Quotes from Red Riding Hood

“If the innocent are unjust, I'd rather be counted among the guilty."
-Valerie”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“I am going to save your daughter. And then I intend to marry her. I would like your blessing in this, but I can live without it.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“His leaving had been like snipping off the end of a rope - leaving two unraveling strands.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“She didn't want to be considered a woman yet, wasn't ready to be the recipient of jewelry from men.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Valerie stood with the other women, watching the men go. She couldn't help bristling at this division of the sexes. Her fingers itched to hold a weapon, too, to do something, to kill something with her anger.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“He had held out shakily, like a tree that had been hacked down to its breaking point. But that kiss was the last swing, the final impact, and he gave in finally, felled.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“The wolf lives right here. In this village". He looked at the villages. "Among you. It is one of you.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Peter had stolen a knife. We were seven years old, and we'd caught a rabbit in a trap. We looked at each other darkly, a look I'll never forget, one of a shared savage thrill, like young wolves taking down their first kill.

A spill of blood issued from the rabbits neck, a quick red streak across pristine white fur, slow enough to be cruel. I hadn't cut deep enough. Had I wanted to spare its life or prolong its misery? I've never wanted to know the answer.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“How strange to have a sister, Valarie thought. Someone you might have been.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“All sorrows are less with bread.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“There must be a God because you are the Devil.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“She never worried about falling; such a thing was never possible in this weightless world”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“but she never asked because something so wonderful should never be explained”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Red Riding Hood is not a fairy tale, but rather a universal story about courage and growing up”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Valerie saw Cesaire's eyes resting upon Suzette's reclining form. Valerie wondered whether he really saw her there anymore. After eighteen years of marriage, Cesaire did not seem to notice her gentleness with her children or her sun-streaked hair in the summer months. Was that what marriage was, an inability to see who the person was, the way that we don't know ourselves because we stand too close?”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Though Valerie and Peter were dancing differently, their bodies moving in different ways, they were both doing the same dance. It was a jealousy dance, old as the human race”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“If you're the wolf, though, I'll chop off your head and piss down the hole”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Peter," she began. He looked up at her, and she could see the pain in his eyes. "I love you," she said freely. With Peter, she was laid bare; he extracted her from herself.
Peter didn't know what to say. HIs eyes glimmered, bright and burning. He only let her see them a moment before he turned away. He took a ragged breath.
"What were you doing with Rose anyway" she demanded, asking a lot of him.
Peter darkened again. He turned his back to her, took a step farther into the alley, and said in a dead voice, "I don't have to like her
to get what I want."
"I don't believe you," Valerie said, reaching for his face, again. Peter pulled away from her. "You're lying.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“The wedding doesn't feel like mine. It feels like I'm being sold.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“His memory loved her too much.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“His face was glistening with cold. He was beautiful, the snow in his eyelashes like diamonds, the cool pink of his cheeks, the wet red of his lips. He was staggering toward her.
"I have to leave you." His breath came in uneven bursts. "You won't be safe with me."
Whatever he was, he could not be bad. An amazing and terrible thought entered Valerie's mind, clearing away all others.
"Peter..."
She stepped toward him, arms out. They gave in to each other, finally, their bodies fitting together. Her fingers warmed his cheek, and his arms slipped underneath her crimson cloak as her long blond hair blew around them. Enveloped in a shelter of white, standing out in black and red, were just the two of them. Nothing else anywhere. Valerie knew that she could never be apart from him, that she was what he was and that she would be his always.
She didn't care if he was the Wolf or not. And if he was a Wolf, then she would be one, too.
She made he choice and brought her lips to his.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Do you want to marry him?" Peter stopped in front of her, pressing close.
"You know I don't."
"Do I? Do we know each other anymore? It's been a long time. I'm not the same person I was."
