only possible way to think if one is truly alive. I think this way also because it is just the opposite of the way I thought a few years back when I had what is called hopes. Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions. — Henry Miller

Pritkin, it's a hotel room, not a death trap!" A glance over his shoulder showed him impatient blue eyes under a fall of messy blond curls. "Anyway, you're here."
"I can't protect you from everything," he forced himself to say, because it was true. It was also frankly terrifying in a way that his own mortality was not. He'd never had children, but he sometimes wondered if this was how parents felt when catching sight of a fearless toddler confidently heading toward a busy street. Not that his charge was a child, as he was all too uncomfortably aware. But the knowledge of just how many potentially lethal pitfalls lay in her path sometimes caused him that same heart-clenching terror.
And the same overwhelming need to throw her over his lap and spank the living daylights out of her, he thought grimly, when she suddenly popped out of existence. "Cassie! — Karen Chance

Robin didn't like that idea very much-Jules spending time with Adam? "I get jealousy too, you know. You used to be in love with him."

Jules turned his head to look at him. "That was before I knew what love really was". He smiled. "When I met you, Robin, God.... I had to redefine everything. You know, there was this country song my mother really liked. It used to annoy me, I was in my technopop phase, but lately I just... I find myself thinking about the lyrics all the time. That was a river, this is the ocean.... I thought I loved Adam, and I did, but... it wasn't even close to this incredible ocean that I feel for you". — Suzanne Brockmann

I'm going to tell Mom and Dad, you know?"
"No, you're not." God, I couldn't stop laughing.

When my sister thought about it for a second, I think she figured out why she wouldn't tell Mom or Dad. It's like she suddenly remembered where we were and what had just happened and how crazy our whole conversation was considering all that. Then, she started laughing. — Stephen Chbosky

Yet surely that story she had imagined was a real thing? If you created a story with your mind surely it was just as much there as a piece of needlework that you created with your fingers? You could not see it with your bodily eyes, that was all ... the invisible world must be saturated with the stories that men tell both in their minds and by their lives. They must be everywhere, these stories, twisting together, penetrating existence like air breathed into the lungs, and how terrible, how awful, thought Henrietta, if the air breathed should be foul. How dare men live, how dare they think or imagine, when every action and every thought is a tiny thread to ar or enrich that tremendous tapestried story that man weaves on the loom that God has set up, a loom that stretches from heaven above to hell below, and from side to side of the universe ... — Elizabeth Goudge

HECUBA: I had a knife in my skirt, Achilles. When Talthybius bent over me, I could have killed him. I wanted to. I had the knife just for that reason. Yet, at the last minute I thought, he's some mother's son just as Hector was, and aren't we women all sisters? If I killed him, I thought, wouldn't It be like killing family?Wouldn't it be making some other mother grieve? So I didn't kill him, but if I had, I might have saved Hector's child. Dead or damned, that's the choice we make. Either you men kill us and are honored for it, or we women kill you and are damned for it. Dead or damned. Women don't have to make choices like that in Hades. There is no love there, nothing to betray. — Sheri S. Tepper

I thought of kissing Astrid under the fire escape. I thought of Norm's rusty microbus and of his father, Cicero, sitting on the busted-down sofa in his old trailer, rolling dope in Zig-Zag papers and telling me if I wanted to get my license first crack out of the basket, I'd better cut my fucking hair. I thought of playing teen dances at the Auburn RolloDrome, and how we never stopped when the inevitable fights broke out between the kids from Edward Little and Lisbon High, or those from Lewiston High and St. Dom's; we just turned it up louder. I thought of how life had been before I realized I was a frog in a pot. I shouted: "One, two, you-know-what-to-do!" We kicked it in. Key of E. All that shit starts in E. — Stephen King

I never dreamt I could be an author when I grew up. It just didn't occur to me, because I thought you had to be a) academic, so go to university, things like that, and I didn't think I was clever, or b) dead because I just assumed all the authors in the library were dead. — Geraldine McCaughrean

