If She Quotes

“Love her?" I cried. "Why he just loves her to death! He turns so white, and he suffers so, when her pain is the worst. Love her? And she him? Why, don't you remember the other day when he tipped her head against him and kissed her throat as he left the table; that he asked her if she 'loved him yet,' and she said right before all of us, 'Why Paul, I love you, until I scarcely can keep my fingers off you!”

— Gene Stratton-Porter

“It's not necrophilia if she still has a pulse ...”

— Scott Jonathan Nixon

“He knew he would have to believe in order to go where she had been; knew that, if he believed, he could go there even if it didn't exist, if it was make-believe. He moved the hand she had drawn around her down her long flesh, and with a little sound she pressed herself against him. He searched himself for that old will, long in disuse. If she went there, ever, he didn't want to be left behind; wanted to never be farther from than this.”

— John Crowley

“He'd never wanted a woman as much as he wanted Kara, and he was prepared to spend forever with her if she wanted that as well. - Braeden”

— S.M. Boyce

“She looks at me, this is not what she had expected, she sniffs at the food and only slowly starts to eat, swallows each mouthful with demonstrative gloom, and then turns to look at me again, a long look, with those eyes, sighs and goes on, as if she were emptying the poisoned chalice. Spoiled dog.”

— Per Petterson

“I hardly think a girl is much of a threat. I presume you searched her for weapons? But if she attempts to suffocate me with her straw mattress, I promise to call out for help.”

— Mary Hoffman

“When the bespangled Miss Charisse wraps her phenomenal legs around [Fred] Astaire, she can be forgiven everything-even the fact that she reads her lines as if she learned them phonetically.”

— Pauline Kael

“If she knew me as I really am she would despise me, and certainly not aid or abet my evil designs. To veil their vices from the sight of the good is the only resource of those who are not blind and know themselves to be vicious.' Thus was I confirmed in habits of hypocrisy; and these, for a time, worked only too effectually to my advantage.”

— William Beckford

“Keep thinking back about what Mum said about being real and the Velveteen Rabbit book (though frankly have had enough trouble with rabbits in this particular house). My favorite book, she claims of which I have no memory was about how little kids get one toy that they love more than all the others, and even when its fur has been rubbed off, and it's gone saggy with bits missing, the little child still thinks it's the most beautiful toy in the world, and can't bear to be parted from it.
That's how it works, when people really love each other, Mum whispered on the way out in the Debenhams lift, as if she was confessing some hideous and embarrassing secret. But, the thing is, darling, it doesn't happen to ones who have sharp edges, or break if they get dropped, or ones made of silly synthetic stuff that doesn't last. You have to be brave and let the other person know who you are and what you feel.”

— Helen Fielding

“She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt or fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build laughter out of inadequate materials ... She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall.”

— John Steinbeck

“Rain don't fall on a with if she doesn't want it to, although personally I prefer to get wet and be thankful."
"Thankful for what?" said Tiffany.
"That I'll get dry later.”

— Terry Pratchett

“If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again. I wanted her to touch me but I could not let her. No cat will. We let human beings caress us because it is pleasant enough and calms them - but not her. The price is more than a cat can pay.”

— Peter S. Beagle

“So my grandmother was not without humanity. and if she wore cocktail dresses when she labored in the garden, they were cocktail dresses she no longer intended to wear to cocktail parties. even in her rose garden she did not want to appear underdressed. if the dresses got too dirty from gardening, she threw them out. when my mother suggested to her that she might have them cleaned, my grandmother said, "what? and have those people at the cleaners what i was doing in a dress to make it that dirty?"
from my grandmother i learned that logic is relative.”

— John Irving

“The thing I loved about her was that I never felt like she was selling anything. She would talk to God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to Him on the phone that day. She was never ashamed which is the thing with some Christians I had encountered.”

— Donald Miller

“I ask her if she loves me and I always feel bad when I ask her that because it makes me sound so desperate. I ask and ask and ask.”

— Benjamin-Alire Saenz

“Oh yeah, that's the one who kept watching me as if she was waiting for me to grow fangs and try to eat her. I couldn't help it-I used my claws to scratch my nose. Her eyes almost popped out of their sockets.”

