Julie Berry Quotes

That won't excuse me for presuming to give my heart to you. It's not your fault you broke it.

To independence!" added Pocked Louise. "No fussy old widows telling us when not to speak, and how to set the spoons when an earl's niece comes to supper. And telling us to leave scientific experiments to the men.

Beauty hovers around you wherever you go, which is why these two poor young men chase after you when you're covered in dirt and dressed in rages. Not beauty of the face or form. Something eternal.

He caught me up on wings of light, and showed me the realms of his creation, the glittering gemstones paving his heaven. He left my body weak and spent, my spirit gorged with honey.

How quickly the ax is thrown.

If I thought I could never love you more, I didn't understand you well enough.

You're not really here, are you?" says James. "This is part of my madness?" "Does it matter?" asked Frank. "If it's madness telling you to marry that girl and be happy, whose advice would you rather have?

To be needed is one way to be safe. The other is to have money.

I never heard any angel voice but yours.

Heroism is much too heavy a burden to carry.

You're a brand-new piece of sheet music,' she said slowly, 'for a song which, once played, I'd swear I'd always known.

Will I
help him make something of his life?
Who will help me? Why does everyone
presume that I, as damaged merchandise,
forfeit any claim to happiness? That I
expect nothing, have no ambitions or
longings of my own? When was it
agreed that my lot would be to gladly
serve as a prop and a crutch for others
who are whole?

The war, she saw, killed more than those whose families received telegrams.

And nobody knows your weak spots better than sisters. Those prissy little virgins, Artemis and Athena, always looking down their smug, goody-goody noses at her.

If music stops, and art ceases, and beauty fades, what have we then?

Kisses by the billions happen every day, even in a lonely world like ours.
But this is a kiss for the ages.

men think that organizing parties of dozens of riders and hounds to chase down one poor fox is sporting." Louise snorted. "Men's opinions are irrelevant.

Strange how my body and its purity have become the town's sacred possessions, yet they spare me no pity. It's as if they were the ones wronged, not me.

This will be a new amputation. You've been a part of my flesh, underneath all my skin. Your removal will bleed and leave me lame for a time.

It was the dimples. Empires have swiveled on less.

I like to keep a little bit of nervousness simmering. It keeps mortals alert at crucial moments. Sensitive to every detail. It imprints lasting memories. These moments belong to forever" -Aphrodite

We had a son, whom we named Bertran. Just the one, though I prayed for more. Loving him made me rich in ways I'd too long been poor.

Hazel glanced sidelong at him, and saw him breathe in time with the music. She saw tears well at the rims of his dark eyes.

This one, she decided. This lad, for me.

And it was done.

Coo, coo." Constable Quill looked, for a moment, like a man regretting his choice of profession, but he plowed onward. "And you say you heard someone cooing in your back garden on Sunday night?

She wasn't quite sure what had happened that night. She hadn't seen this storm brewing on the horizon. The King of Ragtime was a hurricane, and somehow she'd forgotten to close one of her windows. She'd have to be more careful, next time.

Colette," he told her. "I can love Stéphane. I can honor his memory. I can love your parents, and your brother, your uncles, your cousin. I can love them beside you, and I will, if you let me.

The first casualty of war is the truth.

How did one nation produce both humble souls and killers?

She glowed, not from the firelight, but as if lit from within. I wondered if she were already a ghost.

It was Archimedes of Syracuse who first said that the shortest distance between two points was the straight line connecting them. Far be it from me to ever cast a shadow upon the wisdom of a Golden Age Greek, but Archimedes had it wrong. The length of the straight line between two people who don't dare admit they're in love is infinite.

A toast," Smooth Kitty cried, feeling almost giddy, "to self-government. Saint Etheldreda's School for Young Ladies will be run by young ladies from this point forward. Hear, hear!" Great applause.

"To independence!" added Pocked Louise. "No fussy old widows telling us when not to speak, and how to set the spoons when an Earl's niece comes to supper. And telling us to leave scientific experiment to the men." Teacup toasts in support of Louise.

"To freedom!" chimed in Disgraceful Mary Jane. "No curfews and evil eyes and lectures on morals and propriety." Loud, if nervous, cheering.

"To womankind," proclaimed Stout Alice. "Each of us girls free to be what she wishes to be, without glum and crotchety Placketts trying to make us into what we're not." Tremendous excitement.

"To sisterhood," said Dear Roberta, "and standing by each other, no matter what.

We must seize the daylight.

But I did consider you," Peter assured me. "For quite a while. About half an hour. Beatrix wasn't too happy with me.

Modesty wasn't her forte, but then, a humble god is hard to find.

[...] they quickly became brothers-in-law, or, if not in law, in truth.

