“I can’t let you break my heart. I don’t have much of it left.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“I roll my eyes. 'Are you trying to find some sort of reason that I've become such an asshole? The reason is... I'm an asshole. There are some things in life that can't be explained. Period. Assholes are assholes. Rainbows are pretty. Kittens are cute. Chic flicks are sad. It's the way of things, no explanations.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“She’s like a breath of fresh air.
I may be the Big Bad Wolf, but even wolves need to breathe.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Love never fails, Mila. That's what your parents believed. And because of you, it's what I believe now, too. You stuck by me and loved me when I didn't deserve it. All I want is a chance to prove that I can be worthy of it. Your parents were sort of fucked up in their own way, like me, and they never got the help that they needed. But I will. I promise. I will put the work in. I will learn how to cope with painful things and I will never leave you again. Just tell me that you'll stay with me.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“She walked in beauty, She sleeps in peace.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Sometimes, at the least opportune times, the past is an insomniac, alive and well.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“You’ve seen me at my worst. Maybe you should see me at my best.”
My words hang between us, heavy and charged, and I don’t know what the fuck I am doing.
“When are you at your best?” she asks hesitantly. And I can see from the determined look on her face that she is trying hard not to feel intimidated. I’m impressed. She’s like a kitten standing up to a lion.
“In bed.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“I'll give you a reason," I tell her, my voice raw. "I promise. If you give me the chance, I will give you a reason to be with me.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Love never fails.
But then again, sometimes love has to put boxing gloves on and be tough in order to survive. Sometimes, you have to do the harder thing—the thing where you let someone grow on their own.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“I love you. I love how you are so sweet and innocent and kind to people, but you are such a vixen in the sack. I love how you look at me. I love your smile. I love everything about you.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Things are the way they are, but everything has a reason. Kittens are cute because they're tiny fur-balls with smushed faces. Rainbows are pretty because they have every color in the world in them and they're made from refracted light. Chick flicks are sad because chicks sometimes just need a good cry. And assholes are always assholes for a reason.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“It was never an option. Love never fails, Mila. And I'll never fail you again. That's a promise.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Life is just a mixture of good and bad, of varying shades of grays and whites and blacks.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Mila, I've said this before, but you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. You are beautiful inside and out. I don't deserve to have met you. I don't deserve you in any way. But there's nothing I want more than to be with you. to wake up beside you for the rest of my life. I am so grateful that you stuck by me for as long as you did. And all I want to know now is what I can do to make you stick with me again? You name it and i'll do it. Anything.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Please," I tell her. "Please forgive me. I'm so sorry that I hurt you. I'm so sorry that I've been an asshole and that I shut you out. I didn't know how to handle things without being self-destructive. Self-destruction is all I've ever known. Deep down, it's what I felt like I deserved.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“I don't want to start over again," she says slowly. "I like what we had. I don't want to re-do it. I love you, Pax. But I don't know if I can handle it if you leave me like that again. You shut me out and i couldn't help you. That's not what people do when they love someone. You ripped my heart out and stomped on it.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“I don't think I'm ever going to let you off my lap," I tell her. "So I hope you're comfortable.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And I love you.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Mila, that day, in your shop almost crushed me. When you said no to me, I didn't know if I would survive it, but I knew I had to. I knew that i had to change, for me and for you. And I think I have. I'm still working on it.... it's going to be a process. But I'm willing to put in the work. Forever, if that's what it takes. So... I'm going to ask you again, babe. Stay with me. Stay with me here in my house. It's only a five minute drive to your shop when it's open. And you can use the studio for your art. I promise to try not to snore. And to put the toilet seat sown. Most of the time, anyway. Just stay with me. Please. I never want to be away from you again.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Oh, Red. If you want to turn up the heat, you’ve got to be careful not to get burned by the fire.