Thought She Was The One Quotes & Sayings

Once more September marveled that even the Dodo knew what she wanted to be when she was grown. She simply could not think what she herself might do. September expected that destinies, which is how she thought of professions, simply landed upon one like a crown, and ever after no one questioned or fretted over it, being sure of one's own use in the world. It was only that somehow her crown had not yet appeared. She did hope it would hurry up. — Catherynne M Valente

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

Nyx had killed a lot of people. She'd let even more die through neglect. Rhys was just one more. I'm the same person, aren't I? she thought. She had burned herself up, only to come out the other side exactly the same.

Taite's signal would get out, Nyx knew. It would be soon enough to save *her*.

But it would not be soon enough for Rhys.

Nyx hardened her jaw. Her hands and feet were still tied. They'd stripped her of her most obvious weapons. She could just wait this out.

She saw Rhys register that. But there was no shock. Just resignation. He knew her for what she was.

Butcher. Monster.

The same old monster. — Kameron Hurley

Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one. — Toni Morrison

Her eyes scanned the room and spotted her cell phone lying on the coffee table at least three whole feet away from her hands. She groaned. This was when she didn't want to be a witch, she wanted to be a Jedi, so she could use the Force to make her phone fly right into her hand.
What the hell, right? Lifting one arm she reached out an open hand toward the small electronic device. Use the Force, Wynn, she thought and had to stifle a slightly punch-drunk giggle.
From his seat in the oversized chair, Knox eyed her strangely. After a moment, she gave up and dropped her hand to her side, rolling her head along the sofa cusions to meet her mate's gaze. "What were just doing?" he asked warily.
"Using the Force."
He looked from her to the table and back again. "Did you do this successfully?"
She shook her head and grinned. "The Force is weak with this one. I'll never be a Jedi Master. — Christine Warren

If there's a disaster, do you go over to your neighbor's house with: a) a covered dish or b) a shotgun? It's game theory. If you believe your neighbor is coming over with a shotgun, you'd be an idiot to pick a); if she believes the same thing about you, you can bet she's not going to choose a) either. The way to get to a) is to do a) even if you think your neighbor will pick b). Sometimes she'll point her gun at you and tell you to get off her land, but if she was only holding the gun because she thought you'd have one, then she'll put on the safety and you can have a potluck. — Cory Doctorow

Moving on was always the end plan.
New York,he remembered, was a fair distance away.It should be far enough. As for tonight, he was going to have a shot of whiskey in his tea to help smooth out the edges. Then by God, he was going to sleep if he had to bash himself over the head to accpmplish it.
And he wasn't going to give Keeley another thought.
The knock on the door had him cursing under his breath.Though she'd been doing well,his first worry was that the mare with bronchitis had taken a bad turn.He was already reaching for the boots he'd shed when he called out.
"Come in,it's open.Is it Lucy then?"
"No,it's Keeley." One brow lifted, she stood framed in the door. "But if you're expecting Lucy,I can go."
The boots dangled from his fingertips, and those fingertips had gone numb. "Lucy's a horse," he managed to say. "She doesn't often come knocking on my door. — Nora Roberts

Braith opened her eyes and screamed at what hovered above her, "Gods! Death comes for me!"
The horrifying face of death curled its lip at her and growled, "Well, that's charmin'." Death sat back in its chair, hands resting on its knees. "This face is not me fault, ya know?" Death looked off, thought a moment. Its finger traced one of the deep gouges across its jaw. "This one actually is kind of me fault." She pointed at the other side of her face, where part of her chin was missing. "And this one. A bit of barney at the pub."
...
"That was not death," he whispered. "That was our Great-Aunt Brigida."
"Brigida? Brigida the Foul?" He nodded. "I thought she was dead."
Addolgar shook his head and whispered, "She just won't die. — G.A. Aiken

Contrary to pre-conceived notions and first impressions, the club was an oddly relaxed place, with friendly, polite people, all having a good time. Drugs and even cigarettes were not allowed. No one came near being drunk, or disorderly. Must be a natural high, she thought with wry amusement. Kelly said that for her, coming to the club had been a lifesaver. It was — Nikki Sex

And what is justice? The princess thought of that proud word 'justice'. All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and simple law - the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to do with justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and love, and that she did. — Leo Tolstoy

Most of being young, she had always thought, was playing a game of elimination with an army of different selves until you settled on one, usually by circumstance. But what made her grin, sitting across a starched white tablecloth from a man who seemed to actually listen to her, was the feeling that all those other selves weren't dead. They were still alive - multitudes of them, waiting inside her. — Ted Thompson

When I asked her if she was afraid to fall in love, she damn near doubled over. "Afraid? My heart has been through hell and back. Yet it never quits, refuses to rest, gives without asking in return, and is deeper than the deepest sea. It's love, my dear, that should fear me." That night my heart was signed, by my one of a kind. — J. Raymond

When I began to write our story down, I thought I was writing a record of hate, but somehow the hate has got mislaid and all I know is that in spite of her mistakes and her unreliability, she was better than most. It's just as well that one of us should believe in her: she never did in herself. — Graham Greene

What a queer planet!" he thought. "It is altogether dry, and altogether pointed, and altogether harsh and forbidding. And the people have no imagination. They repeat whatever one says to them ... On my planet I had a flower; she always was the first to speak ... — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility, or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law, or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self-improvement. — J.K. Rowling

