Quotes from Chain Reaction

Simone Elkeles ·  319 pages

Rating: (54.2K votes)


“Marry me, Kiara,” he blurts out in front of everyone.
“Why?” she asks, challenging him.
“Because I love you,” he says, walking up to her and bending down on one knee while he takes her hand in his, “and I want to go to sleep with you every night and wake up seein’ your face every mornin’, I want you to be the mother of my children, I want to fix cars with you and eat your crappy tofu tacos that you think are Mexican. I want to climb mountains with you and be challenged by you, I want to argue with you just so we can have crazy hot makeup sex. Marry me, because without you I’d be six feet under … and because I love your family like they’re my own … and because you’re my best friend and I want to grow old with you.” He starts tearing up, and it’s shocking because I’ve never seen him cry. “Marry me, Kiara Westford, because when I got shot the only thing I was thinkin’ about was comin’ back here and makin’ you my wife. Say yes, chica.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“Nobody really knows her
Except the chosen few
Her secrets are kept hidden
Behind that sun-kissed hue.

If I reach out to touch her
She’ll just run away
My Forever and Always
Will have to wait another day.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“We deserve each other, Luis … and I need you just as much as you need me. Hold me.”
He steps closer, but hesitates.
“If I do, mi chava, I can’t promise I’ll be able to let you go.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“Love. Is it just a word that boys use to manipulate girls?”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“You make me believe in the impossible.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction



“- I don't want you to love me.
- Too late, mi chava.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“As If I could just turn my feelings off like a faucet.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“Alex and Carlos—the tag team from hell. They’re the last people I need shit from right now. If they decide to trail me, too, I’ll have an entire entourage.
“I’m fine.”
“Then sit up and talk to us.”
“Okay, in that case I’m not fine. Go away.” I moan. “Unless you want me to puke all over you.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“I love you because you’re the only person I want to make love to without any conditions and—and I love that you need me.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“You shouldn't love me. I don't deserve you.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction



“Why are you making a joke out of this?" she asks.
"Because it's stupid, Nik. There's not even room in my day to think about someone else.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“I want to hold you, Nikki. Will you let me?”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“Nothin'," Alex says. "We'll talk later, chica. It's not a big deal."


"Don't chica me, Alex," his bride snaps.


"I think she's gonna deck him," Ben murmurs, amused.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“He has no clue that I have the patience of a saint. At least that's what Carlos says, although that isn't saying much, considering his fuse is about as short as an eyelash.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“I won't have sex with you," she blurts out.

He words slam into my libido like a bucket of water on a flame full of testosterone. I think my dick just twitched in protest.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction



“I didn't like seeing you with him" he says. "I don't think I'd like seeing you with any other guy....beside me.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“There’s always time for arguin’ when you’re a Fuentes.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“We need to look back sometimes and realize the past taught us to appreciate our future.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“You make me believe in love, which I'd give up on. Thank you for proving to me it's not just a fairy tale.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“Sometimes things are better off forgotten.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction



“The percentage of couples who stay together after high school is, like, less than five percent, you guys.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“What are you boys doing?” she asks, as if we’re still little kids messing around.
“Arguin’,” Carlos says matter-of-factly.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“She ignores me, so I cup my hands over my mouth and do something I haven’t done in years— barnyard sounds.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“Ben walks in the room and asks, “What were you guys doing?” Nikki says “Nothing” at the same time I say, “Your sister and I were just makin’ out.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“So what if we have chemistry. Chemistry doesn't miraculously turn bad boys into good ones.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction



“Sometimes I think Ben is right, that the fantasy world is better because reality sucks...but then I look at Nikki and I believe that we can beat the odds.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“Three things Marco taught me today race through my mind: boys will lie to your face just to have sex with you, don’t trust any boy who says I love you, and never date a boy who lives on the south side of Fairfield.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“Snakes don't have fuckin' legs, so how was I supposed to think there'd be one hidin' in the face of a damn rock that's ten feet below the summit?”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


“Doesn't the thought of marryin' me give you an adrenaline rush?”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Chain Reaction


About the author

Simone Elkeles
Born place: Chicago, IL, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Do you want me to leave?' 'What? No fuckin' way do I want you to leave. What I want is for you to relax and enjoy yourself with me tonight, so all I'm doing by canceling our date is taking it our of the equation. If it happens to turn into a date later, then awesome. If it does't, then I might be a little disappointed...' He grins to let me know that he is teasing. 'There isn't any pressure here. I like you - a lot. I think that is pretty obvious. But I want you to want to be here with me in the same way as I do you. If you're not quite there yet, then that's ok. I'll wait until you are. However long it takes.”
― Samantha Towle, quote from Trouble


“A aparência de um espírito depende inteiramente do modo como ele decide projetar a si mesmo, ou de como vê a si próprio em sua mente. É por isso que contatos com espíritos presos à terra nem sempre são eventos tranquilos, passivos. A tragédia vem em muitas formas, em geral acompanhada de violência, e os últimos pensamentos de um indivíduo tendem a dominar a mente do seu espírito após a morte física. Assim, via de regra, o fantasma se manifestará em um espetáculo grotesco, que representa o modo como ele morreu”
― quote from The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren


“Thigh on thigh, chest on chest, we're so close, there's not even night between us.”
― Lara Zielin, quote from The Waiting Sky


“He'd once explained that when he was a boy his very proper parents had forbidden him and his brothers to curse in the house so 'feather buckets' was the young boys coded way of saying 'f*ck it”
― Kate Carlisle, quote from Homicide in Hardcover


“Suppose that a man leaps out of a burning building—as my dear friend and colleague Jeff Goldberg sat and said to my face over a table at La Tomate in Washington not two years ago—and lands on a bystander in the street below. Now, make the burning building be Europe, and the luckless man underneath be the Palestinian Arabs. Is this a historical injustice? Has the man below been made a victim, with infinite cause of complaint and indefinite justification for violent retaliation? My own reply would be a provisional 'no,' but only on these conditions. The man leaping from the burning building must still make such restitution as he can to the man who broke his fall, and must not pretend that he never even landed on him. And he must base his case on the singularity and uniqueness of the original leap. It can't, in other words, be 'leap, leap, leap' for four generations and more. The people underneath cannot be expected to tolerate leaping on this scale and of this duration, if you catch my drift. In Palestine, tread softly, for you tread on their dreams. And do not tell the Palestinians that they were never fallen upon and bruised in the first place. Do not shame yourself with the cheap lie that they were told by their leaders to run away. Also, stop saying that nobody knew how to cultivate oranges in Jaffa until the Jews showed them how. 'Making the desert bloom'—one of Yvonne's stock phrases—makes desert dwellers out of people who were the agricultural superiors of the Crusaders.”
― Christopher Hitchens, quote from Hitch-22: A Memoir


Interesting books

The Willoughbys
(10.1K)
The Willoughbys
by Lois Lowry
Ida B. . . and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World
(21.4K)
Ida B. . . and Her P...
by Katherine Hannigan
The Normal Christian Life
(6.5K)
The Normal Christian...
by Watchman Nee
Clear and Present Danger
(113.3K)
Clear and Present Da...
by Tom Clancy
The Invisible Circus
(4.9K)
The Invisible Circus
by Jennifer Egan
Saddled and Spurred
(5.8K)
Saddled and Spurred
by Lorelei James

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.