I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman pays and pays and pays. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just exchange of values. You gave up something and got something else. Or you worked for something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it. You could get your money's worth. The world was a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I've had. — Anonymous

During college, when I was working full time for my father [the decorator Mark Hampton], I rented an apartment and I just couldn't take time off to paint it. So I went there one evening and stayed up all night painting the place what I thought was a lovely pale yellow. When the sun came up, I realized I'd painted the walls the color of insanity. I had to immediately mix in all my trim color to tone it down. Yellow is an electric color and wholly misleading. It becomes more yellow with the sun's yellow light on it. The moral is, even if you think your yellow is the one, go paler. — Alexa Hampton

With restraint she didn't realize she had, she tore her mouth from his.
He let out a growl of protest, his eyes dark and filled with hunger. The thought of getting devoured by him had all her muscles pulling taut.
"I don't want to be with your brother," she blurted.
She'd come to terms with the fact that when she mated it might be with two males. Unlike some of her friends, she'd adjusted to that part of this culture. But she and Con weren't getting mated and she didn't want to be with anyone else. She needed that to be clear to him.
"Good." The word came out as a rumble. "Do you want to be with anyone else?"
Did he seriously have to ask?
She shook her head.
He nipped at her jaw. "Say it." A soft, dominant demand.
Another rush of heat flooded her at the command in his tone.
"No. Just you."

-Leilani & Con — Savannah Stuart

Abruptly, Blay's blue stare found his.
And what Qhuinn saw in it caused him to falter: Love shone out of that face, unadulterated love untempered by the shyness that was very much part of his reserve.
Blay didn't look away.
And for the first time ... neither did Qhuinn.
He didn't know whether the emotion was for his cousin - it probably was-but he'd take it: He stared right back at Blaylock and let everything he had in his heart show in his face.
He just let that shit fly.
Because there was a lesson in this Fade ceremony tonight: You could lose the ones you loved in the blink of an eye-and he was willing to bet when it happened, you weren't thinking about all the reasons that could have kept you apart.
You thought of all the reasons that kept you together. — J.R. Ward

What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?"
"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best-" and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. And then he thought that being with Christopher Robin was a very good thing to do, and having Piglet near was a very friendly thing to have; and so, when he had thought it all out, he said, "What I like best in the whole world is Me and Piglet going to see You, and You saying 'What about a little something?' and Me saying, 'Well, I shouldn't mind a little something, should you, Piglet,' and it being a hummy sort of day outside, and birds singing."
"I like that too," said Christopher Robin, "but what I like doing best is Nothing. — A.A. Milne

Dana?' [asked Garson].
She nodded to show him she was listening.
'Why does he call you Scully all the time? I mean, you do have a first name.'
'Because he can,' she answered simply, without sarcasm, and didn't bother to explain. Just as it would be hard to explain why Mulder was, without question, the best friend she had. It was more than just being partners, being able to rely on each other when one of them was in danger, or when one of them needed a boost when a case seemed to be going bad; and it was more than simply their contrasting styles, which, perversely to some, complemented each other perfectly.
What it was, she sometimes thought, was an indefinable instinct, a silent signal that let her know that whatever else changed, whatever else happened, Mulder would always be there when he had to be. One way or another. — Charles Grant

But you? Are you all right? You're a bit pale."
"Am I?" Small wonder, she thought, but smiled as she enjoyed the sensation of holding a secret inside her. "I don't feel pale. But you..." Swimming in the river of discovery, she leaned down. "You look wonderful.Rough and windblown and sexy."
His narrowed eyes flickered, and he stepped back, a little uneasy when she rubbed a hand over his cheek. There were a half a dozen men milling about, he thought. And every one of them had eyes.
"I was called down to the stables early this morning,didn't take time to shave."
She decided to take this evasive move as a challenge rather than an insult. "I like it.Just a little dangerous.If you've got time later, I thought you might help me out."
"With what?"
"Take a ride with me."
"I could do that."
"Good.About five?" She leaned down again and this time took a fistful of his shirt to yank him a step closer. "And,Brian? Don't shave. — Nora Roberts

so thanks for supplying all the inspiration." "But think of everything you came up with all on your own," she said. "You would have done just fine without me. I wish I had your imagination. What's your secret to making a story so good? Do you have any writing tricks or rituals?" Conner had never thought about it before. He thought back to the very first time he wrote a story and recalled a tool that had helped him write ever since. "Whenever I write, I imagine everything in Dad's voice," he said. "I try to describe everything with the same energy and enthusiasm he had when he read stories to us. Sometimes when I miss him the most, writing makes me feel like he's there with me. — Chris Colfer