You would be forgiven for thinking Alex Morningside was a boy. In fact, she would be the first to laugh at this, because, for one thing, she wasn't, and for another, she had an Excellent Sense of Humour. It wasn't that she wanted to be a boy or anything, it was simply that she didn't see much difference in being treated as a girl or boy. Because, after all, everyone is just people.
One of the reasons people thought she was a boy was her haircut. Her haircut looked like someone had put a bowl on her head and cut around it. Which is exactly what her uncle had done. Also, they thought she was a boy because her name was Alex. Of course, Alex was short for Alexandra, but neither Alex nor her uncle liked that very much, so they shortened the name. They could have shortened it the other was I suppose - Andra - but she and her uncle preferred Alex. — Adrienne Kress

One aspect of Samantha's personality that drove me nuts was her tendency to reveal herself via literary allusions. She called it a quirk, but it was more of a compulsion. Her mother was Lady Macbeth; her father, Big Daddy. An uncle she liked was Mr. Micawber, a favorite governess, Jane Eyre; a doting professor, Mr. Chips.
This curious habit of hers quickly made the voyage from eccentric to bizarre when she began to invoke the names of literary characters to describe moments in our relationship. When she thought I was treating her rudely, she called me Wolf Larsen; if I was standoffish, I was Mr. Darcy; when I dressed too shabbily, I was Tom Joad.
Once, in bed, she yelled out the name Victor as she approached orgasm. I assumed she was referring to Victor Hugo because she'd been reading 'Les Miserables.'. It didn't really bother me that much though it was a little odd being with a woman who thought she was having sex with a dead French author. — John Blumenthal

Laura thought Bell would have a few things to say to Pynchon. And Laura had a few things to say to Bell, like, How the hell was a writer supposed to know when she was one-fifth through her novel-writing, so she could cut a door into the wall and shove her character out into the forest? — L.L. Barkat

For, I think, when I woke up today, with a dream of yesterday still in my eyes,I felt tired in life. And thinking of the little blond girl of Mays & Junes long gone by,I felt strange looking on a field of wheat, and I thought, in a moment I was God and so was she, and this field was us too. So long gone, she goes. But I am still her, whether she comes and goes like all of life, or she stays awhile.
Once, a man of physics told me, matter cannot be created or destroyed. And on
another occasion he said everything came from one point, in the beginning.
So we are all flowers and rivers and trees. That was all of us together. Every one of the past, present, and future. — Derek Keck

About halfway through I broke down crying, which I hadn't expected. I was a little ashamed, but only a little;it was her, you see, and she never taxed me with the times that I slipped from the way I thought a man should be ... the way I thought I should be, at any rate. A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures, and one without must be among the most miserable, I think, the only true blessing of their lives that they don't know how poorly off they are. — Stephen King

He turned his head to look at her, trying to think of ways to plead his case. Some way to dazzle and beguile her and make her glad that it was him she was here with. Something witty and persuasive, but she turned at precisely the same moment he did, with invitation in her eyes, and all he could come up with was, "Damn, I really want to kiss you."

Her hesitation was a mere fraction of a second. "Me too," she whispered.

It was all he needed to hear, and in an instant she was in his arms. He kissed her, hard, with no prelude, no artful negotiations or seductive machinations. Just hungry kisses that sent his mind spinning and his body following. She kissed him back with equal enthusiasm, with one hand on his chest and the other wrapped tightly around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Her mouth was sweet, as sweet as he'd imagined, with lips so soft he could have fallen over the edge of that lighthouse and thought the sensation was just from her touch. — Tracy Brogan

Lying in their field above the sea, watching the sun go down and the darkness creep over the field so that they were wrapped together in shadow. Will propped himself on one elbow beside her, is finger curling strands of her dark hair until it was bound so tight it pulled her scalp and she cried out, and then he bent over her, kissed her, so,so tenderly, and she thought she would die with happiness. They had made love, the very first time. — Julia Green

Warmly and impulsively he put his arms round her and covered her knees and hands with kisses. Then when she muttered something and shuddered with the thought of the past, he stroked her hair, and looking into her face, realised that this unhappy, sinful woman was the one creature near and dear to him, whom no one could replace. When he went out of the house and got into the carriage he wanted to return home alive. — Anton Chekhov

She was tall and slender with long dark hair that swung in a shiny ponytail from one shoulder to the other, her dress swirling beneath her cinched waist.
He thought suddenly of watermelon. It was hard to come by back in Scotland but even before he'd ever tasted one in the flesh it had reminded him of summer (which was also hard to come by back in Scotland).
He knew what watermelon tasted like now; it was one of his favorite things. He could almost feel it in his mouth as he stood there, that cold sweet powerful explosion of almost nothing.
He needed to find a slice as soon as possible. — Sarah-Kate Lynch

There was still one response, the greatest, that she had missed. She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, as their final expression, the purpose of all the things she loved on earth ... To find a consciousness like her own, who would be the meaning of her world, as she would be of his ... No, not Francisco d'Anconia, not Hank Rearden, not any man she had ever met or admired ... A man who existed only in her knowledge of her capacity for an emotion she had never felt, but would have given her life to experience. — Ayn Rand

