“I know how betrayal and disillusionment feel, when someone who could give you the world refuses even a tiny piece of it.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“The goal with teenagers is simply getting through it alive, with no permanent damage.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“The Chicago winter is harsh. But every now and then God blesses us with a thirty-or forty-degree day to remind us that misery comes and goes.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“But he holds me so tightly that for a moment, the emotions are at bay. The sadness and fear, the regret and the loathing. He bottles them up inside his arms so that for a split second I don’t have to be the one carrying the weight of them. For this moment, the burden is his.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“Teenagers believe they’re invincible—nothing bad can happen. It isn’t until later that we realize that bad things do, in fact, happen.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“That I love her. That I’m sorry.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“As it was, being a bad mother was child’s play compared to being a good mother, which was an incessant struggle, a lose-lose situation 24 hours a day; long after the kids were in bed the torment of what I did or didn’t do during those hours we were trapped together would scourge my soul.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“We fall into oblivion this way, into a world where nothing matters. Nothing but us.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“The weathermen warn us for days of the impending snowstorm that's to arrive Thursday night. The grocery stores have run out of bottle water as people prepare to take shelter in their homes; my God, I think, it's winter, an annual certainty, not the atomic bomb.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“His arms wrap around me from behind, and my heart rhythm slows to a steady jog. His chin rests on the top of my head, and my breath comes back to me, oxygen filling my lungs.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“She said something to you and you smiled and I thought to myself that I'd never seen anything so... I don't know... I'd never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“What did you want?” she asks. What I wanted was a dad. Someone to take care of my mother and me, so I didn’t have to do it myself. But what I tell her is Atari.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“There was a time in my life when the eyes of men followed me. When men thought I was beautiful. When I passed through a room on the arm of James Dennett and every man and his covetous wife turned to stare. I feel the detective’s arms around me still, the reassurance and compassion, the warmth of his flesh. But now he stands feet away and I find myself staring at the floor. His hand comes to my chin. He lifts my face, forces me to see him. “Mrs. Dennett,” he says, and then he starts again, knowing I’m not quite looking. I can’t. I’m too ashamed to see what’s in his eyes. “Eve.” I look and there’s no anger, no scorn. “There isn’t anything in the world that I’d rather do. It’s just that...under the circumstances...” I nod. I know. “You’re an honorable man,” I say. “Or a good liar.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“She says that the sky was the color of persimmon and sangria, shades of red only God could make.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“Picasso, that’s abstract art. Kandinsky. Jackson Pollock.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“The ducks and geese fly overhead. Everyone is leaving me.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“Beethoven wrote Für Elise around 1810, though Elise was actually supposed to be Therese, a woman he was to marry in the same year. Before”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“But mostly I think of the things I didn’t do.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“I didn't set out to be a bad mother, however. It just happened. As it was, being a bad mother was child's play compared to being a good mother, which was an incessant struggle, a lose-lose situation 24 hours a day; long after the kids were in bed the torment of what I did or didn't do during those hours we were trapped together would scourge my soul.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“According to research, people who live with animals have decreased anxiety and lower blood pressure. They have lower cholesterol. They are more relaxed and less stressed and are, overall, in better health. Unless of course you have a dog who pees uncontrollably wherever it wishes or eats your furniture to shreds.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“She’s disoriented, her visions cluttered, random memories running adrift in her mind.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“But if I wanted to atone, I would have bought her that sketch pad.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“an artist. My mother’s deluded sense of reality.” What pisses me off is that she talks like she got the short end of the stick. Like her life is full of hard knocks. She doesn’t have a fucking clue what tough luck is like. I think of the mint-green trailer home, of sitting out a storm in a makeshift shelter while we watched our home blow over. “I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?” I ask. A bird begins to warble. In the distance, another returns its call. Her voice is quiet. “I never asked you to feel sorry for me. You asked a question. I gave you an answer,” she confides. “You’re just full of self-pity, aren’t you?” “It isn’t like that.” “Always the victim.” I’m unsympathetic. This girl doesn’t know a damn thing about tough luck. “No,” she hisses at me. She thrusts the fishing rod into my hands. “Take it,” she says. She unzips”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“Mi intuición, sin embargo, me dice que algo le ha sucedido a mi hija. Algo malo.