When I was younger, I thought you had to be in control of your own life. That takes a lot of discipline, hard work and focus. You just can't let it all fall by the wayside. Later on, I learned that God is really in control of everything. But you still have to put your best foot forward and be the best you can possibly be. — Janet Jackson

Aside from helping people with their homework, or anything else they needed, she really didn't know how to meet people. She didn't feel like she was a shy person. She thought of herself as a take-charge sort of girl. And yet, somehow, if there wasn't some request along the lines of "I can't remember how to do long division" then it was just too awkward to go up to someone and say ... what? She'd never been able to figure out what. And there didn't seem to be a standard information sheet, which was ridiculous. The whole business of meeting people had never seemed sensible to her. Why did she have to take all the responsibility herself when there were two people involved? Why didn't adults ever help? She wished some other girl would just walk up to her and say, "Hermione, the teacher told me to be friends with you". — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I smiled at her, but that brooding cloud still hung over me, even as I lay there so full of happiness. I had never thought I could love another person this much. I also never thought I'd live in such fear of losing another person. Was that how everyone in love felt? Did they all cling tightly to their beloved and wake up terrified in the middle of the night, afraid of being alone? Was that an inevitable way of life when you loved so deeply? Or was it just those of us who walked on a precipice who lived in such a panic?
I brought my face a mere whisper from hers. "I love you so much."
She blinked in that way I'd come to recognize, when she was afraid she might cry. "I love you too. Hey." She slid one of her hands up and rested it on my cheek. "Don't look like that. Everything's going to be okay. The center will hold."
"How do you know?"
"Because we are the center. — Richelle Mead

He had been contemptuous of those who wrecked. You did not have to like it because you understood it. He could beat anything, he thought, because no thing could hurt him if he did not care.
All right. Now he would not care for death. One thing he had always dreaded was the pain. He could stand pain as well as any man, until it went on too long, and wore him out, but here he had something that had hurt frightfully and just when he had felt it breaking him, the pain had stopped. — Ernest Hemingway,

So when you left Hex Hall after Holly died, that wasn't because you were the grief-stricken fiance. You were going to The Eye."
"Yeah. I told them that I thought Elodie and her coven had raised a demon, so we decided I should get close to her,see what was really going on."
"And you decided to get really close to her."
He laughed softly. "I can't see you, but I have a feeling you're cute when you're jealous,Mercer."
Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, "It's not jealousy you're hearing, it's digust. You dated a girl you didn't even like just to get information out of her."
His laughter died, and his voice sounded weary when he said, "Trust me, a lot of my brothers have done much worse."
There was so much I wanted to ask him, but it's not like we could sit out here all night passing the sharing stick or whatever.Time to cut to the chase.
"So did The Eye tell you to get all Mata Hari on me too? — Rachel Hawkins

And we need this. It could save us a year. Without it all we got is a regular manhunt. For a guy already four months AWOL, with a brand-new foreign passport. Instead of that we could have a Saudi kid in a pink shirt and pointed shoes lead us directly to him. Right here and now. Who wouldn't take that deal? The future means nothing if we don't live to see it." "So you broke the law, but only because you thought you had a good reason. You and everyone else. There are lots of good reasons. Too many good reasons. Which is why we have a special structure, to decide between them, when they compete one against the other. That structure is called the National Security Council. We weigh things up and we judge priorities. You just blew a year's hard work, major. You should resign. Before the after-action report comes out. You'll get a better deal that way." "OK," Reacher said. "I will, if it turns out bad. — Lee Child

