“My love has eyes blue as the sky.
Her warm, bright smile makes me want to try
To give her the world,
And when she's curled
Up in my arms where I can feel her touch,
I realize again that I love her so much.
My world has turned from black to white.
Kissing in starlight, basking in sunlight, dancing at midnight.'
~John's poem for Belle”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“Look at me," John gasped. "I cannot remember the last time I allowed
myself to be so happy. I smile all day long without knowing why. I climbed a bloody tree, vaulted through your window, and here I am—laughing.It's the middle of the night, and yet here I am
with you. Dancing at midnight, holding perfection in my arms." -John Blackwood to Arabella Blydon”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“But looking beautiful isn't, I think, as important as feeling beautiful,”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“Your heart is free now."
"No," he whispered. "It's yours.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“I thought you wouldn't want weepy words of love and all that.'
Belle swatted him on the shoulder. 'Of course I do! Every woman does. Especially from the man she actually wants to accept. So devise some weepy words and I'll-'
'Aha! So you accept!”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“No, of course not," Belle said, playfully swatting him on the shoulder. "I never, never even once thought I was making a mistake. I was just a bit at odds with myself because my wedding wasn't exactly how I dreamed it was going to be."
"I'm sorry," John said softly.
"No, no, don't be. Just because it wasn't what I thought I wanted doesn't mean it wasn't absolutely perfect. Oh, dear, am I making any sense at all.?"
John nodded solemnly.
"I thought that I needed a church and hundreds of guest and music that actually sounded like music, but I was wrong. What I needed was a drunken priest, irreverent guests, and a companion who learned to play piano from a goat."
"Then you got exactly what you needed."
"I suppose so. But then again, all I really needed was you."
John leaned down to kiss her again, and they remained thus occupied for the next hour.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“No, Belle needed him. He had to save her from a disastrous marriage. And then, he supposed, he'd simply marry her himself.
John wasn't unaware that he was about to pull one of the greatest about-faces in history. He could only hope that Belle would understand that he had realized she'd had been right all along. People made mistakes, didn't they? After all, he wasn't some infallible storybook hero.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“In this light your eyes look almost purple. Like black raspberries.'
Belle laughed softly. 'You must be in a state of perpetual hunger. You keep likening me to fruit.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“I thought that I needed a church and hundreds of guests and music that
actually sounded like music, but I was wrong.
What I needed was a drunken priest, irreverent guests, and a companion
who learned to play piano from a goat."
"Then you got exactly what you needed."
"I suppose so. But then again, all I really needed was you.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“What happened?'
'He humiliated me.'
'Oh, my Lord, Belle. He didn't...'
'No. But I wish I had. Then he'd have to marry me, and I-'
'Belle, you don't know what you're saying.'
'I know exactly what I'm saying! Why is it that no one can credit me with the ability to know my own mind?”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“How dare you belittle me this way?'
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'I have never, not even once in my life, given my love to another man. And you throw it back in my face like a trifle.'
'You misunderstand me. It is because I value your love so highly that I do not accept it.'
'You don't accept it because you don't want to accept it. You're mired in misplaced guilt and self-pity.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“It's just that I love you so much, and -'
'Belle, please.'
'Please what? Please don't tell you I love you? Please don't love you?'
'I can't accept it, Belle.'
...
'How can I possibly let myself continue to love a man who can never love me back?'
'But Belle,' he whispered. 'I do love you.'
John wasn't certain how he expected her to respond, but it was certainly not in the manner she did. She stepped back as if hit ... 'No,' she finally gasped. 'No. Don't say that. Don't tell me that.' ... 'You can't do that,' she said, each word a hoarse little stab of pain. 'You're not allowed. You can’t say that and not let me do the same. It isn’t fair.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“Belle had a feeling that someone had hurt this man very badly in the past. That didn't, however, mean that she would allow him to abuse her in turn.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“Will you allow me to start over this morning? I fear I arose on the wrong side of the bed.
'It is I who should apologize. I'm afraid that any side of the bed would have been the wrong one at this hour.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“He was wearing that enigmatic little smile of his, as if he knew something that she didn't. Actually, she thought, it was more like he knew something that she never would.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“You make me sound like some kind of heartless ice princess.'
'No, of course not, Belle. I must admit, you have always been uncommonly nice to every pimply-faced boy who has ever asked you to dance.'
'Thank you. I think.'
'It's probably why so many pimply-faced boys ask you to dance.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“John ignored her insult, recognizing it for what it was: a mindless jibe from one wounded animal to another.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“How in the hell am I supposed to watch my back if I have no idea what I'm watching for?”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“John shrugged. "It always seemed silly to me to desire a woman who cannot converse any better than a sheep."
Belle leaned forward, her eyes glittering mischievously. "Really? I would have thought you'd prefer such a woman,considering your difficulty with polite conversation."
"Touche, my lady. I cede this round to you.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“He could just barely make out her form in the path about ten yards ahead of him. Her hair was so fair it captured what little moonlight hung in the darkness and glowed like a halo.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“amidst the horrors of war, it became apparent that there was no way he could possibly survive the carnage. And if by some stroke of fate he managed to come through the conflict with his body intact, he knew that his soul would not be so lucky.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“Her unintended striptease was all the more sensual because Belle was lowering her stocking with agonizing slowness not because she had an audience but because she seemed to love the feel of the silk sliding along her soft skin.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“Siempre me pareció una tontería desear a una mujer que conversara apenar mejor que una oveja. ”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“Most people don't laugh so much while they're kissing." He grinned boyishly and tweaked her nose.
Belle tweaked his back. "They don't? How unfortunate for them.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
“You don't talk much, do you?" she blurted out.
"I didn't think there was a need. You seem to be holding up both our ends of the conversation admirably.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Dancing at Midnight
Julia Quinn
Born place: New York City, NY, The United States
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“I grabbed her, right there outside the lunch room in the swarming mob. I didn't care if others were watching. In fact, i hoped they were. I grabbed her and squeezed her. I had never been so happy and so proud in my life.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Stargirl
“They stood there, King of the Hill, Top of the Heap, Ruler of All They Surveyed, Unimpeachable Monarchs and Presidents, trying to understand what it meant to own a world and how big a world really was.”
― Ray Bradbury, quote from The Martian Chronicles
“Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?”
― Lao Tzu, quote from Tao Te Ching
“We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, quote from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“The old man might have been drunk, but he was right. Outsiders have robbed and exploited the people of the Congo ever since the days of the first European and Arab slavers. The territory that Stanley staked in the name of Leopold witnessed what many regard as the first genocide of the modern era, when millions of Congolese were effectively worked to death trying to meet the colonialists’ almost insatiable demand for resources, most notably rubber. And since independence, foreign powers have toyed with the Congo, stripping its mineral assets and exploiting its strategic position, never mindful of the suffering inflicted on its people. And that really was the point. At every stage of its bloody history, outsiders have tended to treat Congolese as somehow sub-human, not worthy of the consideration they would expect for themselves. For progress to be made, outsiders must treat Congolese as equals and they could do worse than follow the example of an amazing white woman I discovered after we got back to Kalemie.”
― Tim Butcher, quote from Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart
Love on the Lifts
Ethics for the New M...
When the Heart Waits...
The Cheese Monkeys
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