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“I've been following her for the last few days. I know where she buys her groceries where she has her dry cleaning done, where she works. I've never spoken to her. I wouldn't recognize the sound of her voice. I don't know the color of her eyes or what they look like when she's scared. But I will.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“She says that she used to enjoy, when darkness set in, when the outside world changed. She describes it for me: the way the streetlights and buildings twinkled in the night sky. She says that she liked the anonymity of it, and all the possibilities that developed when the sun went to sleep. But now the darkness terrifies her, all the nameless things on the other side of the silk drapes.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“I watch the way her skin becomes red from the cold. The way her hair blows around in the breeze. She tucks it behind an ear, hoping to contain it, but it doesn't work. Not all things like to be contained.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“I wonder if she could ever this right. This scene. In her sketch pad. The shape of the blue lake and the leaves spilled across the ground. The forest-green pine and evergreen trees. The enormous sky. Could she ever get the wind whipping through the remains of trees? Could she draw the cold air that eats at our hands and ears until they burn?”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“But he holds me so tightly that for a moment, the emotions are at bay. The sadness and fear, the regret and the loathing. He bottles them up inside his arms so that for a split second I don't have to be the one carrying the weight of them. For this moment, the burden is his.”
― Mary Kubica, quote from The Good Girl
“I hadn't known Chancel very well, but ten days earlier I had seen him laughing with the others around the Christmas tree. Maybe Robert was right; the distance between the living and the dead really isn't very great. And yet, like myself, those future corpses who were drinking their coffee in silence appeared ashamed to be so alive.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, quote from The Mandarins
“The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation.”
― Bruce D. Perry, quote from The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook
“Why are you so eager, anyway? We just met this girl—this Kat. What makes her so special that you’re already thinking of claiming her?” Lock ran a hand through his dark blond hair. “Because she is, as you said, gorgeous. But it isn’t just that—she’s special, Deep. Couldn’t you feel it when you spoke to her?” “I didn’t feel a damn thing and there’s no way you could have either,” Deep growled. “Our minds aren’t even aligned with hers—we haven’t shared a single dream.” “But we could.” Lock glared at his twin in frustration. Deep had always been a pessimist, but ever since Miranda he’d closed himself off almost entirely. It was like he thought if he didn’t allow himself to feel anything he could never be hurt again. “Kat has potential,” he told his twin. “If you don’t scare her off, that is.” Deep narrowed his eyes. “Define potential.” “She’s beautiful, single, and she can stand up to you. The way she slapped you when you scented her…” Lock shook his head, laughing softly. “If that’s not potential, I don’t know what is.” “She does have spirit, I’ll give you that.” Deep smiled grudgingly and Lock felt something loosen in his heart. He seldom saw a genuine smile on his twin’s face anymore. “But Brother,” Deep continued, “If you don’t want to scare her off, you shouldn’t have agreed to let her act as our focus. If there’s anything more frightening than having two males inside her body, it would have to be having two males inside her mind. She’ll have to have a will of iron to withstand our joining.” Lock nodded, feeling troubled. “You’re right. But you saw her, Deep—she wouldn’t be denied.” He went and dropped down onto the extra long couch which was standard for all Twin Kindred suites. “And she’s right—she may make the difference between finding Sylvan in time or losing him and the Earth female he was with forever.” “True.” Deep seated himself beside his twin and put an arm over the other man’s shoulders in a rare gesture of affection. “Take heart, Brother. If she survives the joining and still comes back for more, I’ll admit she has potential.” “Very”
― Evangeline Anderson, quote from Hunted
“Well, get the coffer out," said Tobie roundly. "You find his clean clothes and I'll cut his hair round his cap and wash his ears out. Then, when we get to the Palazzo Medici, you imitate his voice and I'll sit him on my knee and move his arms up and down. Where is the problem?”
― Dorothy Dunnett, quote from The Spring of the Ram
“Spring came late, but when it came it was hand-in-hand with summer, and almost at once everything was baking and warm, and in the villages the people danced every night on concrete dancing floors under the plane trees...”
― Nancy Mitford, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate
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.
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