On Halloween, Wendell, Floyd, and Mona were walking home from school when a black cat crossed their path.
"Don't pet it, Floyd!" cried Wendell. "Don't you know that black cats are bad luck?"
"That's just an old wives' tale," Mona said. "Besides, what could happen?"
Wendell merely shook his head. "Anything can happen on Halloween."
In fact, something did happen as soon as they got home. First, Wendell discovered that his mad scientist costume had turned pink in the wash.
This is definitely a bad sign, he thought.
Then Floyd found out that he had to take his sister, Alice, trick-or-treating with him. "Pirates don't have little sisters," he complained.
Worst of all, Mona's mother insisted that she go out dressed as a fairy princess. "I look ridiculous," Mona protested.
"Nonsense," said her mother, and handed her a magic wand.
They all felt gloomy that evening as they set out trick-or-treating and hoped that no one they knew would see them. — Mark Teague

All morning I thought how strange our meeting was. I mean, we have to be in a universe, on a continent, in a country, in a state, in a county, on a river, in a small yellow boat.[...]Long odds. And we had to leave our homes at the right time, drive at such and such a pace, stop for lunch, or not, get gas, or not. A thousand coincidences that arranged themselves so that we could meet. And then of course, we have to be attracted to each other. When I was little, my girlfriends and I called it Yeti love. You never expect to see it, but you've heard it's out there and it might just be a legend. But you keep looking for it anyway. — Joseph Monninger

There's a little war in progress here. There won't be anything left of the place if it goes on at this rate." (But it's hard to feign innocence if you've eaten the apple, he reflected.) "And it looks to me as if it is going to go on, because the French aren't going to give in, and certainly the Arabs aren't, because they can't. They're fighting with their backs the the wall."

"I thought maybe you meant you expected a new world war," he lied.

"That's the least of my worries. When that comes, we've had it. You can't sit around mooning about Judgement Day. That's just silly. Everybody who ever lived has always had his own private Judgment Day to face anyway, and he still has. As far as that goes, nothing's changed at all. — Paul Bowles

And last, My mom. I don't think you know what you did. You had my brother when you were eighteen years old. Three years later I came out. The odds were stacked against us. Single parent with two boys, By the time you were 21 years old. Everybody told us we wasn't supposed to be here. We moved from apartment to apartment, By ourselves. One of the best memories I have Is when we moved into our first apartment. No bed, No furniture, And we just all sat in the living room And just hugged each other ... 'Cause we thought we made it. — Kevin Durant

I was leaving. Just when this place had become more than a sanctuary, when the command of the Suriel had become a blessing and Tamlin far, far more than a savior or friend, I was leaving. It could be years until I saw this house again, years until I smelled his rose garden, until I saw those gold-flecked eyes. Home - this was home. As consciousness left me at last, I thought I heard him speak, his mouth close to my ear. "I love you," he whispered, and kissed my brow. "Thorns and all." He was gone when I awoke, and I was certain I had dreamed — Sarah J. Maas

That is what you said! You think you can just pay me to talk to your friend? Clearly you pay most of your female companions by the hour and don't know how it works with the real world, but ... but.." Blue remembered that she was working to a point, but not what that point was. Indignation had eliminated all higher functions and all that remained was the desire to slap him. The boy opened his mouth to protest, and her thought came back to her all in a rush. "Most girls, when they're interested in a guy, will sit them with for free . — Maggie Stiefvater

It just doesn't make sense," Elizabeth insisted. "Are we supposed to believe that civilization has just come to an end?"
"Well," Clark offered, "it was always a little fragile, wouldn't you say?" They were sitting together in the Skymiles Lounge, where Elizabeth and Tyler had set up camp.
"I don't know." Elizabeth spoke slowly, looking out at the tarmac. "I've been taking art history classes on and off for years, between projects. And of course art history is always pressed up close against non-art history, you see catastrophe after catastrophe, terrible things, all these moments when everyone must have thought the world was ending, but all those moments, they were all temporary. It always passes."
Clark was silent. He didn't think this would pass. — Emily St. John Mandel

