“You asked me in Paris how many women I'd loved. I said one. I should have said two." He cupped her cheek, his thumb rubbing over her bottom lip. "As a child I loved my mother, and as a man I love you.”
“Theirs was a closeness that went way beyond physical proximity. She was under his skin. Moving closer to his heart.
He just didn’t know it yet, because no one else had ever found the pathway before.”
“You want me. And I’m here, now, saying I want you too, saying I love you, and I don’t know where the hell it’ll end up, but I’m brave enough to say that right now you’re my everything. You’ve opened my eyes, and my body, and my heart so much more than I knew existed, and you make me feel beautiful, and protected, and adored, and I don’t think you could do all of those things if you didn’t love me back.”
“I don’t love you,” he ground out, biting her lip.
Sophie wound her arms around his neck, her fingers in his hair as she kissed him gently. “I don’t love you either,” she whispered, holding him close and rocking the last ebbs of pleasure out of him. “I don’t love you either.”
“You said something to me” …
“I know” …
“Don’t say it again … Because I won’t say it back” …
“I know that too”
“I love every beautiful fucking inch of you, Sophie Black.”
“I don't want to wake up and find you're not really here," he whispered, not yet opening his eyes.”
“They say the best way to get over a man is to get under another one”
“No. No, you're not like him," she spat. "You're your very own brand of fucked up, Lucien.”
“I don’t want to feel this Sophie. Like I’ve led you on, or like I can’t be with anyone else. “
“Lucien, you said yourself that you don’t want to be with anyone else!”
“Yes, and you have no idea how much that fucks me off. Don’t you get it, Sophie? I don’t want these feelings, or these cravings.” He splayed his hand on his chest. “It’s not who I am.”
“You want me. And I’m here, now, saying I want you too, saying I love you, and I don’t know where the hell it’ll end up, but I’m brave enough to say that right now you’re my everything. You’ve opened my eyes, and my body, and my heart so much more than I knew existed, and you make me feel beautiful, and protected, and adored, and I don’t think you could do all of those things if you didn’t love me back.”
“Will you kiss my envelopes before you mail them?”
“Will you give me my job back if I say yes?” He gestured towards the doorway to her old office.
“It's all yours.”
“Lucien drew female eyes wherever he went. It wasn't just his height, or his Viking beauty, or his broad shoulders. The man exuded lust from his very bones: he emitted sexual charisma on a frequency that no woman could be expected to ignore.”
“…then she was Sophie Black, the girl who surprised him. He'd never met anyone quite like her before. On first glance she was quiet and unassuming, but scratch the surface and she was spectacular.”
“...It's not okay." He spoke jerkily, painfully. "I will hurt you, and I will leave you, and I will cheat on you.”
“Okay, okay. No kissing. No touching. No flirting." He touched his fingers to his forehead in mock salute.”
“This was goodbye. The best, longest, sexiest goodbye kiss ever…”
“It was sex, it was fucking, and it was making love. It was life in glorious technicolour, full of promise and joy. The best of all worlds, with the best of all men.”
“I shagged my sex god boss whilst my husband was on holiday with his secret mistress’ has a certain ring to it.”
“I want sex with you now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to want sex with you for the rest of my life.”
“The egg was vibrating, and not the egg on her plate. Astounded and flustered, she picked her fork up swiftly…”
“Lucien Knight was a walking, talking hang up, a beautiful mass of contradictions. He'd been single-minded in his mission to free her from her marriage and it was time to return the favour.”
“I've quit.
I didn't get your resignation letter. Invite me in.”
“The man was a walking, talking poster boy for his own sinfully sexy empire.”
“I don't want lunch, because I'm not hungry," he said. "And I don't want anger management classes, because right now angry is all I have," he spat. "And I don't want condoms, because it seems that I'm incapable of fucking anyone but you.”
“They were lovers, except without the love. It was about sex. Amazing, fantastic, not-ready-to-walk-away-from-it-yet sex.”
“Seducing Sophie had been a mutual pleasure and she'd proved herself an excellent and very willing pupil, but when it came to freeing her he'd failed dismally. He'd freed her from one cheating man, only for her to fall in love with another who couldn't or wouldn't give her what she deserved.”
“Lucien was a whole lot of trouble because he made her want things she couldn't possibly have. He made ordinary life feel pale and insipid, a watered-down version of the existence she'd tasted that had him in it.”
“He'd made her see that she'd been living on the edges of life, existing rather than embracing its bountiful richness in technicolour. He'd plunged her head first into a storm of sensations and emotions; a mental shredding of an old, dull skin; a seductive invitation. 'Hello, come with me, let me show you somewhere bigger, more dazzling, more truly alive.”
“Now is the time of prophecy without death as a consequence
the universe will ultimately disappear
Hollywood will rot on the windmills of Eternity
Hollywood whose movies stick in the throat of God
Yes Hollywood will get what it deserves
Time
Seepage of nerve-gas over the radio
History will make this poem prophetic and its awful silliness a hideous spiritual music
I have the moan of doves and the feather of ecstasy
Man cannot long endure the hunger of the cannibal abstract”
“Little things matter far more than big ones. We remember them longer. We can’t control the big things. If you think about what’s happened in the past, it will be the small moments that come to the forefront, not the big transitions. The big things were just history. The small moments are yours. The books those monks printed are still preserved centuries after they were gone. Little things matter.”
“She replied that the manual labour exercised her body while allowing her mind and spirit to rest, adding that she believed there was value in the discipline of ordinariness, provided that it was only a discipline and not an unvarying state of being.”
“Why did you break up?”
“Because she didn’t like what I became after I left the army.”
“And what was that?”
He stares deep into my eyes. A sudden coolness overtakes the warmth. It sends an unexpected chill running through me. “Uncaring. Hard. Cold,” he answers dryly.
I swallow down. “And what were you before?”
“Uncaring ... hard ... cold.” He grins, his warmth instantly returning.”
“Stress level: extreme. It's like she was a jar with the lid screwed on too tight, and inside the jar were pickles, angry pickles, and they were fermenting, and about to explode.”
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.