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Son, you were your mother's peace. You brought her so much peace and joy from the very first time she held you, that she knew she had to name you Pax. Your mother loved you more than anything in the world. She would have gladly given her life a hundred times over to keep you safe. Whatever you do, just live a good life for her. She had so many hopes for you. But when it boils down to it, all she would want is for you to be happy.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“She's the reason I came to your house, remember? She called me or I wouldn't have known that things were so bad. She loves you, Pax. And if there's anything that you should take away from this is that you need to live for today. Tomorrow is not promised to you.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Give me another chance," I ask urgently. "I will do anything that you want me to do if you just tell me that we can start again. I know I don't deserve it, but I'm asking anyway. I honestly don't know if I can breathe without you. Please. I love you, Mila. Please tell me we can work it out.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“It was nice to meet you, Mila. Thank you for saving my life.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“I love you," I tell him again. "I see that," he laughs, kissing me. "Simple words would have sufficed. You didn't need to knock me down with it." I giggle. "Shut up and kiss me.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“You're too good to me," she announces. "Not possible," I answer.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Sometimes we hurt those that we love the most”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“Of course. I don't want you to go through that alone. If something hurt you enough to make you want to forget it, I want to help you get through it. let's chase these dreams away, Pax.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“A simple thank you for saving my life would suffice. I don't need for you to carry me off to your bed to show your gratitude.”
― Courtney Cole, quote from If You Stay
“I stopped in St. Bernadette's Cemetery one of my favorite places... The trunks of six giant oaks rise like columns supporting a ceiling formed by their interlocking crowns. In the quiet space below, is laid out an aisle similar to those in any library. The gravestones are like rows of books bearing the names of those whose names have been blotted from the pages of life; who have been forgotten elsewhere but are remembered here.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Fear Nothing
“Real love has little to do with falling. It's a climb up the rocky face of a mountain, hard work, and most people are too selfish or scared to bother.”
― Stacey Jay, quote from Juliet Immortal
“You feel safer in your bedroom, but you’re actually much safer in the shelter.” It didn’t matter how I felt. She made me go into the shelter every time the sirens wailed. Men came and removed all the signposts from the roads around the village, so that when Hitler invaded he wouldn’t know where he was. When he invaded, we were to bury our radio. Jamie had already dug a hole for it in the garden. When Hitler invaded we were to say nothing, do nothing to help the enemy. If he invaded while I was out riding, I was to return home at once, as fast as possible by the shortest route. I’d know it was an invasion, not an air raid, because all the church bells would ring. “What if the Germans take Butter?” I asked Susan. “They won’t,” she said, but I was sure she was lying. “Bloody huns,” Fred muttered, when I went to help with chores. “They come here, I’ll stab ’em with a pitchfork, I will.” Fred was not happy. The riding horses, the Thortons’ fine hunters, were all out to grass, and the grass was good, but the hayfields had been turned over to wheat and Fred didn’t know how he’d feed the horses through the winter. Plus the Land Girls staying in the loft annoyed him. “Work twelve hours a day, then go out dancing,” he said. “Bunch of lightfoots. In my day girls didn’t act like that.” I thought the Land Girls seemed friendly, but I knew better than to say so to Fred. You could get used to anything. After a few weeks, I didn’t panic when I went into the shelter. I quit worrying about the invasion. I put Jamie up behind me on Butter”
― Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, quote from The War that Saved My Life
“My husbands weren't any of them bad men, I was the problem. Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to being married. Just the same things over and over again. Same fights, same friends, same things you do on a Saturday. The repetition would start to get to me.
And then I couldn't fit my whole self into a marriage, no matter who my husband was. There were parts of me that John liked, and different parts for the others, but no one could deal with all of me, So I'd lop some part off, but then I'd start missing it, wanting it back. I didn't really fall in love until I had that first child.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, quote from The Jane Austen Book Club
“And there persisted in her a sense of Michael’s dangerous innocence, his naivete, which seemed to her to be connected to his attitudes about evil. He understood good better than he did evil.”
― Anne Rice, quote from Mayfair Witches Collection
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