Quotes About If Only She Knew

“Then Cynthia looked at him and smiled, and he knew he couldn't possibly resist her, no matter what she had done. It felt as though the two of them had just stripped naked and dived off a high cliff over a beautiful river. The water below looked cool and inviting. But what if it was only six inches deep?”

— Robert Burton Robinson

“You're sad-looking," she said. "My grandson used to be such a happy boy. He used to write me stories. I remember the first story he ever wrote me, 'Once upon a time, there was a boy.' And that became 'Once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to fly.' And they kept getting better and better over time. I never found out if the boy got to fly."
I gave her a small smile. If only she knew the boy's wings had been clipped.”

— Chris Colfer

“He knew how hot those rumbly-grumbly, gravel-voiced noises made her: hotter than two rats wrestling in a wool sock ... only not as scratchy. Or as smelly. Probably less squeaky, too. But she had to be strong. For the sake of her children. For the sake of her winery. For the sake of her poor, battered heart. For the sake of this story, which would be over far too quickly if she gave in to him now.”

— Nine Naughty Novelists

“She only modelled for him once,' Max said stubbornly, leaning the canvases back against the wall and replacing the sheet.
'Once, twice or umpteen times, it's proof she knew Spataro ... how shall we put it? ... on terms a man who loved her might resent.'
'There are lots of artists in Montparnasse, Appelby, and lots of artists' models.'
'I wouldn't like it. And I bet Sir Henry didn't like it either.'
'There was nothing between Corinne and Spataro.'
'That's the problem, isn't it?' Appelby pointed with the stem of his pipe at the shrouded paintings. 'There may have been *literally* nothing between them.”

— Robert Goddard

“Later, Jenny would say she seldom knew what she would take a picture of when she picked up a camera, that she only knew once she peered through the viewfinder, as if the photograph had finally found her.”

— Whitney Otto

“She wanted his strong, capable hands on her blody and those soft lips locked with hers. She wanted to be held tight and kissed until she could forget-if only for a few precious minutes-that her life as she knew it had evaporated in a cloud of smoke and flame and violence.”

— Melissa Cutler

“We talked, she and I. She asked about my work and it was a pretense, she was not interested in my work. And when I answered, it was a pretense. I was not interested in my work either. There was only one thing that interested us, and she knew it. She had made it plain by her coming.”

— John Fante

“She nodded against me. "Do you need me to do anything?"
I didn't need a thing from her, but I wanted everything. I wanted her to leave Tyler, to love me, to want to live here with me for the rest of our lives. I wanted so damn much.
"Just go back to sleep, then enjoy the rest of the day with the girls. I'll be back tonight."
"I'll be waiting her for you."
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath in and held it. if only she knew what she did to me.”

— Molly McAdams

“As though all the world were a bad joke and she was the only one around who knew the punchline.”

— Jack Ketchum

“You'll wear loads of face powder and rouge."
"They'll itch." She knew from experimenting with Cousin Augusta's.
"And you must use a false name."
"I'll forget it. I know it."
He sighed. "You can't afford to forget it."
"Then it must be Delilah," she said. "It's the only name I'll be able to remember."
"Why Delilah?"
"I don't know. But I already know I won't forget it.”

— Kieran Kramer

“But we were chumps and we knew it. As makers of sentences we were practically fetal, beneath notice, unlaunched, fooling around in our spare time or on somebody else's dime. Nobody loved our sentences as we loved them, and so they congealed or grew sour on our tongues.
We barely glanced at our wall-scribblings for fear of what a few weeks or even hours might expose in our infatuations. Our photocopied fortune slips we'd find in muddy clogs in storm drains, tangled with advertising flyers, unheeded.
Our manuscripts? Those were unspeakable secrets, kept not only from the world but from each other.
My pages were shameful, occluded everywhere with xxxxxx's of regret. I scurried to read Clea's manuscript every time she left the apartment but never confessed that I even knew it existed.
Her title was "Those Young Rangers Thought Love Was a Scandal Like a Bald White Head." Mine was "I Heard the Laughter of the Sidemen from Behind Their Instruments.”

— Jonathan Lethem

“The only person she knew at all was Marquez, and Marquez seemed to have been possessed by the music.”

— Katherine Applegate

“Despite my funny feeling about her, I regretfully obliged to his interest in pursuing a sexual relationship with her. I knew James only wanted the pussy, but I could see in Raven's eyes that she wanted more.”

— Jessica N. Watkins

“I kissed the living shit out of her as I came harder than I ever had in my life. I kissed her until neither of us could breathe. Kissed her until she was pulling at my ears to get me to let her go. Kissed her until I felt her start to shimmy and quake around my dick. Kissed her until I sent her back over the edge while I tried to get my wits and rationality back. I kissed her like I knew there were only a limited number of times she was going to let me do it, and I was going to make each one a memory.”

