“She beat lightly on his chest with her fists. "I want a partner, not a protector."
"Can't I be both?"
"You're enormously exasperating sometimes, do you know that?"
He grinned. "And you love me anyway.”
“Oh, poor baby,” she said, mimicking his drawl.
“Whew. You’re back. There was this other Susie here a minute ago, and she was really nice to me. She scared the shit out of me.”
She laughed. “They locked her back up in the loony bin.”
“Good, because there’s only one Susie for me—the one who calls me on my crap and doesn’t let me get away with jack shit. That’s the Susie I need. That’s the Susie I’ve missed coming home to over the last year.” He kissed her. “And that’s the Susie who’s going to leave a gaping hole in my heart and my life if she doesn’t give me another chance.”
“Susie . . . ” With his hands on her face, he found her eyes. “If you make love with me and then go back to him, you’ll ruin me".”
“I get it now, Suze. I really do. I know what I had, what I lost, how I felt without it.” He brought her hand to his lips. “Do you know I still look for you in the stadium where you always used to sit? Whenever we scored this season, I’d look for you, wanting to share it with you. It was like losing you all over again every time I looked for you and you weren’t there”
“I love you, Susie.”
“She rolled her eyes. “Save it.”
“I haven’t given you much reason to believe it, but it’s true. I love you. I’ve loved you for so long I can’t imagine ever not loving you. When I saw you struggling to breathe yesterday, I was reminded again that a life without you is no life at all. So you don’t have to be civil.
You don’t even have to talk to me, but I’m going to talk to you. I hope you’ll listen.”
“I crush her against me. I want to be part of her. Not just inside her but all around her. I want our rib cages to crack open and our hearts to migrate and merge. I want our cells to braid together like living thread.”
“didn’t choose that life,” she patted her chest rapidly. “That was me, that was me. God never wanted that, I promise you, baby. God loves you,” she cried, bitterly. “Who do you think helped me escape? It was Kane, and who do you think told him to help me?” She pointed up and nodded, her teary eyes wide and hopeful. “That’s right, the Man upstairs, He told Kane to help me. And he listened." She gasped several times, face crimping in agony again. "But I didn’t. I knew better than that life, I knew it was wrong but I was young and stupid. Don’t you fucking listen to those lies in your head,” she hissed. “All lies. The truth is in here,” she pressed her palm firmly to his chest. "It's all in here.”
“So, using his pride like a shield against despair, dejection, and-most important—
self-pity, Raoden raised his head to stare damnation in the eyes.”
“I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.”
“I want to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.”
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.