“A man's vanity is more fragile that you might think. It's easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference.”
“Mysteries of attraction could not always be explained through logic. Sometimes the fractures in two separate souls became the very hinges that held them together.”
“It’s impossible,” he snapped.
“Why?”
“Because I’m Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent. I can’t be celibate. Everyone knows that.”
“I want to fill every part of you, breathe the air from your lungs and leave my handprints on your soul. I want to give you more pleasure than you can bear.”
“I’ll take your bet,” he said grimly. “I’m going to win it. And in three months, I’m going to put this back on your finger, and take you to bed, and do things to you that are outlawed in the civilized world.”
“It’s a mistake, you know. You have no idea of what you’ll be exposed to…the obscenities and lewd comments, the lecherous gazes, the groping and pinching…and that’s just at my house. Imagine what it would be like here.”
“Ah, Evie,” she heard him say softly, “I must have a heart, after all…because right now it aches like the devil.”
“Only your heart?” she asked ingenuously, making him laugh.
He lowered her to the bed, his eyes sparkling wickedly. “Also a few other things,” he conceded. “And as my wife, it’s your duty to ease all my aches.”
“The situation was extraordinary. How someone like Evangeline Jenner could have wrought such a change in St. Vincent, the most worldly of men, was difficult to understand. However, Westcliff had learned that the mysteries of attraction could not always be explained through logic. Sometimes the fractures in two separate souls became the very hinges that held them together.”
“If my love can hold you, I'll keep you with me.”
“Slowly his resistance ebbed. She felt the change in his body, the relaxing of tension, his shoulders curving around her as if he could draw her into himself. Murmuring her name, he brought her hand to his face and nuzzled ardently into her palm, his lips brushing the warm circlet of her gold wedding band. “My love is upon you,” he whispered…and she knew then that she had won.”
“Good God. I don’t believe St. Vincent and the word ‘celibacy’ have ever been mentioned in the same sentence before.”
“Lately I've become so damned distracted that I can't make a decision about anything. I can't think clearly. I've got knots in my stomach, and constant pains in my chest, and whenever I see you talking to any man, or smiling at anyone, I go insane with jealousy. I can't live this way. I—" He broke off and stared at her incredulously. "Damn it, Evie, what is there for you to smile about?"
"Nothing," she said, hastily tucking the sudden smile back into the corners of her mouth. "It's just… it sounds as if you're trying to say that you love me.”
“He looked like a fallen angel, replete with all the dangerous male beauty that Lucifer could devise.”
“What happened to your stammer?"
"I suppose I must feel comfortable with you. I tend to stammer less with certain people."
"No one's ever told me that I'm a comfortable sort. I'm sure I don't like it. I'll have to do something diabolical soon to correct your impression.”
“Ghost?” St. Vincent shot him an incredulous glance. “Christ. You’re not serious, are you?”
"I’m a Gypsy,” Cam replied matter-of-factly. “Of course I believe in ghosts.”
“Only half Gypsy. Which led me to assume that the rest of you was at least marginally sane and rational.”
“The other half is Irish,” Cam said a touch apologetically.
“Christ,” St. Vincent said again, shaking his head as he strode away.”
“I rarely dislike people for things they can't change, they usually give me sufficient cause to dislike them for other reasons.”
“A lang, lang time ago…” MacPhee began, ignoring St.Vincent’s low groan, “there was a bonnie maid called Malvina. She was the betrothed of Oscar, the braw warrior who won her heart. Oscar bade his beloved tae wait for him while he went tae seek his fortune. But one black day Malvina received word that her lover had been killed in battle. He would lie forever in eternal rest in the faraway hills…lost in endless slumber…”
“God, I envy him,” St. Vincent said feelingly, rubbing his own dark-circled eyes.”
“I won’t apologize for my past. A man is supposed to have experience.”
“From all indications, you’ve acquired enough for ten men.”
“Damn it. I don't know how to be a husband, or father. But since your standards in both areas seem to be relatively low, I may have half a chance at pleasing you.”
“If your concern is that I may be overcome with manly ardor and ravish you in a moment of weakness… I may. If you ask nicely.”
“I don't share my body heat indiscriminately.”
“Women beg me for it, and not the other way around."
"Then you should go to one of them."
"Oh, I will. When we return to London, I'm going to embark on a spree of orgiastic debauchery that won't end until someone is arrested for it. But in the meanwhile...do you truly expect that the two of us are going to share a bed tonight-and tomorrow night-as chastely as a pair of nuns on holiday?”
“My prize, my pleasure and pain, my endless desire. I've never know anyone like you.”
“Nature had squandered an unreasonable quantity of male beauty on this undeserving creature.”
“Only you could love such a vile, selfish peacock, Evie.”
“I-I’m not making advances,” she told him as she flattened herself against his chest. “You’re just an available s-source of heat.”
“So you say,” St. Vincent replied lazily, tucking the quilt more tightly around them both.
“However, during the past quarter hour you’ve been fondling parts of my anatomy that no one’s ever dared to touch before.”
“I v-very much doubt that.” She burrowed even further into the depths of his coat, and added in a muffled voice, “You’ve probably been h-handled more than a hamper at Fortnum and Mason.”
“Westcliff thinks that St. Vincent is in love with you.”
Evie choked a little and didn’t dare look up from her tea. “Wh-why does he think that?”
“He’s known St. Vincent from childhood, and can read him fairly well. And Westcliff sees an odd sort of logic in why you would finally be the one to win St. Vincent’s heart. He says a girl like you would appeal to…hmm, how did he put it?…I can’t remember the exact words, but it was something like… you would appeal to St. Vincent’s deepest, most secret fantasy.”
Evie felt her cheeks flushing while a skirmish of pain and hope took place in the tired confines of her chest. She tried to respond sardonically. “I should think his fantasy is to consort with as many women as possible.”
A grin crossed Lillian’s lips. “Dear, that is not St. Vincent’s fantasy, it’s his reality. And you’re probably the first sweet, decent girl he’s ever had anything to do with.”
“Evie ” came his faint whisper “I’m going to your mother see…she’s got ’em to leave a back door open…so I can steal into ’eaven.”
“The bargain…” she mumbled.
“You said I could kiss you,” came his gentle, wicked whisper near her ear. “But, my love…you didn’t specify where.”
“The beautiful lie is, however, also the essence of kitsch. Kitsch is a form of make-believe, a form of deception. It is an alternative to a daily reality that would otherwise be a spiritual vacuum. . . . Kitsch replaces ethics with aesthetics. . . . Nazism was the ultimate expression of kitsch, of its mind-numbing, death-dealing portent. Nazism, like kitsch, masqueraded as life; the reality of both was death. The Third Reich was the creation of “kitsch men,” people who confused the relationship between life and art, reality and myth, and who regarded the goal of existence as mere affirmation, devoid of criticism, difficulty, insight.”
“A legend can just as well be founded in the future as in the past."
"It's called a 'prophecy,'" Urruah said. "You may have heard of the concept.”
“The double row of berths yawned black, like graves tenanted by uneasy corpses.”
“The Necromancer's Tower squatted over the river like an incontinent titan.”
“He called me "Bubbles," a pet name he had chosen, he told me, because I seemed to enjoy so many things. Anxious to confirm his description, I refused to let my enthusiasm wane, even when I grew tired or grumpy. Thus excitement about things became a habit, a part of my personality, and the expectation that I should enjoy new experiences often engendered the enjoyment itself.”
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.