Looking at the Jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thought that the usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons were trying the honest men. The lowest, cruelest, and worst populace of a city, never without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the directing spirits of the scene: noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, anticipating, and precipitating the result, without a check. Of the men, the greater part were armed in various ways; of the women, some wore knives, some daggers, some ate and drank as they looked on, many knitted. Among these last, was one, with a spare piece of knitting under her arm as she worked. — Charles Dickens

It was the kind of summer evening that made Ursula want to be alone. 'Oh,' Izzie said, 'You're at an age when a girl is simply consumed by the sublime.' Ursula wasn't sure what she meant ('No one is ever sure what she means,' Sylvie said) but she thought she understood a little. There was a strangeness in the shimmering air, a sense of imminence that made Ursula's chest feel full, as if her heart was growing. It was a kind of high holiness - she could think of no other way of describing it. Perhaps it was the future, she thought, coming nearer all the time. — Kate Atkinson

When I thought you'd died - "
"Don't say it," she choked out. "You don't have to relive that."
"No," he said. "I do. I have to tell you. It was the first time - even after all these years of expecting my own death - that I truly knew what it meant to die. Because with you gone ... there was nothing left for me to live for. I don't know how my mother did it."
"She had her children," Kate said. "She couldn't leave you."
"I know," he whispered, "but the pain she must have endured ... "
"I think the human heart must be stronger than we could ever imagine."
Anthony stared at her for a long moment, his eyes locking with hers until he felt they must be one person. Then, with a shaking hand, he cupped the back of her head and leaned down to kiss her. His lips worshiped hers, offering her every ounce of love and devotion and reverence and prayer that he felt in his soul.
-Anthony & Kate — Julia Quinn

Could you just ask? I know we used to hate each other but I've come to think I might like you quite a lot. Any chance you like me, at all? Gods, it sounded absurd. All her life she'd been pushing folk away, she had no idea where to start at pulling one in. What if he looked at her as if she was mad? The thought yawned like a pit at her feet. What do you mean, like? Like, like like? Should she just take hold of him and kiss him? She kept thinking about it. She hardly thought about anything else any more. — Joe Abercrombie

Presently comfort came to him, and he thought the she had always given him of her strength though he had never quite realised it until now.
Glory had passed him by; fame too perhaps would not endure; it might well be that the incalculable goddess would decree ill fame as his due. Perhaps there might not be included in his epitah the one tribute to his knighthood the he knew he deserved "Ii fut toujours bon et loyal chevalier" (He was always good and loyal knight)
But whatever the shadowed years might bring, as long as life should last, he knew that he had here at his side one sure recompense and one abiding loyalty. — Anya Seton

Once you start spending time together, you'll learn things about her that no one else could have told you. Things that you never would have suspected. Like the fact that she snores and has cold feet." He folded his arms and I caught his smile in my peripheral vision. Why was he smiling at me? Hey, was he referring to our nap on the cot? "Maybe you'll learn that she'd make a great doctor or that she has the capacity to care about people she barely knows." He took a dramatic pause, leaning against the wall. "Maybe you'll learn that she's not the spoiled princess you thought she was."
Maybe you'll learn that she'd rather have someone speak directly to her than about her," I said, folding my arms and leaning against the wall. — Suzanne Selfors

Elvira, as befitting one who represented a magazine, registered first and demanded a room and bath. She pronounced it "bawth." The clerk seemed aghast at the request. However, in that hotel, any lady got whatever she asked for. It was her unquestioned right, as a lady. But there was no bath in the hotel, nor running water for that matter. The clerk faltered out something about a nice bowl and pitcher in every room, and said he thought they could provide a foot tub. He was sorry; there was no bath. Elvira couldn't grasp the situation. She thought the clerk was stupid--a hotel without a bath was a contradiction in terms. When she explained that she wanted something for complete immersion, the clerk seemed embarrassed. At his wits' end, he suggested (blushing like fire) that the colored boy could bring up the hog scalder. — Beatrice Fairfax

Whenever I stumble over my own feet, or blurt out a thought that makes no sense at all, or leave the house wearing one pattern too many, I always think, It's okay, I'm from New Jersey. I love New Jersey, because it's not just an all-purpose punch line, but probably a handy legal defense, as in, Yes, I shot my wife because I thought she was Bigfoot, but I'm from New Jersey. — Paul Rudnick

I loved them in the way one loves at any age - if it's real at all - obsessively, painfully, with wild exaltation, with guilt, with conflict; I wrote poems to and about them; I put them into novels (disguised of course); I brooded upon why they were as they were, so often maddening, don't you know? I wrote them ridiculous letters. I lived with their faces. I knew their every gesture by heart. I stalked them like wild animals. I studied them as if they were maps of the world - and in a way, I suppose they were." She had spoken rapidly, on the defensive ... if he thought she didn't know what she was talking about! "Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see, including and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self. — May Sarton

The sight made her ache. How can I not touch you? she thought hopelessly, and then she was doing it, her fingers on his wrist. He didn't jump or even look at her, just stopped writing. Neither one of them moved, nothing moved, and the whole thing lasted three or four seconds at most, but when Pen took her hand away and started to breathe again, her chest hurt, as though she had been holding her breath for a very long time. — Marisa De Los Santos

She thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness. — Virginia Woolf

