Laura Florand Quotes

She snuck a guilty peek at Matt. She didn't want to be selfish, she didn't want to hurt him, but music was who she was. If she didn't have that, she didn't have anything. As long as she was going to let him have it back eventually, surely he could survive sharing part of his valley until she remembered how to sing?

With aggressive come-ons, at least you knew where you stood. Holding hands, you got - hopeful.

He had suddenly the clearest understanding he had ever had of the way his father had gone so wrong. A man's strength was supposed to be against the outside world; to fight it back from himself and from those he took under his protection: his wife, his children, and for a man strong enough, more people still, people like his employees. To turn it inward, against the very people you had been given the strength to protect, because you couldn't deal with the outward fight, was the ultimate weakness.

meant us," she whispered. "I destroyed us." His fingers tightened against her cheek. "I'm not destroyed." Her breath stopped. "I'm scarred." He withdrew his hand and closed it carefully into a fist at his side. Again it slid in search of a pocket, but found none in which to bury itself. "I'm battered. But I'm still standing, Kai.

Sylvain flung out his hands. "You think my father never screwed up with me? You think I never screwed up with him? You don't get only one chance, for God's sake. You get five million chances, second after second every day. You don't have to get every single one of them perfect. Merde. It's not chocolate.

It's true that if
friends can never count on you being there the next time
they need you, the place they leave for you might be very
small. That's self-defense. If you abandon people - even if it's
not your fault - they will eventually get over you and find
someone else. Good for them. But you're an adult now, and
you can build things as deep and as long-lasting as you want
to. I wish you wouldn't underestimate your ability to make
people love you. - Aunt Aja

You can't ever really have enough worth that when you're gone, the spot you left won't close over.

She loved sinking into her bed on evenings like this, but apparently she shouldn't, because it worried her aunts, who thought she ought to be out dancing. It worried her a little bit, too, because what if they were right, and because sometimes a great loneliness welled up in her and threatened all the dams she built to hold it back. You couldn't cure loneliness by wallowing in it, up above the world, on an island removed from everything. She knew that. But she had such a hard time with all the cures. They seemed rough and brusque and brutal, as if they abused her skin with a pot scrubber ... forcing herself into a mass of people, a stranger among strangers ... But it was much more tempting to curl up with a book under her thick white comforter.
Still, sometimes after she curled up, she regretted her lack of courage and felt bleakly lonely.
It was important to have a really good book.

She had to lift both hands to illustrate what she meant, but he just let her carry his hand with her, not about to let go. She pushed the free hand toward the one he held, apparently trying to gesture closeness. "Warm," she said again. And then she did something that undid him to the last faint whisper of his soul: she gave his hand a squeeze with fingertips that could just barely reach around his, apparently using him to indicate what she wanted to say. He meant warmth. He meant this word she couldn't find.

Lea
when a man climbs a glass mountain, it's not usually for the damn golden apple. It's for the person he gives the apple to.

Never choose half of anything just to be safe when you have a chance to have something whole and perfect.

He felt as if he were blooming outward, his heart one of their own roses unfurling in deepest winter, which scared him because...well, roses that bloomed in the winter got frozen in the cold.

Kids aren't bonsai. Maybe instead of trying to make them beautiful to the rest of the world, you should just love them and let them grow.

She was all-out, delighted enthusiasm, like a stupid, bubbling stream, and the guy would just cup that in his hands for the hell of it, splash his face with it, and drop the leftovers back into the river.