— Jay Crownover

“Sylvia Plath was just a month and a half older than I, and when she committed suicide I was only 30 - and very shocked and sorry. I never knew her personally.”

— Anne Stevenson

“One feels pan of a vast servitude, anonymous and unending, all of it vanishing unexpectedly with the passing image of Madame Picquet behind the glass of her office, that faintly vulgar, thrilling profile. As I think of it, there's an ache in my chest. I cannot control these dreams in which she seems to lie in my future like a whole season of extravagant meals if only I knew how to arrange it.”

— James Salter

“I knew she was leaving. I knew we were never going to date long-distance. I knew that we wouldn't have been able to be like this back when were were dating, so there was no use in regretting what hadn't happened. I suspected that what happens in hotel rooms rarely lasts outside of them. I suspected that when something was a beginning and an ending at the same time, that meant it could only exist in the present ...
..It was snowing outside, anointing the air with a quiet wonder shared by all passersby. When I got back to my mother's apartment, I was a mixture of giddy thrill-happiness and muddle gut-confusion
I didn't want to leave anything regarding Sofia to chance, and at the same time I was enjoying this step away from it.”

— David Levithan

“The world was full of beauty.
She wanted to grab hold of it and take it down into her bones. Yet always it seemed beyond her grasp. Sometimes only by a little, like now. The thinnest membrane.
Usually, though, by miles.
She couldn't expect to be that kind of happy all the time. She knew that.
But sometimes you could. Sometimes you should be allowed a tiny bit of joy that should stay with you for more than five minutes. That wasn't too much to ask. To have a moment like this, and be able to hold on to it.
To cross that membrane, and feel alive.”

— Sara Zarr

“Perhaps somewhere in the universe there was a touchstone that she had never found, perhaps there was a clue that would make everything simple and clear
if only she knew where to look ...”

— Anna Kavan

“She had forgotten them all; forgotten Richard down in the mud, and the marquis and his foolish crossbow, and the world. She was delighted and transported, in a perfect place, the world she lived for. Her world contained two things: Hunter, and the Beast. The Beast knew that too. It was the perfect match, the hunter and the hunted. And who was who, and which was which, only time would reveal; time and the dance.”

— Neil Gaiman

“Now, Hazel was not stupid. She knew that just because you see a piece of cake and a sign that says EAT ME doesn't mean you should actually do it. And just because two giant ravens point you in the direction of a path doesn't mean you should take it. But it was the only path she had.”

— Anne Ursu

“All I cared about then was catching a glimpse of Chairman Mao. I turned my eyes quickly away from Liu to the front of the motorcade. I spotted Mao's stalwart back, his right arm steadily waving. In an instant, he had disappeared. My heart sank. Was that all I would see of Chairman Mao? Only a fleeting glimpse of his back? The sun seemed suddenly to have turned gray. All around me the Red Guards were making a huge din. The girl standing next to me had just pierced the index finger of her right hand and was squeezing blood out of it to write something on a neatly folded handkerchief. I knew exactly the words she was going to use. It had been done many times by other Red Guards and had been publicized ad nauseam: "I am the happiest person in the world today. I have seen our Great Leader Chairman Mao!" Watching her, my despair grew. Life seemed pointless. A thought flickered into my mind: perhaps I should commit suicide?”

— Jung Chang

“She looked at the boy. He knew her weakness for storytelling. And it was, after all, only a story. Still, she wished he had chosen a happier one.”

— Marie Rutkoski

“She never knew that Mr. Laurence opened his study door to hear the old-fashioned airs he liked. She never saw Laurie mount guard in the hall to warn the servants away. She never suspected that the exercise books and new songs which she found in the rack were put there for her special benefit, and when he talked to her about music at home she only thought how kind he was to tell things that helped her so much. So she enjoyed herself heartily, and found, what isn't always the case, that her granted wish was all she had hoped. Perhaps it was because she was so grateful for this blessing that a greater was given her. At any rate she deserved both.”

— Louisa May Alcott

“You should read something else."
Why would he have done that to him?"
I don't know," she said.
Do you ever feel like Job?"
She smiled, a little twinkle in her eyes.
Sometimes."
But you haven't lost your faith?"
No," I knew she hadn't, but I think I was losing mine.
Is it because you think you might get better?"
No," she said,"its because its the only thing I have left.”

— Nicholas. Sparks

“Casually, out of the view of Ronan, making sure Adam was still sleeping, Gansey dangled his hand between the driver's seat and the door. Palm up, fingers stretched back to Blue.
This was not allowed.
He knew it was not allowed, by rules he himself had set ... She would not see the gesture, anyway. She would ignore it if she did. His heart hummed.
Blue touched his fingertips.
Just this
He pinched her fingers lightly, just for a moment, and then he withdrew his hand and put it back on the wheel. His chest felt warm.
This was not allowed.
Ronan had not seen; Adam was still sleeping. The only casualty was his pulse.
-Page 36 <3”

— Maggie Stiefvater

“She didn't know what would happen because of this. But she knew that today, she would hurt no one. She threw back her blankets and though only of today.”

