Quotes from Rock Bottom

R.K. Lilley ·  273 pages

Rating: (19.3K votes)


“She was the one. If I’d ever had a doubt, I didn’t now. She was the one I’d be thinking about, longing for, until I took my last breath. If I lost her tomorrow, I’d pine for her like a lovesick fool. This was the kind of love that only hit you once in your life.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“I have many regrets, many bad things I must take credit for, but believe me when I say that the negative impact that all of my actions have had on your life is my biggest one.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“Even love couldn’t cushion a fall like ours. My love for Tristan was so big that I felt consumed by it, and even so, it was not enough to overpower our combined demons.
I struggled. I yelled and screamed. I scratched and kicked.
I fought like hell, but even the most determined fighters have to stop before they break.
No one could say I didn’t fight for him,”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“This is all yours right here. All of me. No one else gets a thing from me, you understand? I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t make all these promises if I didn’t intend to keep them.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“I thought that might have been the worst thing about losing someone, that moment between asleep and awake, when you had to remember and accept the loss again, relive that moment when your life changed, and you lost something dear.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom



“Everything you promised, and everything I need. What I’m willing to give to you is what I want from you. Can’t you do that for me, Tristan? Isn’t there enough of you left?”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“He lay on top of me, buried deep, and fell asleep.
He slept all night like that, and I did not move him, did not want to. I gasped breath in and out and closed my eyes and thought that I would never forget this feeling, of him on me and in me, of him consuming my soul and letting me go.
He was too callous, too far gone to realize that I'd never be free of him, and all he'd really done was set me adrift.
I never left that bed.
That feeling of helpless abandonment and unendurable longing stayed inside of me, for hours, for minutes, for weeks.
For years.
I went through my life, through tragedy and pain, through hardship and life, and my heart, my very sould, stayed in that bed.
I felt broken after that last encounter.
Pieces of me had been shattered on that bed, important, essential pieces, and they would not, could not, ever find their way back together.
But I kept going. Life is cruel like that.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“I can’t ever lose you, Danika. I’m not sure I’d survive it.”
“You’ve got me. And I’m not going anywhere. Not ever.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“My dear, this is what's called family.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“Tragedy never took its full chunk out of you right way. It always took a while to hit you head on, and sink in and for something substantial, some hint of the real feeling, the real reaction, to come to the surface, and this loss was not done taking its toll on us.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom



“It just seemed to me, that if you valued a thing, you found ways to keep it from being compromised.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“There was an anchor, tied around both of his ankles, and it was taking him deep, into black fathomless depths, drowning him slowly but surely.
I didn’t tell him that he was dragging me down with him.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“Tristan's decline was steady and sure after that.

Every tragedy, every harship, seemed to suck him just a little bit deaper into the grip of his own personal hell.
It felt like every slip up, every relapse, was pulling us down, until the weight of all our failures was dragging us under.
At first we were drowning together, but my will to survive was too strong to let that continue forever.
My hold on him became weaker and weaker, and eventually, every finger broken, my hands opened, and I let him go.

No one could say I didn't fight for him. No one could say I didn't lose.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“I was still hurting, my heart still aching with all of the loss, but I began to attempt to live again.
To wake, to move, to try taking small steps in the right direction. I was alone in that path.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“I don't know to this day if I screamed out loud, but deep down in my soul, in the place inside of me that was bursting to be a mother, that pined for it, that lived and breathed for the day that I could give birth to my own child, my own flesh and blood, that part of me screamed, "Noooo!"
It was quite possible that, somewhere deep down, I never stopped screaming it”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom



“I love you,” I spoke softly into his ear.
He gripped me harder. “I can’t ever lose you, Danika. I’m not sure I’d survive it.”
“You’ve got me. And I’m not going anywhere. Not ever.”
I meant the words when I said them, but life had other plans for us.
I was, by nature, a fighter, and no one could say I didn’t fight for us.
I’d have given my life for that fight.
In fact, I nearly did.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“Two cops Tasered me at the same time once, and it barely phased me.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“There’s not an ounce of dirt on you, sweetheart. You have the purest heart I’ve ever known.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“We were drifting apart.  I felt helpless to stop the pattern, but still, I held onto him for dear life.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“It had been torture. But every coffin needed its last nail, and that meeting was ours.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom



“Sluts that bang old men age in dog years, didn’t you know?”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“wall.  His forehead touched mine as he gripped my hips, shifting until he was poised back at the core of me.  “I’m fucking done with this record deal if it means I’m losing your trust.  This is forever for me, sweetheart.  I want it all with you.  You’re the thing that gets me up in the morning and lets me rest easy at night.  I wouldn’t have survived some of the shit these last few months if it weren’t for you.  You’re my rock, Danika, and I need you to trust me.”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


“like was not about getting what you wanted, it was about living with what you needed”
― R.K. Lilley, quote from Rock Bottom


About the author

R.K. Lilley
Born place: in The United States
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Popular quotes

“What do you learn at school, then?"
"We learn about the Prophet and his three hundred authenticated miracles,and about Abraham and Isaac and Jonah and Omar and Ali and Hind and Fatima and the saints, and sometimes the big battles of Saladin against the barbarians. And we recite the Holy Koran because we have to learn al-Fatihah by heart."
"What's that?"
"It's the beginning."
"What's it like?"
Karatavuk closed his eyes and recited:'Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim...' When he's finished he opened his eyes, and mopped his forehead. "It's difficult" he observed.
"I didn't understand any of it" complained Mehmetcik. " It sounds nice though. was it language?"
"Of course it was language, stupid. It's Arabic."
"What's that then?"
"It's what Arabs speak. And it's what God speaks, and that's why we have to learn to recite it. It's something about being merciful and the Day of Judgement and showing us the right path, and if anything is going wrong, or you're worried, or someone's sick, you just have to say al-Fatihah and everything will probably be all right."
"I didn't know that God spoke language." observed Mehmetcik. Father Kristoforos speaks to him in Greek, but we don't understand that either."
"What do you learn, then."
"We learn more than you," answered Mehmetcik self-importantly. "We learn about Jesus Son of Mary and his miracles and St Nicholas and St Dmitri and St Menas and the saints and Abraham and Isaac and Jonah and Emperor Constantine and Alexander the Great and the Marble Emperor, and the great battles against barbarians, and the War of Independence, and we learn reading and writing and adding up and taking away and multiplication and division."
"Don't you learn al-Fatihah,then?"
"When things go wrong we say 'Kyrie elesion'. and we've got a proper prayer as well."
"What's that like?"
Mehmetcik screwed up his eyes in unconcious imitation of his friend, and recited: 'Pater imon, o en tois ouranis, agiasthito to onoma sou, eltheto i vasileia sou..'
When Mehmetcik has finished, Karatavuk asked, "What's that about, then? is that some kind of language?"
"It's Greek. It's what we speak to God.I don't know exactly what it means, it's something about our father who is in heaven and forgive us our daily bread, and led us not into temptation, but it doesn't matter if we don't understand it, because God does"
"Maybe," pondered Karatavuk, " Greek and Arabic are actually the same language, and that's how God understands us, like sometimes I'm Abdul and sometimes I'm Karatavuk, and sometimes you're Nico and sometimes you're Mehmetcik, but it's two names and there's only one me and there's only one you, so it might be all one language that's called Greek sometimes and Arabic sometimes.”
― Louis de Bernières, quote from Birds Without Wings


“We, who live in the cities, see but a little farther than across the street. We spend our days looking at the work of our own and our neighbors' hands. Small wonder our lives have so little of God in them, when we come in touch with so little that God has made.”
― Harold Bell Wright, quote from The Shepherd of the Hills


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