Don't be frightened by your beauty, you haven't until now, known you had it, and so you're uncorrupted by it. You can never take any credit for it, or make it your aim. But it would be as much deceit to deny your beauty or tell yourself that what you see is not you. Beauty hovers around you wherever you go, which is why these two poor young men chase after you when you're covered in dirt and dressed in rags. Not beauty of the face or form. Something eternal. This beauty that comes from dresses and jewels is somewhat of an illusion. But even illusion has its place. And that's what parties and dancing are for.

I can wait patiently for many things, but the sun might set before you finish a thought.

There's no justice in this world, the things that happen to people.

To tell the truth will make me loathsome in your eyes.
Even more than I already am.
I pledge to give you all the truth that's in me.
And you want me to tell you this.

Odd cases like his intrigued me.

There is a curious comfort in letting go. After the agony, letting go brings numbness, and after the numbness, clarity. As if I can see the world for the first time, and my place in it, independent of you, a whole vista of what may be. Even if it is not grand or inspiring, it is real and solid, unlike the fantasy I've built around you. I will do this.
I will triumph over you.

My guilt was firm in their minds the moment my name was called, the moment my tongue was cut.

Like a soldier back from battle you fill my vision. You're a flood, a baptism I'd forgotten, and the force of you leaves me breathless.

Boldness was intoxicating.

You're seeing a memory sweet as it is. But for your kind, memories of the dead are best seen through the cloudy glass of time and dreams.

I don't suppose you believe love could last forever."
I'd hurt him. I looked away, chagrined.
"You're mistaken," I said. "I do believe it could. But it would depend upon the lovers."
He folded his arms and watched me, forcing me to return his gaze. Oh, those eyes.
"And what kind of lovers must they be?" he asked.
The You-and-Me kind?

I understand you're a common street thief?"
Peter bristled. "Hardly a common one.

But even the best kisses end eventually.

We were four people: the children we'd been, and grown strangers now.

The scars were a reminder that she came back.

There's quite a difference between "almost never" and "never never".

The fuzzy boundary lines between different readership ages have always puzzled me, so these days I just write what comes, and assume I can fix the mess later with an editor's help.

I always want readers to lose themselves completely in a story and feel something, whatever the book invites them to feel. That experience is the best takeaway any book can offer.

God protects and keeps his own, does he not?

Sometimes, in the night, I thought of all the ways life could have been different.

I don't believe in miracles, but if the need is great, a girl might make her own miracle.

Kitty found herself in a moment of peril, and like all great women, she let the moment of crisis infuse her with strength she hadn't known she possessed.

Much marital woe, she reflected, might be prevented by teaching little tozets and tozas early how to properly fight with one another.

Come, come," I said. "You may be a lord someday, but you aren't one yet. No need for the courtly manners, and certainly not the moody temper. If you're to be my escort tonight, I insist you be a cheery one. You can even insult me if you like. It always makes you feel better.

There are no words for this. Like the flesh, like a prison cell, so, too, are words confining, narrow, chafing, stupid things incapable of expressing one particle of what I felt, what I feel when I see my beloved's face, when he takes me in his arms.

Any learned man is worth hearing, and who needs enemies?

I couldn't tell what was real and what was my own fright.

I want to learn. I deserve to read and write. Thoughts for company, and a pen for a voice. Who is more entitled to those privileges than I?

I have no words to save you.

Did you know food is infinitely more scrumptious when you're in love?" -Aphrodite

So gently did they fall, like feathers gliding on a breeze. They disappeared, like foxes slipping into their holes. There, and then not there.

She flexed her fingers, as if she were ready to tear justice out of someone's skin.

But the soul burning behind those eyes made me shiver. Ageless, ancient. As if it couldn't belong to this dull world.

I envy the mortals. It's because they're weak and damaged that they can love.

Mortals aren't meant to love perfection. It disillusions and destroys them in the end.

Morning larks called to one another from the shallows at the river's edge, and the sky began to silver behind the friar like a halo.

The pull for you is strong, during a big war.' Far better for him to voice the words than her. 'Too many hearts need you. It's intoxicating, being needed. Is that it?

In every bit of beauty, I see you.

God is patient, and with the young, always patience is needed.

Each of us could be under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of our lives."
"A black spot," Dour Elinor intoned. "A blemish upon our maiden purity."
"Oh, no, surely not," disgraceful Mary Jane replied. "Not for such a trifling thing as neglecting to mention the death of a headmistress and her nasty brother. No one could really be upset over that. It takes much more fun to leave a blemish upon one's maiden purity.

Reverend Rumsey's voice droned on. "... And Mrs. Livonia Butt's, for her generous donation of awards-winning butter, so ingeniously sculpted into frolicking hams... I'm sorry, that's frolicking lambs...

Fate punishes those who try to cheat it.