I had no doubt that Tiny thought he got depressed, but that was probably because he had nothing to compare it to. Still, what could I say? that I didn't just feel depressed - instead, it was like the depression was the core of me, of every part of me, from my mind to my bones? That if he got blue, I got black? That I hated those pills so much because I knew how much I relied on them to live?
No, I couldn't say any of this because when it all comes down to it, nobody wants to hear it. No matter how much they like you or love you, they don't want to hear it. — John Green

I had never thought I could love another person this much. I also never thought I'd live in such fear of losing another person. Was this how everyone in love felt? Did they all cling tightly to their beloved and wake up terrified in the middle of the night, afraid of being alone? Was that an inevitable way of life when you loved so deeply? Or was it just those of us who walked on a precipice who lived in such panic? — Richelle Mead

When he[Thresh] shouts, I jump, never having heard him speak above a mutter. "What'd you do to that little girl? You kill her?"
Clove is scrambling backwards on all fours, like a frantic insect, too shocked to even call for Cato. "No! No, it wasn't me!"
"You said her name. I heard you. You kill her?" Another thought brings a fresh wave of rage to his features. "You cut her up like you were about to do to this girl here?"
"No! No, I-" Clove sees the stone, about the size of a small loaf of bread in Thresh's hand and loses it. "Cato!" she screeches. "Cato!"
"Clove!" I hear Cato's answer, but he's too far away, I can tell that much, to do her any good. What was he doing? Trying to get Foxface or Peeta? Or had he been lying in wait for Thresh and just badly misjudged his location?
Thresh brings the rock down hard against Clove's temple. It's not bleeding, but I can see the dent in her skull and I know that she's a goner. — Suzanne Collins

It is funny what memories can do to you. How they can grip you by the throat, choke you, strangle you. And just when you thought you had it all sorted, too. — Preeti Shenoy

If he was a ghost in the life he remembered, Jeff thought, he was also a ghost in his present life, just the same way. Except, in all the fourteen years, just a couple of times. With Melody that first summer he had felt alive. On the beach on the island. And when he played the guitar. Most of the time, he thought, he practiced not being anybody. If you weren't anybody then nobody could - what? Hurt you or leave you behind? Make you unhappy? But then they couldn't make you happy either, could they? If you played it safe, then you kept safe. Jeff figured he was pretty good at keeping safe - he didn't even look in mirrors because he didn't want to see Melody's eyes. But one result of that was that Jeff didn't know anything about himself. And he thought, sitting in the little boat, alone on the creek, alone with the creek and the sky and the marshes, that he might want to know more. — Cynthia Voigt

Our first night in the house, my wife and I were lying in bed. I was thanking God for my blessings. Thanking God for not having to pull aside a dining room curain to have my children near - that they were right down the hall, asleep in their Superman underwear, their little chests rising and falling to the pulse of their dreams.
I thought how some blessings are fickle guests. Just when we think they're here to stay, they pack their bags and move. When we're in the midst of blessing, we think it's our due - that blessing lasts forever. Next thing you know we're sitting helpless beside a hospital bed. All we're left with is a name on a wall, a toy in a desk, and memories that haunt our sleep.
Sometimes we come to gratitute too late. It's only after blessing has passed on that we realize what we had.
- chapter 2 — Philip Gulley

Out of the trees came faerie after faerie, the entirety of the Dark Court, who had apparently been listening to the whole exchange. I looked at Reth, shocked, but he just smiled. I clenched my jaw and shook my head, annoyed. They'd had a plan all along, and it hadn't involved me. I was here for show - Hey, look! Our pet Empty One! You can hitch a ride back if you join now! Limited time offer!
"I did warn her you were less likely to come if you thought you weren't in charge," Reth said, his voice cracked but his tone self-congratulatory.
"Did you warn her I'm highly likely to back out of the entire thing if you piss me off?"
"Perhaps you had better watch your back, stupid glowy golden faerie man whore."
He frowned at me. "That made no sense."
"Good! Now maybe I can join your club." I took a step away from him but immediately felt terrible when he swayed and looked like he was going to fall. — Kiersten White

