Quotes from Perfect

Judith McNaught ·  704 pages

Rating: (20.3K votes)


“I used to be ashamed
And now I am proud.
The world once was black
And now it is bright.
I used to walk head bent
And now I stand up tall.
I used to have dreams
But now I have hope.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Perfect


“She wept with shame for her lack of will and with fear for a love she couldn't control.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Perfect


“My darling Julie, I know you'll never see this letter, but it helps to write to you every day. It keeps you close to me. G-d, I miss you so. You haunt every hour of my life. I wish I'd never met you. No-I don't mean that! What good would my life be without my memories of you to make me smile.

I keep wondering if you're happy. I want you to be. I want you to have a glorious life. That's why I couldn't say the things I knew you wanted to hear when we were together. I was afraid if I did, you'd wait for me for years. I knew you wanted me to say I loved you. Not saying that to you was the only unselfish thing I did in Colorado, and I now I regret even that.

I love you, Julie. Christ, I love you so much. I'd give up all my life to have one year with you. Six months. Three. Anything.

You stole my heart in just a few days, darling, but you gave me your heart, too. I know you did- I could see it in your eyes every time you looked at me.

I don't regret the loss of my freedom any more or rage at the injustice of the years I spent in prison. Now, my only regret is that I can't have you. You're young, and I know you'll forget about me quickly and go on with your own life. That's exactly what you should do. It's what you must do. I want you to do that, Julie.

That's such a lousy lie. What I really want is to see you again, to hold you in my arms, to make love to you over and over again until I've filled you so completely that there's no room left inside of you for anyone but me, ever. I never thought of sexual intercourse as 'making love' until you. You never knew that.

....

I wish I had time to write you a better letter or that I'd kept one of the others I've written so I could send that instead. They were all much more coherent than this one. I won't send another letter to you, so don't watch for one. Letters will make us both hope and dream, and if I don't stop doing that, I will die of wanting you.

Before I go--I see from the newspapers that Costner has a new movie coming out in the States. If you dare to start fantasizing over Kevin after you see it, I will haunt you for the rest of your life.

I love you, Julie. I loved in Colorado. I love you here, where I am. I will always love you. Everywhere. Always.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Perfect


“What's your favorite sport, Zack?"

Zack tipped her chin up. "My favorite sport," he said in an aching, husky voice he scarcely recognized as his own, "is making love to you."

Her eyes darkened with a love she wasn't trying to conceal from him anymore. "What's your favorite food?" she asked shakily.

In answer, Zack bent his head and touched her lips in a soft kiss. "You are.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Perfect


“Hayat her kesin kendine düşen rolü oynadığı bir tiyatro sahnesidir,.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Perfect



“What is it about you that demolishes my mind?”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Perfect


“Despite all her diligent efforts to remake herself into a model of propriety, when it come to falling in love she'd reverted to from and fallen in love with a man who was a renegade, a black sheep, a daring, cynical, tough social outcast who in some ways reminded her of the boys she'd known on the Chicago streets.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Perfect


About the author

Judith McNaught
Born place: in San Luis Obispo, California, The United States
Born date May 10, 1944
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“A life of adventure is ours for the taking, whether we're seven or seventy. Life for the most part is what me make it. We have been given a responsibility to live it fully, joyfully, completely, and richly, in whatever span of time God grants us on this earth.”
― quote from I Married Adventure


“Let us narrow the arguments down further. In certain respects, the theme of supplementarity is certainly no more than one theme among others. It is in a chain, carried by it. Perhaps one could substitute something else for it. But it happens that this theme describes the chain itself, the being-chain of a textual chain, the structure of substitution, the articulation of desire and of language, the logic of all conceptual oppositions taken over by Rousseau…It tells us in a text what a text is, it tells us in writing what writing it, in Rousseau’s writing it tells us Jean-Jacque’s desire etc…the concept of the supplement and the theory of writing designate textuality itself in Rousseau’s text in an indefinitely multiplied structure—en abyme.”
― Jacques Derrida, quote from Of Grammatology


“Power such as mine is only granted for one reason - to protect those with less, against yours."
"Power such as yours? Sarillorn, if the power that you wield is too great a responsibility, I will take it from you; you may then have peace, knowing that there is nothing at all that you can do.”
― Michelle Sagara West, quote from Into the Dark Lands


“From Lankaster to Lorenz, scientists have gotten it wrong. Parasites are complex, highly adapted creatures that are at the heart of the story of life. If there hadn't been such high walls dividing scientists who study life - the zoologists, the immunologists, the mathematical biologists, the ecologists - parasites might have been recognized sooner as not disgusting, or at least not merely disgusting. If parasites were so feeble, so lazy, how was it that they could manage to live inside every free-living species and infect billions of people? How could they change with time so that medicines that could once treat them became useless? How could parasites defy vaccines, which could corral brutal killers like smallpox and polio?”
― Carl Zimmer, quote from Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures


“I am in this same river. I can't much help it. I admit it: I'm racist. The other night I saw a group (or maybe a pack?) or white teenagers standing in a vacant lot, clustered around a 4x4, and I crossed the street to avoid them; had they been black, I probably would have taken another street entirely. And I'm misogynistic. I admit that, too. I'm a shitty cook, and a worse house cleaner, probably in great measure because I've internalized the notion that these are woman's work. Of course, I never admit that's why I don't do them: I always say I just don't much enjoy those activities (which is true enough; and it's true enough also that many women don't enjoy them either), and in any case, I've got better things to do, like write books and teach classes where I feel morally superior to pimps. And naturally I value money over life. Why else would I own a computer with a hard drive put together in Thailand by women dying of job-induced cancer? Why else would I own shirts mad in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, and shoes put together in Mexico? The truth is that, although many of my best friends are people of color (as the cliche goes), and other of my best friends are women, I am part of this river: I benefit from the exploitation of others, and I do not much want to sacrifice this privilege. I am, after all, civilized, and have gained a taste for "comforts and elegancies" which can be gained only through the coercion of slavery. The truth is that like most others who benefit from this deep and broad river, I would probably rather die (and maybe even kill, or better, have someone kill for me) than trade places with the men, women, and children who made my computer, my shirt, my shoes.”
― Derrick Jensen, quote from The Culture of Make Believe


Interesting books

The Anatomy of Evil
(0.9K)
Bad Monkeys
(7.8K)
Bad Monkeys
by Matt Ruff
The Back Door of Midnight
(4K)
The Back Door of Mid...
by Elizabeth Chandler
The Commander And The Den Asaan Rautu
(48)
The Commander And Th...
by Michelle Franklin
Sweethearts
(17.5K)
Sweethearts
by Sara Zarr
River Cast
(7.1K)
River Cast
by Samantha Young

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.