Quotes from It Had to Be You

Cecily von Ziegesar ·  416 pages

Rating: (10.7K votes)


“Who has time to make up stories when the truth is so much more interesting?”
― Cecily von Ziegesar, quote from It Had to Be You


“Girls were like that, though- they had to know things. They had to plan.”
― Cecily von Ziegesar, quote from It Had to Be You


“In the movie that was her life, he'd just asked her to marry him, and the answer was yes, oh, yes. Definitely-yes!

Cue straitjacket.”
― Cecily von Ziegesar, quote from It Had to Be You


“Bundle!" Chuck shouted agin, nonsensically, as he hurled himself on top of them. It was as if he were re-creating a scene from some dumb college frat movie he'd loved but no one else had ever seen.”
― Cecily von Ziegesar, quote from It Had to Be You


“For nobody else, gave me a thrill—with all your faults, I love you still. It had to be you, wonderful you, it had to be you. —As sung by Frank Sinatra”
― Cecily von Ziegesar, quote from It Had to Be You



About the author

Cecily von Ziegesar
Born place: in Connecticut, The United States
Born date June 27, 1970
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“I love you, Rylann." He cupped her face, peering down into her eyes. "And now I finally have a good answer to the one question everyone always asks me--why I hacked into Twitter. I didn't know it at the time... but I did it to find you again."
She leaned into him, curling her fingers around his shirt. "That may be the best justification I've ever heard for committing a crime." She looked up at him, her eyes shining. "And I love you, too, you know.”
― Julie James, quote from About That Night


“Finally the pieces started to make sense and I began to feel a pensive awareness of circumstances other than my own; a knowing that brings with it a kind is stillness that I didn't quite understand but accepted it for its own.”
― Christopher Scotton, quote from The Secret Wisdom of the Earth


“You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination


“We’ll vote,” Maia said. “And I promise not to vote for a chick flick. They’re crap anyway. It’s always about two idiots who apparently don’t understand the art of communication.”
― Samantha Young, quote from Moonlight on Nightingale Way


“Maria, lonely prostitute on a street of pain,
You, at least, hail me and speak to me
While a thousand others ignore my face.
You offer me an hour of love,
And your fees are not as costly as most.
You are the madonna of the lonely,
The first-born daughter in a world of pain.
You do not turn fat men aside,
Or trample on the stuttering, shy ones,
You are the meadow where desperate men
Can find a moment's comfort.

Men have paid more to their wives
To know a bit of peace
And could not walk away without the guilt
That masquerades as love.
You do not bind them, lovely Maria, you comfort them
And bid them return.
Your body is more Christian than the Bishop's
Whose gloved hand cannot feel the dropping of my blood.
Your passion is as genuine as most,
Your caring as real!

But you, Maria, sacred whore on the endless pavement of pain,
You, whose virginity each man may make his own
Without paying ought but your fee,
You who know nothing of virgin births and immaculate conceptions,
You who touch man's flesh and caress a stranger,
Who warm his bed to bring his aching skin alive,
You make more sense than stock markets and football games
Where sad men beg for virility.
You offer yourself for a fee--and who offers himself for less?

At times you are cruel and demanding--harsh and insensitive,
At times you are shrewd and deceptive--grasping and hollow.
The wonder is that at times you are gentle and concerned,
Warm and loving.
You deserve more respect than nuns who hide their sex for eternal love;
Your fees are not so high, nor your prejudice so virtuous.
You deserve more laurels than the self-pitying mother of many children,
And your fee is not as costly as most.

Man comes to you when his bed is filled with brass and emptiness,
When liquor has dulled his sense enough
To know his need of you.
He will come in fantasy and despair, Maria,
And leave without apologies.
He will come in loneliness--and perhaps
Leave in loneliness as well.
But you give him more than soldiers who win medals and pensions,
More than priests who offer absolution
And sweet-smelling ritual,
More than friends who anticipate his death
Or challenge his life,
And your fee is not as costly as most.

You admit that your love is for a fee,
Few women can be as honest.
There are monuments to statesmen who gave nothing to anyone
Except their hungry ego,
Monuments to mothers who turned their children
Into starving, anxious bodies,
Monuments to Lady Liberty who makes poor men prisoners.
I would erect a monument for you--
who give more than most--
And for a meager fee.

Among the lonely, you are perhaps the loneliest of all,
You come so close to love
But it eludes you
While proper women march to church and fantasize
In the silence of their rooms,
While lonely women take their husbands' arms
To hold them on life's surface,
While chattering women fill their closets with clothes and
Their lips with lies,
You offer love for a fee--which is not as costly as most--
And remain a lonely prostitute on a street of pain.

You are not immoral, little Maria, only tired and afraid,
But you are not as hollow as the police who pursue you,
The politicians who jail you, the pharisees who scorn you.
You give what you promise--take your paltry fee--and
Wander on the endless, aching pavements of pain.
You know more of universal love than the nations who thrive on war,
More than the churches whose dogmas are private vendettas made sacred,
More than the tall buildings and sprawling factories
Where men wear chains.
You are a lonely prostitute who speaks to me as I pass,
And I smile at you because I am a lonely man.”
― James Kavanaugh, quote from There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves


Interesting books

The Elephant Vanishes
(30K)
The Elephant Vanishe...
by Haruki Murakami
Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux
(9.6K)
Story of a Soul: The...
by Thérèse de Lisieux
Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
(841)
Thou Art That: Trans...
by Joseph Campbell
Sabbath's Theater
(7.1K)
Sabbath's Theater
by Philip Roth
The Seeress of Kell
(36.4K)
The Seeress of Kell
by David Eddings
The Rainbow
(16.5K)
The Rainbow
by D.H. Lawrence

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.