— Kristin Cashore

“There has always been something enigmatic about Cassie. This is one of the things I like in her, and I like it all the more for being, paradoxically, a quality that isn't readily apparent, elusiveness brought to so high a level it becomes almost invisible. She gives the impression of being startlingly, almost childishly open
which is true, as far as it goes: what you see is in fact what you get. But what you don't get, what you barely glimpse: this is the side of Cassie that fascinated me always. Even after all this time I knew there were rooms inside her that she had never let me guess at, let alone enter. There were questions she wouldn't answer, topics she would discuss only in the abstract; try to pin her down and she would skim away laughing, as nimbly as a figure skater.”

— Tana French

“You learned good, Uncle Fifty," Lou said, shoveling beans onto her plate. "You get an A-plus. Will you teach Mattie how to cook? She can only make mush and pancakes. And a pea soup that's so bad, it's more pee than soup."
Uncle Fifty roared. My sisters laughed. Especially Lou. Pa raised an eyebrow at her, but that didn't quiet her. She knew she was safe because our uncle was laughing.
"Don't mind them, Mattie," Abby said, petting me.
"You like my pea soup, don't you Ab?" I asked, hurt.
She looked at me with her kind eyes. "No, Mattie, I don't. It's awful.”

— Jennifer Donnelly

“The only part of the evening I really enjoyed was when Lord Pomtinius told me a limerick about an adulterous abbot."
"Don't you dare repeat it!" her sister ordered. Georgiana had never shown the faintest wish to rebel against the rules of propriety. She loved and lived by them.
"There once was an adulterous abbot," Olivia teased, "as randy-"
Georgiana slapped her hands over her ears. "I can't believe he told you such a thing! Father would be furious if he knew."
"Lord Pomtinius was in his cups," Olivia said. "Besides, he's ninety-six and he doesn't care about decorum any longer. Just a laugh, now and then."
"It doesn't even make sense. An adulterous abbot? How can an abbot be adulterous? They don't even marry."
"Let me know if you want to hear the whole verse," Olivia said. "It ends with talk of nuns, so I believe the word was being used loosely.”

— Eloisa James

“The ground is still filled iwth rings, and money, and pictures, and Jewish things. I was only able to find a few of them, but they fill the earth. The hero did not ask me once what she was saying. I am not certain if he knew what she was saying, or if he knew not to inquire.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer

“She knew she was going to have trouble believing in herself, in the room of her house, and when she glanced over at this new book on her nightstand, stacked atop the one she finished last night, she reached for it automatically, as if reading were the singular and obvious first task of the day, the only viable way to negotiate the transit from sleep to obligation.”

— Michael Cunningham

“Just for fun I flew in huge banking arcs, taking deep breaths, enjoying the feel of my newly weightless hair. The stylist had called it "wind tossed."
If only she knew.”

— James Patterson

“They won't get us," I said. "Because you're too brave. Nothing ever happens to the brave."
"They die of course."
"But only once."
"I don't know. Who said that?"
"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one?"
"Of course. Who said it?"
"I don't know."
"He was probably a coward," she said. "He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he's intelligent. He simply doesn't mention them."
"I don't know. It's hard to see inside the head of the brave."
"Yes. That's how they keep that way."
"You're an authority."
"You're right, darling. That was deserved."
"You're brave."
"No," she said. "But I would like to be.”

— Ernest Hemingway

“It soon became obvious, even with9in the stedding, that the Pattern was grwoing frail. The sky darkened. Our dead appeared, standing in rings outside the broders of the stedding, looking in. Most troubingly, trees fell ill, and no song would heal them.
It was in this time of sorrows that I stepped up to the Great Stump. At first, I was forbidden, but my mother, covril, demanded I have my chance. I do not know wht sparked her change of heart, as she herself had argued quite decisvely for the opposing side. My hands shook. I would be the last speaker, and most seemed to have already made up their minds to open the Book of Translation. They considered me an afterthought.
And I knew that unless I spoke true, humanity would be left along to face the Shadow. In that moment, my nervousness fled. I felt only a stilness, a calm sense of purpose. I opened my mouth, and I began to speak.
-from The Dragon Reborn, by Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, of Stedding Shangtai”

— Brandon Sanderson

“She deserves better. So much better. She deserves me. If only she knew that.”

— Colleen Hoover

“At first, she loved nought else but flowers,
And then-she only loved the rose;
And then-herself alone; and then-
She knew not what, but now-she knows.”

— Ridgely Torrence

“Io. My name is Io." She pronounced the name "eye-oh" as if there perfectly ordinary. Which was ridiculous, because no one he knew bore a name with only vowels.”

— Katie MacAlister

“She knew him in that way you can only know a person as a child. Like if you cracked away the adult shell, you'd find that child, happily sitting inside, smiling at you.”

— Sarah Addison Allen