Any mother could tell you that a child invades her space from the moment of conception. And for years after, space does not exist. It was one of the things I had missed. I'd even yearned for it. And then Eli died, and I had all the space I had thought I wanted. Not just a little space. Outer space. Galaxies. And I'd floated in it in agony, longing for the days when there had been no such thing. — Amy Harmon

"I don't know. I spent most of my life moving around. My dad and I had just settled in one place when all this happened. I ... " She shrugged. "I guess I'm hoping it doesn't last much longer. I want a home." She glanced over her shoulder. "I know you do, too, even if you don't like to admit it."
I thought she was talking to me. Then Derek stepped into the doorway.
"He wasn't eavesdropping," she said to me. "He just doesn't like me being alone with strangers in the house." She aimed a pointed look his way. "Even if I end up rescuing him from danger as often as he rescues me." — Kelley Armstrong

Lydia screamed. The car began to swerve all over the street. "YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH! I'LL KILL YOU!" She crossed the double yellow line at high speed, directly into oncoming traffic. Horns sounded and cars scattered. We drove on against the flow of traffic, cars approaching us peeling off to the left and right. Then just as abruptly Lydia swerved back across the double line into the lane we had just vacated. Where are the police? I thought. Why is it that when Lydia does something the police become nonexistent? — Charles Bukowski

Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard.
"Er ... aren't you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?" said her mother, who'd never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about.
"No, Mum, I'm supposed not to," said Tiffany, still scrubbing.
"But can't you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?"
"The trouble is getting the magic to understand what dirt is," said Tiffany, scrubbing hard at a stain. "I heard of a witch over in Escrow who got it wrong and ended up losing the entire floor and her sandals and nearly a toe."
Mrs. Aching backed away. "I thought you just had to wave your hands about," she mumbled nervously.
"That works," said Tiffany, "but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush. — Terry Pratchett

Condemning Nyasha to whoredom, making her a victim of her femaleness, just as I had felt victimised at home in the days when Nhamo went to school and I grew my maize. The victimisation, I saw, was universal. It didn't depend on poverty, on lack of education or on tradition. It didn't depend on any of the things I had thought it depended on. Men took it everywhere with them. Even heroes like Babamukuru did it. And that was the problem. You had to admit Nyasha had no tact. You had to admit she was altogether too volatile and strong-willed. You couldn't ignore the fact that she had no respect for Babamukuru when she ought to have had lots of it. But what I didn't like was the way that all conflicts came back to the question of femaleness. Femaleness as opposed and inferior to maleness. — Tsitsi Dangarembga

Why do you continue your... charade? Your current position would seem to be a good one for revealing the truth'.
'A few people know, sir. Bobby, Jane, some of the Leatherbacks. For the rest... it just seems easier to keep things as they are.' Winter thought of Novus and his tirade. 'It would be one thing if I had just joined up, but it's been so long. People might be upset that they'd been fooled. And...'
Janus raised an eyebrow. Winter hesitated.
'It's all right for the Girl's Own,' she said. 'They joined up because Vordan needs them, and when the war's over they'll go home. I... I haven't anywhere to go.' She tugged the collar of her uniform. 'This is who I am now, for better or worse. This is my home. After the war, maybe it will be all right for a woman to keep this on, but... maybe not.'
Winter found her throat getting thick. She'd never put it that way before, never even thought it so bluntly. This is my home. — Django Wexler

We both know the kandra wanted him on this mission, and they arranged the meeting with me to try to hook him. At the precinct, when I accomplish something, everyone assumes I had Waxillium's help. Sometimes it's like I'm no more than an appendage."
"You're not that at all, Marasi," Wayne said. "You're important. You help out a lot. Plus you smell nice, and not all bloody and stuff."
"Great. I have no idea what you just said."
"Appendages don't smell nice," Wayne said. "And they're kinda gross. I cut one outta a fellow once."
"You mean an appendix?"
"Sure." He hesitated. "So ... "
"Not the same thing."
"Right. Thought you was makin' a metaphor, since people don't need one of those and all. — Brandon Sanderson

