Jessica Sorensen · 294 pages
Rating: (5.7K votes)
“Wishes are just wishes. Destiny is just destiny. And neither really has control over your life. Shit happens, shapes our lives, but doesn’t have to shape who we are.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Certainty of Violet & Luke
“Nothing can be erased in life. Life is permanent, from the breaths we take to the decisions we make.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Certainty of Violet & Luke
“Only when I know she’s fast asleep do I dare whisper the truth. “I would never leave you… Because I love you.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Certainty of Violet & Luke
“I don't know what's happening to me," she says, blinking through a veil of tears as she looks everywhere but at me. "I don't think I can do this anymore."
My heart plummets inside my chest, my lips still hovering over hers, my hands on her waist "do what anymore?" I don't want the answer, don't want to hear what follows my question, don't want to lose her.
"Fight it." Tears are still flowing from her eyes, but I think she stop crying. She sucks and several breaths when she looks at me, her eyes are clear that I anticipated. She's scared shitless - that's clear - but it's like she stop fighting the fear, giving into it instead.
Her lips apart and I'm a stop whatever she's about to say, silence her with my lips, but I don't, forcing myself to hear, needing to know what's got all worked up.
"I think I'm in love with you," she says, her chest heaving with every ravenous breath she takes, yet her voice is astonishingly even and she manages to maintain my gaze.
My voice however is the exact opposite of even, coming out all high-pitched like I'm a thirteen year old and going through puberty all over again. "What?"
She sucks and a breath, then releases is slowly, the fear in her eyes subsiding, as if she just won it. "I think I'm in love with you..." She bites on your lips and shakes her head. "No...I don't think. I know."
I gradually process her words and the full extent of what she's saying. I think I'd honestly believed that she might never say them, that this love thing was going to be a one-way street. Hearing her say it... I don't even know how to describe it. It's like my entire life of associated the word with hatred. Every time my mother said it, it felt like she was trying to take something from me and it made me hate her and myself-Love equaled hate for me. But hearing it from Violet's lips, seeing that look in her eyes, the one I've never seen from anyone, is so different. She's not taking something for me right now, she's giving me something.
She's giving me everything.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Certainty of Violet & Luke
“Then I lean back and take in the side of her, every speck of flesh, every freckle, every line of ink she has. So fucking gorgeous I can't stand it. I feel like I'm about to combust. I want her so badly that my body is throbbing, my veins pulsating with desire and need.
The need to be with her.
Forever.
And ever.
And ever.
And when I open my mouth to say it, this time it's different - this time it means more than the first time I said it, because I know I can say it and it'll be welcomed not feared.
"I love you too, Violet Hayes," I whisper then let my lips crash against her showing her with my mouth just how much I mean it.
God, do I fucking mean it. More than anything else in my life.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Certainty of Violet & Luke
“Who are you talking to?”
“Myself.”
“You do that a lot.”
“I know. I’m the only one who understands me.”
― Kasie West, quote from P.S. I Like You
“They’ll hear about your husband’s fortune. The suitors will begin to gather, and I want you to promise me this. Whenever one of them proposes, as they will, Doris must say rapturously, ‘Oh, David! All my life I’ve wanted to live in Israel.’ When he hears that she intends to live there instead of bringing him to the United States, you’ll see his interest evaporate. I said evaporate. It vanishes.” He waved his hands violently back and forth across his face to indicate total abolishment.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“Sometimes I sets and thinks, and sometimes I just sets.”
― Theodore Sturgeon, quote from The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume II: Microcosmic God
“Plans are just dreams until they're executed.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Live by Night
“Edinolochniks [individual peasant farmers] are whitewashing their khatas [simple Ukrainian houses]. They look at us with a challenge in their eyes: ‘It’s Easter.’ The implication behind this strange remark in autumn was the hint that they were celebrating the arrival of the most joyful moment of the year. Some historians have suggested that the Germans, with black crosses on their vehicles, were seen as bringing Christian liberation to a population oppressed by Soviet atheism. Many Ukrainians did welcome the Germans with bread and salt, and many Ukrainian girls consorted cheerfully with German soldiers. It is hard to gauge the scale of this phenomenon in statistical terms, but it is significant that the Abwehr, the Germany Army intelligence department, recommended that an army of a million Ukrainians should be raised to fight the Red Army. This was firmly rejected by Hitler who was horrified at the suggestion of Slavs fighting in Wehrmacht uniform.”
― Vasily Grossman, quote from A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army
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