"You are," she insisted. "I know who you are." She knew it was ridiculous, to feel so strong so fast...but she did. It just felt like they belonged together. She took his hand and held it tight.
His face softened. "All right, then. There may be one way,,,." he said out to the faint silver hue of the moors on the horizon.
Valerie looked at him blankly, her mind racing off on its own.
"We could run away," he said, speaking her mind before she's quite reached the thought. He came even closer, almost touching his forehead to hers.
"Run away with me," he repeated the words, smiling a real smile, full and dark, in that terrifying way he had, as though his actions were self-contained, as though there were no consequences. She wanted to be a part of his ripple-less world.
"Where would we go?"
His lips brushed her ear. "Anywhere you want," he said. "The sea, the city, the mountains..."
Anywhere. With him.
He pulled back to look at her. "You're afraid."
"No, I'm not."
"You'd leave your home? Your family? Your whole life?"
"I-I think I would. Anything to be with you." She heard herself saying it and realized it was true.
"Anything?"
Valerie pretended to think a moment, for show, to be able to tell herself she had.
Then, almost meekly, "Yes."
"Yes?"
"Yes.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“The leaves of the tree were yellow, as though they have absorbed all the spring sunshine and were saving it for winter.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Promise me you'll be careful, my boy." She handed him the pack she'd assembled.
"Don't worry. The Wolf has no interest in me," he said, smiling through his pain. "I'm all gristle.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Take it easy, friend," siad Peter, regaining his balance, quickly understanding the condition Henry was in.
"Friend? You left us. In the caves." Henry's muscles tensed.
Peter stepped back cautiously. Henry didn't look like himself.
"Seems someone can't hold his drink," Peter said. He didn't go further, sensing then that Valerie might be thinking of her father.
"And now," Henry continued on his own track, stepping closer to meet him, the smell of alcohol on his breath, "my father, too is dead."
Valerie moved to Henry. "Please, don't do this," she said, stepping in. "It's not worth it."
Henry pushed past her, not realizing his own weight. The force knocked her back. Peter grabbed Henry's arm and twisted it. Overreacting, Henry reared back his fist and landed a punch in the hollow of Peter's eye. The crowd laughed as Peter fell hard to the ground.
Henry scrambled on top him, held him by the collar, forced Peter to face him as he'd never done. He looked into the eyes of the man he wanted to blame for his parents' deaths, because it was a shelter from the terrible thought that everything could be lost to a simple slip of fate. "You filth," he spat out.
This really got the villagers going. But Peter didn't laugh. He pulled a knife from his boot and leapt up, thrusting it viciously in Henry's face.
"Keep your hands off her or I'll cut them off!”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“For Lucie," Peter said quietly, the flame of a gilded saint's candle fluttering in his hand."
"Leave."
Peter had anticipated this reaction and was prepared. He cleared his throat. "I'm paying my respects," he said, still trying to be polite. The woman was grieving for her daughter.
"I can guess the reason you're here. I've just lost one daughter," she said, her hand on the door. "I won't lose another."
"Wait,"
"She's all I have left," she said. "And you have nothing to offer her."
Peter knew that she was right, that Valerie deserved better. But he could not give her up.
"I have a trade. The same one as your husband."
"I know what a woodcutter earns."
Peter began to protest, but Suzette stopped him. "Henry Lazar is her only hope for a better life."
Peter looked into Suzette's anguished eyes, her words hitting him somewhere deep. It sank in: He could not give Valerie a good life.
"If you love her," Suzette said, her voice cracking, "you'll leave her alone.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“How strange it is to have a sister, Valerie thought. Someone you might have been.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“With Peter, she was laid bare; he extracted her from herself.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“She never even told me how she felt," Valerie thought aloud, feeling the betrayal in her gut. How had she been so blind? Her sister had loved Henry silently. Did she know about the engagement? Did she overhear our parents planning? Valerie supposed it was possible, but it seemed unlikely since they were always together. Would it have broken her heart?
"Don't worry, you poor child," Madame Lazar said, seeming almost disinterested in the subject of Lucie's death. "I know you're worried about your sister, but Henry always had his eye on you. You are—were always the pretty one.”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

“Peter..."
He straightened, his back to her like a wall. Then, slowly, he turned his face toward her and met her eyes. His gaze sliced through her like a knife.
Before she could stop herself, she asked, "Do you remember—"
He took a step toward her. She felt the hear flare up between them.
"How could I forget?”
― Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, quote from Red Riding Hood

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