But finally, when they stopped to sleep, not bothering with a tent, just bedding down in a hollow they'd trampled in the tall grass with their boots, Arin spoke. He slid a hand under her tunic to touch her bare back, then stopped. "Is this all right?"
She wanted to explain that she hadn't thought she'd ever bear anyone's touch on her scarred back, that it should revolt him and revolt her. Yet his touch made her feel soft and new. "Yes."
He pushed the shirt up, seeking the lash marks, tracing their length. She let herself feel it, and shivered, and thought of nothing. But a tension grew. He was still, but for his hand.
Kestrel said, "What's wrong?"
"Your life would have been easier if you had married the Valorian prince."
She drew herself up so that she could face him. The scent of black powder clung to them both. His skin smelled like a blown-out candle. "But not better," she said. — Marie Rutkoski

Unaware of Nina, the woman paused at the riverbank and looked out over the scar on the land where the water should run. Her expression sharpened, turned desperate as she reached down to touch the child in her arms. It was a look Nina had seen in woman all over the world, especially in times of war and destruction. A bone-deep fear for her child's future ... Someday her portraits would show the world how strong and powerful women could be, as well as the personal cost of that strength ...
She heard Danny come up beside her. "Hey, you."
She leaned against him, feeling food about her shots. "I just love how they are with their kids, even when the odds are impossible. The only time I cry is when I see their faces with their babies. Why is that, with all we've seen?"
"So it's mothers you follow. I thought it was warriors. — Kristin Hannah

When she was three, I sent her to day care for a couple
of hours every morning. After a few weeks, the teacher
called me and said that she was worried about Lucy. When it
was time for the children to have their milk, Lucy would always
hang back until all the other kids had taken a carton before
she'd take one for herself. The teacher didn't understand. Go
get your milk, she'd say to Lucy, but Lucy would always wait
around until there was just one carton left. It took a while for me
to figure it out. Lucy didn't know which carton was supposed to
be her milk. She thought all the other kids knew which ones
were theirs, and if she waited until there was only one carton in
the box, that one had to be hers. Do you see what I'm talking
about, Uncle Nat? She's a little weird - but intelligent weird, if
you know what I mean. Not like anyone else. If I hadn't used
the wordjust, you would have known where I was all along ... — Paul Auster

Lord Peter Wimsey: Facts, Bunter, must have facts. When I was a small boy, I always hated facts. Thought they were nasty, hard things, all nobs.
Mervyn Bunter: Yes, my lord. My old mother always used to say ...
Lord Peter Wimsey: Your mother, Bunter? Oh, I never knew you had one. I always thought you just sort of came along already-made, so it were. Oh, excuse me. How infernally rude of me. Beg pardon, I'm sure.
Mervyn Bunter: That's all right, my lord.
Lord Peter Wimsey: Thank you.
Mervyn Bunter: Yes indeed, I was one of seven.
Lord Peter Wimsey: That is pure invention, Bunter, I know better. You are unique. But you were going to tell me about your mater.
Mervyn Bunter: Oh yes, my lord. My old mother always used to say that facts are like cows. If you stare them in the face hard enough, and they generally run away.
Lord Peter Wimsey: By Jove, that's courageous, Bunter. What a splendid person she must be.
Mervyn Bunter: I think so, my lord. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Umm, why is it that we don't have any of this in a book? So we could study?" There was a hint of irritation in her voice. Silvia shook her head. "Dear girls, history isn't something you study. It's something you should just know." Marlee turned to me and whispered, "But clearly we don't." She smiled at her own joke, and then focused again on Silvia. I thought about that, how we all knew different things or had to guess at the truth. Why weren't we given history books? I remembered a few years ago when I went into Mom and Dad's room, since Mom said I could choose what I wanted to read for English. As I went through my options, I spotted a thick, ratty book in the back corner and pulled it out. It was a U.S. history book. Dad came in a few minutes later, saw what I was reading, and said it was okay, so long as I never told anyone about it. When — Kiera Cass