Lucien said he didn't care that she wasn't one of the High Fae, that he was certain the mating bond would snap into place soon and that he was going to marry her and leave his father's court to his scheming brothers." A tight sigh. "His father had her put down. Executed, in front of Lucien, as his two eldest brothers held him and made him watch." My stomach turned, and I pushed a hand against my chest. I couldn't imagine, couldn't comprehend that sort of loss. "Lucien left. He cursed his father, abandoned his title and the Autumn Court, and walked out. And without his title protecting him, his brothers thought to eliminate one more contender to the High Lord's crown. Three of them went out to kill him; one came back. — Sarah J. Maas

I read on the back cover that the author was born in Russia and came to America when she was young. She barely spoke English, but she wanted to be a great writer. I thought that was very admirable, so I sat down and tried to write a story.
"Ian MacArthur is a wonderful sweet fellow who wears glasses and peers out of them with delight."
That was the first sentence. The problem was that I just couldn't think of the next one. — Stephen Chbosky

He was just a loser with a credit card.
Maybe in the past I never realized that. Hell, maybe I'd been the kind of guy who thought money equaled class. Maybe I thought the air of arrogance Zach wore as armor made him superior to others.
And then I fell in love with a girl who was the epitome of the opposite of my world.
She shattered everything I thought I knew. And though she might be the one wearing glasses, it was me who was finally seeing clearly. — Cambria Hebert

The fact that she was even lying here in this bed with me right now was a freaking miracle. I'd never treated any girl so horribly in my life.
Wasn't that a sobering thought?
The one woman I wanted above all others was the one I treated the worst. — Cambria Hebert

Where did you say you were from, girl?" Uniloma asked gruffly one morning. The vessel was far out to sea, giving a wide berth to the coastline of western Holt and any bold pirate vessel.

"From Kai."

"And your name?"

"Taoshira." Tashi did not risk giving her title again but neither was she going to lie.

Uniloma clucked in irritation.

"My family and friends call me Tashi."

"I'll call you Tashi then. I'm not using a princess's name for you."

Tashi sighed. There was no point arguing. The truth would come out when they returned to Rama. It would only be an unseemly squabble if she pressed her claim here.

That's if anyone recognizes me, Tashi thought glumly. I'm not sure I'd knowme either. I might have to stand naked before my servants to prove my point.

She smiled at the idea. No, I'm definitely not the same person if I can laugh about that. — Julia Golding

One glance at the way he looked at her, and Sam knew exactly what he was. A lethal habit, she thought. The accelerator on a race car. A halo jump on a crystal clear day. The best possible rush with the worst possible consequences. — Alexi Lawless

You can find yourself a decent,
honorable man, one to love you, respect you, cherish you. Someone with
morals, with a decent job and a good future. That's what you think you
want, isn't it? Not some white trash from Alabama. Not some ex-con
who's running the scam of a lifetime. You're so good and decent, the very
thought of me disgusts you, doesn't it?" His voice was low and seductive
as he pushed the words at her.
She met his gaze with what she hoped was a fearless one of her own.
"Yes," she said.
"Then tell me, Rachel," he said, letting his hand toy with the loose
neckline of her tunic, "why aren't you out somewhere, fucking your little
gentleman's brains out? Why are you here with me, quivering when I
touch you? — Anne Stuart

Drowned in the lake, ravished by gypsies, struck by a passing motor car, she thought ritually, a sound principle being that nothing was ever as one imagined it, and this was an efficient means of excluding the worst. — Ian McEwan

All that evening he talked to the Candle of Arras, in a low confidential tone. When you get down to it, he thought, there's not much difference between politics and sex; it's all about
power. He didn't suppose he was the first person in the world to make this observation. It's a question of seduction, and how fast and cheap you can effect it: if Camille, he thought, approximates to one of those little milliners who can't make ends meet - in other words, an absolute pushover - then Robespierre is a Carmelite, mind set on becoming Mother Superior. You can't corrupt her; you can wave your cock under her nose, and she's neither shocked nor interested: why should she be, when she hasn't the remotest idea
what it's for? — Hilary Mantel

That reminds me of a song," said Emilia. The women laughed; the men groaned. But the fire was blazing and the night was long, and folk will want entertainment after the tedium of a day's work. Emilia's song detailed the amorous adventures of a water horse who fell in love - if love was the right word - with a series of young women who passed beside the lake in which the creature dwelled and from which he emerged in the form of a good-looking young man of exactly the right sort to catch a young woman's fancy. She had a clear voice and a pleasing timbre, and every local knew the chorus, whose euphemisms about mounting and galloping embarrassed me. We did not sing these sorts of songs in the Barahal house. Rory caught right on and sang the chorus as if born to it. In the laughter and pounding of tables that followed, I said, to no one in particular, "I thought kelpies drowned and then devoured their victims!" The words, innocently spoken, only caused the gathered folk to laugh even — Kate Elliott

She looked out then, through the crowd, and saw Simon with the Lightwoods, looking at her across the empty space that separated them. It was the same way that Jace had looked at her at the manor. It was the one thread that bound these two boys that she loved so much, she thought, their one commonality: They both believed in her even when she didn't believe in herself. — Cassandra Clare

There was a moment during this time, when his face was on hers, cheek on cheek, brow on brow, heavy skull on skull, through soft skin and softer flesh. He thought: skulls separate people. In this one sense, I could say, they would say, I lose myself in her. But in that bone box, she thinks and thinks, as I think in mine, things the other won't hear, can't hear, though we go on like this for sixty years. What does she think I am? He had no idea. He had no idea what she was. — A.S. Byatt

Maybe the witch thought she was protecting Rapunzel, not punishing her. Maybe she thought that if Rapunzel was locked away, no one could ever hurt her. Maybe the witch kept Rapunzel because she loved her, because she was scared that if other people could get to Rapunzel, they would hurt her. And maybe Rapunzel didn't understand the witch; maybe she was angry at her - but maybe she loved her too. — Alyssa B. Sheinmel

"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

This boy," he said, indicating the paintings with one sweep of his arms, "was romantic. He thought that it was beauty that bound everything together. And for him it was true. Life had been beautiful for him. He was very young. He knew very little of life. He saw beauty but he did not feel any true passion. How could he? He did not know. He had not really encountered the force of beauty's opposite."
"Are you more cynical now, then?" she asked him.
"Cynical," he frowned, "No, not that. I know that there is an ugly side of life-and not just human life. I know that everything is not simply beautiful. I am not a romantic as this boy was. But I am not a cynic either. There is something enduring in all of life, Anne, something tough. Something. Something terribly weak yet incredibly powerful ... — Mary Balogh

need to talk about my mother," one of the women said. Her name was Susan. She was blond, very pretty, a stockbroker. Her mother was dying of cancer. "I have this horrible feeling of never having even known her. All my life, my father . . . was like a god to me. I worshipped him. I couldn't understand why he ever married my mother. He was so special and she's just . . . I always thought she was just this ordinary, everyday . . . I had no sense of her dignity, her nobility, really. She raised five kids and kept a house and gave him the support he needed and totally subjugated herself to him, to all of us, really, to our needs, and now when I think . . . She's even — Judith Rossner

Where the hell was she? Grant knew he'd go mad if he asked himself the question one more time.
Where the hell was she?
From the lookout deck of his lighthouse he could see for miles. But he couldn't see Gennie.The wind slapped at his face as he stared out to sea and wondered what in God's name he was going to do.
Forget her? He might occasionally forget to eat or to sleep,but he couldn't forget Gennie. Unfortunately, his memory was just as clear on the last ten minutes they had been together. How could he have been such a fool! Oh,it was easy,Grant thought in disgust.He'd had lots of practice. — Nora Roberts

For one second I thought I saw it and I reached down and snatched up a little flesh-colored round thing, but ti was just a used round Band-Aid. My mother slapped it out o fmy hand and that was the first moment I realized she was mad at me too. And suddenly it was as if my heart was as uncontrollable as my legs. All this time I thought she was on my side, because I wa son her side. But maybe she had given up on me too. So I didn't say anything more because I was scared she was going to be against me like everyone else. — Jack Gantos

Jasmine hurried along the Grand Canal, dodging a group of diehard revelers, glancing back over her shoulder for the hundredth time. She couldn't see Gabe Cannon anywhere.
Her teenage fantasy man was hunting her brother. She sure hadn't seen that coming. Freaking surreal.
He looked just as good as when she'd first met him at that airport and had fallen instantly in love over pizza and chips. One of those unavoidable pitfalls of life, really. He'd been more handsome than any of her pop idols, and her teenage emotions had been just begging for an outlet.
She cringed in embarrassment when she thought of all the melodramatic drivel she'd written about him in her high school diary. — Dana Marton

She made the choice she thought was best for her, even though it was the wrong one. But that's what you have to remember ... she made that choice. Not you. And you can't blame yourself for not knowing what she failed to tell you." I kiss him on the forehead, then bring my eyes back to his. "You have to let it go. You can hold on to the hate and the love and even the bitterness, but you have to let go of the blame. The blame is what's tearing you down. — Colleen Hoover

Well, you're lucky, that's all. Even if he is a vamp now. You must be pretty used to all sorts of weird stuff, being a Shadowhunter, so I bet it doesn't faze you.
"It fazes me," Clary said, more sharply then she'd intended. "I'm not Jace."
The smirk widened. " No one is. And I get the feeling he knows it.
"Whats that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, you know. Jace reminds me of an old boyfriend. Some guys look at you like they want sex. Jace looks at you like you've already had sex, it was great, and now you're just friends- even though you want more. Drives girls crazy. You know what i mean?
Yes, Clary thought. "No." she said. — Cassandra Clare

You're the medium Weed and I use to communicate, that's all, this set of holes, pleasantly framed, this little femme scampering back and forth with scented messages tucked in her little secret places.
She was too young then to understand what he thought he was offering her, a secret about power in the world. That's what he thought it was. Brock was young then too. She only took it as some parable about his feelings for her, one she didn't exactly understand but covered for with the wide invincible gaze practiced by many sixties children, meaning nearly anything at all, useful in a lot of situations, including ignorance. — Thomas Pynchon

I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him. Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily. — Rabih Alameddine

I am thinking of one woman and the rest is blotto. I say I am thinking of her, but the truth is I am dying a stellar death. I am lying there like a sick star waiting for the light to go out. Years ago I lay on this same bed and I waited and waited to be born. Nothing happened. Except that my mother, in her Lutheran rage, threw a bucket of water over me. My mother, poor imbecile that she was, thought I was lazy. She didn't know that I had gotten caught in the stellar drift, that I was being pulverized to a black extinction out there in the farthest rim of the universe. — Henry Miller

Dolly'd given him a white silk scarf as a parting present. He didn't know how she'd managed the money for it and she wouldn't let him ask, just settled it round his neck inside his flight jacket. Somebody'd told her the Spitfire pilots all wore them, to save the constant collar chafing, and she meant him to have one. It felt nice, he'd admit that. Made him think of her touch when she'd put it on him. He pushed the thought hastily aside; the last thing he could afford to do was start thinking about his wife, if he ever hoped to get back to her. And he did mean to get back to her. Where — Diana Gabaldon

She played a great deal better than either of the Miss Musgroves; but having no voice, no knowledge of the harp, and no fond parents to sit by and fancy themselves delighted, her performance was little thought of, only out of civility, or to refresh the others, as she was well aware. She knew that when she played she was giving pleasure only to herself; but this was no new sensation: excepting one short period of her life, she had never, since the age of fourteen, never since the loss of her dear mother, know the happiness of being listened to, or encouraged by any just appreciation or real taste. In music she had been always used to feel alone in the world; and Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove's fond partiality for their own daughters' performance, and total indifference to any other person's, gave her much more pleasure for their sakes, than mortification for her own. — Jane Austen

Now we are going to have a new noise, Eleanor thought, listening to the inside of her head; it is changing. The pounding had stopped, as though it had proved ineffectual, and there was now a swift movement up and down the hall, as of an animal pacing back and forth with unbelievable impatience, watching first one door and then another, alert for a movement inside, and there was again the little babbling murmur which Eleanor remembered; Am I doing it? She wondered quickly, is that me? And heard the tiny laughter beyond the door, mocking her. — Shirley Jackson

The prospect of sitting across the table from Caleb Halliday, knowing he thought she was a trollop, was patently unappealing. Besides, one had to take a personality as strong as Caleb's in small, measured doses. Like castor oil. — Linda Lael Miller

Just curious. Like James and Victoria had been curious in the beginning? The thought of Victoria made me tremble, thought the one thing they seemed certain of was that it had not been her. Not this time. She would stick to her obsessed pattern. This was just someone else, a stranger. — Stephenie Meyer

The thing I understood least of all was that knowledge led to despair and damnation. Our spiritual mentor had not said that those bad books had given a false picture of life: if that had been the case, he could easily have exposed their falsehood; the tragedy of the little girl whom he had failed to bring to salvation was that she had made a premature discovery of the true nature of reality. Well, anyhow, I thought, I shall discover it myself one day, and it isn't going to kill me: the idea that there was a certain age when knowledge of the truth could prove fatal I found offensive to common sense. — Simone De Beauvoir

Colt, you're a cop. I'm fairly certain you realize what you are proposing is illegal. As in bigamy."
He laughed. "You don't legally marry us both. Just one of us. Then the three of us make our own private vows."
"Fine," she leaned back and gave him a smug look as if expecting her next question to jar some sense into them. "Who am I going to legally marry?"
He grinned at her transparency. Obviously, she thought this was going to be a sticking point. "We'll arm wrestle to decide that. — Mari Carr

I need one, Momma, how come I don't have a baby sister?"

Rachel smiled. "You're so perfect. There was no need to ask for another."

Sophie cocked her head to the side like a puppy. "Ask who?"

"The Stork," Faith supplied.

Sophie looked thoroughly confused then. "I thought sex caused babies."

Rachel patted Faith on the back when she began to cough.

Kaycee shook her head. "Rhonda at school told me that special music causes babies. her sister told her that when her mom and dad play music in their bedroom, babies were being made. Momma, you play music in your room, but we don't have a baby."

"I don't have that particular CD, sweetie."

"My friend told me that it takes a penny and a Virginia to make a baby," Sophie said and sent Faith into another coughing fit. — Robin Alexander

She persisted when I resisted. And thank God for that. Because the number of storms I needed to go through before appreciating the way the wind whipped through her hair was one to many. Now, I'd move mountains to make her mine. Rain or shine. — J. Raymond

And as for the vague something
was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?
that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver, and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare
to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their nature. — Charlotte Bronte

school in Seattle I wanted to attend didn't cost a fortune and a half, I wouldn't have given a damn what Mom thought. She was on the road so much I was lucky to see her one day a week. Even on that one day, she was usually in and out so quickly you would — Nicole Williams

Jaenelle opened her mouth, closed it, and finally said timidly, "Do you think, when I'm grown up, I could wear an outfit like that?" Daemon bit his cheek. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Buying time, he looked down at himself. "Well," he said, giving it slow consideration, "the shirt would have to be altered somewhat to accommodate a female figure, but I don't see why not." Jaenelle beamed. "Daemon, it's a wonderful hat." It took him a moment to admit it to himself, but he was miffed. He stood in front of her, on display as it were, and the thing that fascinated her most was his hat. You do know how to bruise a man's ego, don't you, little one? he thought dryly as he said, "Would you like to try it on?" Jaenelle bounced to the mirror, brushing against him as she passed. — Anne Bishop

I thought the other ones were so obviously - what are we going to do if she burns down the house? The DEA, which I think was maybe the best one because she's wearing the jacket when she goes through the mirror and I think that was kind of amazing because you really weren't expecting that. There's something almost slapstick about this in a way that worried me. It was a little pratfalley with the golf club and the - but I think it probably cut together okay. — Mary-Louise Parker

... growing pale and sober with the thought that her fate was soon to be decided; for, like all young people, she was sure that her whole life could be settled by one human creature, quite forgetting how wonderfully Providence trains us by disappointment, surprises us with unexpected success, and turns our seeming trials into blessing. — Louisa May Alcott

I had always heard rumors of her, Nanook thought, she who can control the wind, the water, the earth, and fire ... she who can talk to time. But those were old myths of a woman who lived many thousands of years ago, the first daughter of the Earth. There is a prophecy that she will return again, during the end times -- every religion has someone like that, someone to wait for and put your faith in, but my culture had mostly covered up her existence. We had a god of the sea, a god of the land, a god of the air, a god of fire, but no one who could control all of the elements. We spoke, only in whispers, of the ancient bloodline -- the descendents of the Great Mother. Too many superstitious minds, too many men concerned only with their own power and position, had heard these whispers in the past and taken gruesome steps to erase the descendents. The lineage was said to be broken, the blood of the Great Mother spilled for the last time. — Sarah Warden

I don't even have a choice. Rachel thought how that was pretty much true of everything now, that you got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, and she hadn't, things got narrow real quick. Like trying to wade a river, she thought. You take a wrong step and set your foot on a wobbly rock or in a drop-off and you're swept away, and all you can do then is try to survive. (83) — Ron Rash

Horace, fit, and athletic and light on his feet, gave their guards the fewest opportunities to beat him, although on one occasion an angry Tualaghi, furious that Horace misunderstood an order to kneel, slashed his dagger across the young man's face, opening a thin, shallow cut on his right cheek. The wound was superficial but as Evanlyn treated it that evening, Horace shamelessly pretended that it was more painful than it really was. He enjoyed the touch of her ministering hands. Halt and Gilan, bruised and weary, watched as she cleaned the wound and gently pated it dry. Horace did a wonderful job of pretending to bear great pain with stoic bravery. Halt shook his head in disgust.
"What faker," he said to Gilan. The younger Ranger nodded.
"Yes. He's really making a meal of it isn't he?" He paused, then added more ruefully, "Wish I'd thought of it first. — John Flanagan

I rub my hand down my face, frustrated. This girl in front of me tests my patience like hell.
When she ran to me after her dad kicked her out, I thought she still had feelings for me. She needed a place to stay, and I needed her. I offered her a room, thinking if she was around me every day, she would remember she loves me. I was dead wrong. Somewhere along the way, we switched roles, I became the one who so desperately needed her and she became cold and closed off. She isn't my savior; she's my punishment. — Brittany Butler

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

Just like she intended to be with him for Christmas and make him buy a potted tree because, while she didn't like artificial pines, she also couldn't stand the thought of chopping a live one down for decoration. So, every year, she bought a live pine tree, and once Christmas was done, she kept it watered and healthy until spring when she could plant it. — Eve Langlais

An attractive, elegant, slim woman. The sort of woman she never thought it was possible for her to be. She had become one of those women, those other women, who had seemed too perfectly put together to be real. — Liane Moriarty

He smiled. "I suppose I thought we'd have a madly impractical, terrifyingly modern sort of marriage. One based on love. Not to mention dangerous undertakings and hair's-breadth escapes from burning buildings, high ledges and exploding sewers."
"And bickering."
"Always that, yes."
"Assuming I want to marry at all."
"True. I know of no good way of forcing you to do anything."
"And you're mad enough to think it could work - one day?"
He cupped her face in his hands. His smile was so brilliant it seemed to illuminate the room. "I think it would be heaven."
She trembled, then. "You have a very strange idea of heaven."
"Kiss me and see. — Y.S. Lee

When the strong healthy boy, howling at the indignity of the birth process, was put to her breast, she felt a wild tenderness for him, The other baby, Francis, in the crib next her bed, began to whimper. Katie had a flash of contempt for the weak child she had borne a year ago, when she compared her to this new handsome son. She was quickly ashamed of hr contempt. She knew it wasn't the little girl's fault. "I must watch myself carefully," she thought. "I am going to love this boy more than the girl but I mustn't ever let her know. It is wrong to love one child more than the other but this is something that I cannot help. — Betty Smith

All the tiny things made this mammoth union up, all the times he had picked her up from Sutherland station, made her chicken salad rolls and brought her a Lipton's iced tea, called her about Sunday and fixed Nina's shed door hinge, held her and not fucked her when she was dying with period pain, thought of what she said last night and made something of it the following afternoon, all these unspectacular deposits of love he had made and they were the currency, earning enough to have her see that he was nothing but the right one. — Brendan Cowell

She was trembling, and so was he. Like the first time, he thought. For her. For him. And just as
terrifying and tremendous.
The late winter sun was a white wash of light through the windows. In the silence of the house he
could hear every catch of her breath. When he skimmed his fingers lightly over her, she was all soft
skin and quivers.
Smooth. Warm. Beautiful. — Nora Roberts

Sam held one of the mice up by its tail over the box and then hesitated. "Her, you want to have a go?"...
If Sam thought she was going to squeal at the sight of nature in the raw, he had a lot to learn.
Bella fed the owlet, cheering as he gulped down his food with a greedy intensity that bode well for the little guy's future recovery. And she grinned to herself when she heard Sam mutter under this breath. "This has got to be the weirdest first date in history. — Deborah Blake

You had every right to be. He raised his eyes to look at her and she was suddenly and strangely reminded of being four years old at the beach, crying when the wind came up and blew away the castle she had made. Her mother had told her she could make another one if she liked, but it hadn't stopped her crying because what she had thought was permanent was not permanent after all, but only made out of sand that vanished at the touch of wind and water. — Cassandra Clare

It's a mean story, Helen fumed. An absentee father who demands that his children put him at the center of their lives and beg for his return. Sister Priscilla didn't think it was mean, apparently. She was so in love with God that she had married him, even though she would not see his face, hear his voice, or feel his embrace for as long as she lived. One of us, Helen, thought is flying blind. — Mark Salzman

We talk of strong personalities, and they are strong, until the not-every-day when we see them as we might see one woman alone in a desert, and know that all the strength we thought we knew was only courage, only her lone song echoing among the stones; and then at last when we have understood this and made up our minds to hear the song and admire its courage and its sweetness, we wait for the next note and it does not come. The last word, with its pure tone, echoes and fades and is gone, and we realize - only then - that we do not know what it was, that we have been too intent on the melody to hear even one word. We go then to find the singer, thinking she will be standing where we last saw her. There are only bones and sand and a few faded rags. — Gene Wolfe

She sat silently in her rocking chair. Some people are good at talking, but Granny Weatherwax was good at silence. She could sit so quiet and still that
she faded. You forgot she was there. The room became empty.
Tiffany thought of it as the I'm-not-here spell, if it was a spell. She reasoned that everyone had something inside them that told the world they
were there. That was why you could often sense when someone was behind you, even if they were making no sound at all. You were receiving their
I-am-here signal.
Some people had a very strong one. They were the people who got served first in shops. Granny Weatherwax had an I-am-here signal that bounced off the mountains when she wanted it to; when she walked into a forest, all the wolves and bears ran out the other side. She could turn it off, too. She was doing that now. Tiffany was having to concentrate to see her. Most of her mind was telling her that there was no one there at all. — Terry Pratchett

She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity. — Elizabeth Gaskell

She had thought, instinctively, that Victoria had a remarkably beautiful face. The face showed an alert awareness of life: her lips- full, overblown like clown-lips liable to laugh at the slightest provocation. She thought that her features were not chiseled but almost rugged, handsome, like a colloquial swear-word or a Vermeer peasant-girl, and a knock out at that. An overdone face, like one having two chins, two noses, that was big and abundantly cheerful but at the same time, there was a peculiarly puffy look about those eyes.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') — Kunal Sen

She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen and among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? Why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation? — Thomas Hardy

I'm glad you're gay," she said solemnly, "because that way, if I can't have you, no one can."
"Um, Rocher," I mentioned, "like, a dude could have him."
This had never occurred to Rocher because she'd thought that Jate being gay translated as, "I love Rocher Bargemueller so much but I don't deserve her so I'll never have sex again." The concept of Jate with a guy was fresh turf and Rocher regarded him with an especially deranged sparkle in her eyes.
"I could be a dude," she said. — Paul Rudnick

He was angry with himself for having kissed her and enjoyed it, only to be disappointed by her in the end.
He knew that love was never simple, but it was even less so for a vampire.
He shook his head in disbelief as he walked away. He had really thought that she was the one for him and had genuinely believed that he
was going to spend the rest of his life with her, but now, he knew better. — Elaine White

She wanted to be a little girl again, the one who thought getting high meant being pushed on the swings and pain was falling off her bike — Amy Zhang

Phillip looked to Eloise. "Perhaps introductions are in order?"
"Oh," Eloise said, gulping. "Yes, of course. These are my brothers."
"I'd gathered," he said, his voice as dry as dust.
She shot him an apologetic look, which, Phillip thought, was really the least she could do after nearly
getting him tortured and
killed, then turned to her brothers and motioned to each in turn, saying, "Anthony, Benedict, Colin,
Gregory. These three," she added, motioning to A, B, and C, "are my elders. This one" - she waved
dismissively at Gregory - "is an infant. — Julia Quinn

She had not had a question like that in her mind before. It had made her feel lonely. She wanted to be alone, but not lonely. That was very different; that was something that ached and hurt dreadfully right inside one. It was what one dreaded most. It was what made one go to so many parties; and lately even the parties had seemed once or twice not to be a perfectly certain protection. Was it possible that loneliness had nothing to do with circumstances, but only with the way one met them? Perhaps, she had thought, she had better go to bed. She couldn't be very well. She — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Wearily, she sat up. Jesus was not coming today. She would have to die later, she decided. There was no use lying out here like a fool in the rain. One step, she thought. One step and then the next gets you where you're going. — Robert McCammon

If it makes you feel any better, he's been all sad doll lately too."
"What are you talking about, Chels?"
Chelsea stopped walking and stared at Violet.
"Jay. I'm talking about Jay, Vi. I thought you might want to know that you're not the only one who's hurting. He's been moping around school, making it hard to even look at him. He's messed up ... bad." Just like the other night in Violet's bedroom, something close to ... sympathy crossed Chelsea's face.
Violet wasn't sure how to respond.
Fortunately sympathetic Chelsea didn't stick around for long. She seemed to get a grip on herself, and like a switch had been flipped, the awkward moment was over and her friend was back, Chelsea-style: "I swear, every time I see him, I'm halfway afraid he's gonna start crying like a girl or ask to borrow a tampon or something. Seriously, Violet, it's disgusting. Really. Only you can make it stop. Please make it stop. — Kimberly Derting