— Nalini Singh

“If she wanted my money, I'd give her every cent. If she wanted another man, I'd make her forget him”

— Sylvia Day

“He sometimes wondered if she had become involved with him just so that she could cry in someone's arms. Maybe she can't cry alone, and that's why she needs me.”

— Haruki Murakami

“You shouldn't be visiting the saloons by yourself," Connell said. She pulled off her knit cap. "I didn't hear you volunteering to come with me earlier." "If I'd known you were going to march around to all the saloons, I would have offered to tag along." Her curly hair tumbled down around her face and framed eyes that widened. "I have a hard time believing you'd tag along with anyone." "Next time try me." She hesitated and her eyes flickered as if she wanted to believe him but couldn't. "For your information, I've been searching the dregs all winter, and I've been taking care of myself just fine." Connell shook his head. "You're just asking for trouble." "I'm not afraid of trouble." "I can see that." He liked her spunk and her bravery.”

— Jody Hedlund

“I don't want to know what's gone on between the two of you this summer," Dirk said, lowering his voice. "I'm willing to overlook anything she did with you. But I want you to leave now and let me have the chance to gain her affection." "And what if she wants me?" "Do you really think your father would ever approve of a woman like Annalisa? She's not your kind.”

— Jody Hedlund

“And then, just when I know I can live content without Shug, just when Mr. ___ done ast me to marry him again, this time in the spirit as well as in the flesh, and just after I say, Naw, I still don't like frogs, but let's us be friends, Shug write me she's coming home. Now. Is this life or not? *I be so calm.* If she come, I be happy. If she don't I be content. And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn.”

— Alice Walker

“There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all BEGIN freely
a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten a women had better show MORE affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on.”

— Jane Austen

“Alex took a silent step closer to the kitchen door and watched unseen as willow spooned instant coffee into a pair of mugs.With another yawn, she scraped her hair off her face and stretched. She looked so entirely human, so drowsy and sleep-rumpled.For a moment, Alex just gazed at her, taking in her long tumble of hair, her wide green eyes and pixieish chin. Fleetingly, he imagined her eyes meeting his, wondering what she'd look like if she smiled”

— L.A.Weatherly

“I wouldn't have seen the light if she hadn't pointed out, but once sje did, it became impossible to ignore.”

— Ally Condie

“Maybe, if she was standing before that sleeping king, she'd ask the king to save Gansey's life.”

— Maggie Stiefvater

“Coralie felt something pierce through her, as if she were a fish on a hook, unable to break free. She felt a tie to the stranger, drawn to his every movement.”

— Alice Hoffman

“If she simply stayed in the country she would never have to see him again. Viscount Rohan was notoriously unmoved by the countryside, avoiding it at all costs. If she could just convince Lina to remove to her Dorset estate then soon or later Rohan would go abroad, and maybe he'd fall off a mountain or marry a Chinese princess or be eaten by a tiger.”

— Anne Stuart

“Altogether, Olympia thinks the sight of herself satisfactory, but not beautiful: a smile is missing, a certain light about the eyes. For how very different a woman will look when she has happiness, Olympia knows, when her beauty emanates from a sense of well-being or from knowing herself to be greatly loved. Even a plain woman will attract the eye if she is happy, while the most elaborately coiffed and bejeweled woman in a room, if she cannot summon contentment, will seem to be merely decorative.”

— Anita Shreve

“Franny was staring at the little blotch of sunshine with a special intensity, as if she were considering lying down in it.”

— J.D. Salinger

“Were the beaux less generous over time? Her assets less marketable? If she had lived to be old, would she have resided in a teacup, to be sipped at intervals beneath some gray moustache?”

— Barbara Kingsolver

“I want you to slip it under Mademoiselle d'Albon's chamber door. If she opens it and throws an axe at you, come and tell me. If not, you may go back to bed.”

— Dorothy Dunnett

“He thought perhaps it was a woman's way, to come out of such a storm of emotion and pain as if she were a ship emerging onto calm seas. She had seemed, not at peace, but emptied of sorrow. As if she had run out of that particular emotion and no other one arose to take its place.”

— Robin Hobb

“But I could always tell in her eyes if she got really pissed at me, and her eyes were still pretty smiley”

— John Green

“But she wouldn't have been a Cat Person if she had not.”

— Anne McCaffrey

“If she was liquid, she would drink her; if she was a gas, she would breathe her; if she was a pill, she would down her'; if she was a dress, she would wear her; a plate, she would lick her clean.”

— Maggie O'Farrell

“If she married me, I'd follow her to the gates of Hell.”

— J.M. Darhower

“Cerulean left. I wondered if she was from Flower Planet. Blue flowers were rare - one might take a name from that.”

— Stephenie Meyer

“Simon went over to Jace and dropped the soup can into the cart. "So what was all that about?"
"I think," Jace said, "that she asked if she could touch my mango.”

— Cassandra Clare

“Oh, as far as unsexing is concerned, who are we to throw stones? With us any girl that cannot find a husband is unsexed. If she is very high or very low she may go her own way, with the risks entailed therein, but otherwise she must either have no sex or he disgraced. She burns, and she is ridiculed for burning. To say nothing of male tyranny-a wife or a daughter being a mere chattel in most codes of law or custom-and brute force-to say nothing to that, hundreds of thousands of girls are in effect unsexed every generation: and barren women are as much despised as eunuchs. I do assure you, Martin, that if I were a woman I should march out with a flaming torch and a sword; I should emasculate right and left. As for the women of the pahi, I am astonished at their moderation.”

— Patrick O'Brian

“You're late." Kat said as soon as Hale put the phone to his ear. She wasn't the kind of girl to wait for hello.
"What can I say? Macey McHenry has been throwing herself at me ... "
"See, that's the kind of thing that would make me jealous if she weren't way out of your league."
"You know, if I had feelings, that might have hurt them.”

— Ally Carter

“Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? You may have causes, goals, interests. Are they even worth pursuing? I've long held on to a clipping from a newspaper in Roanoke, Virginia. It featured a photo of a pregnant woman who had lodged a protest against a local construction site. She worried that the sound of jackhammers was injuring her unborn child. But get this: In the photo, the woman is holding a cigarette. If she cared about her unborn child, the time she spent railing against jackhammers would have been better spent putting out that cigarette.”

— Randy Pausch

“Having all those demons makes it interesting, for me. Coming back now and being completely sober is okay, but I do like going back into the messy area. It's an empowering thing to play now, but at the same time, I do like to play the dirty side more. So, we'll see if she slips, or something. Wendy is always on the edge.”

— Drea De Matteo

“Every week, Michael went to Dean and DeLuca to buy your pears." She shook her head, remembering. "He waas going to school, and he had no money, so he stretched every penny like this -" She made a motion as if she were pulling on rubber band. "But he wanted you to have the best pears. For you, only the best would do.”

— Judith McNaught

“The grandchildren of the kids who used to weep because the Little Match Girl froze to death now feel cheated if she isn't slugged, raped and thrown into a Bessemer converter.”

— Jenkin Lloyd Jones

“No female - young, old, black or white - could ever play the knight-on-charger with meager experience. If she presented herself as the human embodiment of national unity and world peace, everyone would have fallen down laughing.”

— Froma Harrop

“This show [Jessica Jones] was exploring the aftermath, and that is unique. You're sitting there going, "I know what happens. This is the aftermath." You watch her daily life and how she dealt with people, like new prospects for love or friends that were close to her, but she didn't know if she could trust them or if they were enemies.”

— Mike Colter

“The Lady with the Lamp, the Statue of Liberty, stands in New York Harbour. Her back is squarely turned on the USA. It's no wonder, considering what she would have to look upon. She would weep, if she had to face this way.”

— Claudia Jones

“Lillian shut her eyes briefly, as if she hoped when she opened them she would behold a world in which people never said ridiculous things.”

— Sarah Rees Brennan

“Dating a white girl is like dating a black girl if she were really passive-agressive.”

— Dov Davidoff

“I have been asked, politely and not so politely, why I am myself. This is an accounting any woman will be called on to give if she asserts her will.”

— Andrea Dworkin