You've already slept the entire day. Why not take over for Matthew now?"
"You really think I could sleep with your eyes devouring me all day?"
Her face turned red with rage and mortification. That faker! She had been staring at him at various times throughout the day. She probably had his face so memorized that she could sketch it without his being present. But he couldn't keep his knowledge of that to himself? He had to make sure she was embarrassed right down to her toes?
But he didn't rub it in further. At least,she thought he was done with the subject when he lay down on his seat and turned his back to her. "Get some sleep yourself," he ordered. "You'll need to be at your best tomorrow, too."
She was just lying down when he added, "And keep your eyes off my arse."
Waves of heat crept up to her cheeks. That pretty much guarenteed that she wasn't going to get any sleep until he was out of the coach. — Johanna Lindsey

All my girlhood I always planned to do something big ... something constructive. It's queer what ambitious dreams a girl has when she is young. I thought I would sing before big audiences or paint lovely pictures or write a splendid book. I always had that feeling in me of wanting to do something worth while. And just think, Laura ... now I am eighty and I have not painted nor written nor sung."
"But you've done lots of things, Grandma. You've baked bread ... and pieced quilts ... and taken care of your children."
Old Abbie Deal patted the young girl's hand. "Well ... well ... out of the mouths of babes. That's just it, Laura, I've only baked bread and pieced quilts and taken care of children. But some women have to, don't they? ... But I've dreamed dreams, Laura. All the time I was cooking and patching and washing, I dreamed dreams. And I think I dreamed them into the children ... and the children are carrying them out ... doing all the things I wanted to and couldn't. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Family. It was just a word ... Could see its letters all strung together. But it was a symbol, too. And people thought they knew what it meant ... It was a thing everyone had an opinion about - that it was all you had when you didn't have anything else, that family was there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever. But when Nailer thought about it, most of these words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and get away with it. Family wasn't more reliable than marriages or friendships ... maybe less ... The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family. — Paolo Bacigalupi

When I wrote the previous letter, I had made up my mind I would show you how I could be very composed and cool and not need to ask you to listen to me nor to explain anything to me nor need any help. By telling you that all this about the multiple personalities was not really true but just put on, I could show, or so I thought, that I did not need you. Well, it would have been easier if it were put on. — Flora Rheta Schreiber

Don't ever think that what my Son chose to do didn't cost us dearly. Love always leaves a significant mark," she stated softly and gently. "We were there together."
Mack was surprised. "At the cross? Now wait. I thought you left him - you know - 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" It was a Scripture that had often haunted Mack in The Great Sadness.
"You misunderstand the mystery there. Regardless of what he felt at that moment, I never left him."
"How can you say that? You abandonded him just like you abandoned me!"
"Mackenzie, I never left him, and I have never left you."
"That makes no sense to me," he snapped.
"I know it doesn't, at least not yet. Will you at least consider this: when all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me? — Wm. Paul Young

I said, "I don't think I can give you that kind of emotion." And he [Hitchcock] sat there and said, "Ingrid, fake it!" Well, that was the best advice I've had in my whole life, because in all the years to come there were many directors who gave me what I thought were quite impossible instructions and many difficult things to do, and just when I was on the verge of starting to argue with them, I heard his voice coming to me through the air saying, "Ingrid, fake it!" It saved a lot of unpleasant situations and waste of time. — Ingrid Bergman

He believed in a true world. A world behind this one, that shines through it, like a candle through a lampshade' ... She thought of the true world the times they had seen it - it was like light glinting on the surface of the river, that shimmering quality when you saw it. It wasn't the thing itself. It was your own ability to see it ... the feeling when time stopped, and you could stay there forever. 'You see the beauty in everything. It doesn't last long
it's either gone in a minute, you just caught it, or else maybe it's something so big that you normally can't get your head around it. Like the fog in your head clears out. The world stops being a puppet show and you see the real thing. It's probably like that all the time, but you just can't see it, except for those little glimpses (pg 82). — Janet Fitch

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler