Anna Oliphant Quotes

Where in the bloody hell did that come from?" asks the other person behind the counter. Or more precisely, on top of the counter, where her ridiculously attractive, English-accented boyfriend is perched.
He's the other thing I like about Anna. Wherever she goes, he follows.
He nods toward the baby wipe. "What else are you carrying in your pockets? Dust rags? Furniture polish?"
"Watch it," she says. "Or I'll scrub your arms, Étienne."
He grins. "As long as you do it in private. ~ Stephanie Perkins

I'm sorry," he says.
"What? Why?"
"You're fixing everything I set down." He nods at my hands, which are readjusting the elephant. "It wasn't polite of me to come in and start touching your things."
"Oh, it's okay," I say quickly, letting go of the figurine. "You can touch anything of mine you want."
He freezes. A funny look runs across his face before I realize what I've said. I didn't mean it like that.
Not that that would be so bad. ~ Stephanie Perkins

To: Anna Oliphant
From: Etienne St. Clair
Subject: Uncommon Prostitues

I have nothing to say about prostitues (other than you'd make a terrible prostitute,the profession is much too unclean), I only wanted to type that. Isn't it odd we both have to spend Christmas with our fathers? Speaking of unpleasant matters,have you spoken with Bridge yet? I'm taking the bus to the hospital now.I expect a full breakdown of your Christmas dinner when I return. So far today,I've had a bowl of muesli. How does Mum eat that rubbish? I feel as if I've been gnawing on lumber.

To: Etienne St. Clair
From: Anna Oliphant
Subject: Christmas Dinner


MUESLY? It's Christmas,and you're eating CEREAL?? I'm mentally sending you a plate from my house. The turkey is in the oven,the gravy's on the stovetop,and the mashed potatoes and casseroles are being prepared as I type this. Wait. I bet you eat bread pudding and mince pies or something,don't you? Well, I'm mentally sending you bread pudding. Whatever that is. No, I haven't talked to Bridgette.Mom keeps bugging me to answer her calls,but winter break sucks enough already. (WHY is my dad here? SERIOUSLY. MAKE HIM LEAVE. He's wearing this giant white cable-knit sweater,and he looks like a pompous snowman,and he keeps rearranging the stuff on our kitchen cabinets. Mom is about to kill him. WHICH IS WHY SHE SHOULDN'T INVITE HIM OVER FOR HOLIDAYS). Anyway.I'd rather not add to the drama.

Stephanie Perkins

To: Anna Oliphant
From: Étienne St. Clair
Subject: So . . .

Does that mean I can call you now? ~ Stephanie Perkins

Because I was right. For the two of us, home isn't a place. It's a person ~ Stephanie Perkins

That guys. Sideburns. You like him?"
My back squirms. "You've asked me that before."
"What I meant was," he says, flustered. "Your feelings haven't changed? Since you've been here?"
It takes a moment to consider the question. "It's not a matter of how I feel," I say at last. "I'm interested, but ... I don't know if he's still interested in me."
St. Clair edges closer. "Does he still call?"
"Yeah. I mean, not often. But yes."
"Right. Right, well," he says, blinking. "There's your answer. ~ Stephanie Perkins

If I weren't standing next to your boyfriend, I'd be tempted to ask you out myself."
She blushes, and St. Clair bounds inside the box office and wrestles her into a hug. "Miiiiiiiiine!" he says.
"Cut it out." Anna pushes him off, laughing. "You'll get fired. And then I'll have to support your sorry arse for the rest of our lives. ~ Stephanie Perkins

Jung said that beautiful women were sources of terror. That as a general rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment. Anna ~ Jill Alexander Essbaum

I'm a big fan of '30 Rock,' which I think is the most genius show on television. ~ Anna Kendrick

I know the difference now between dedication and infatuation. That doesn't mean I don't still get an enormous kick out of infatuation;: the exciting ephemera, the punch in the stomach, the
adrenaline to the heart. ~ Anna Quindlen

You know what you are, don't you?" she asks. "You're my salvation. My way to atone. To pay for everything I've done."
"Anna," I say. "Don't ask me to do this. ~ Kendare Blake

At least half of what we call hope, I believe, is simply the sense that something can be done. Once, ~ Anna Funder

Always stay sharp on railways and cruise ships for transit has a way of making everything clear. ~ Anna Godbersen

And I don't have to listen to a sermon to know what to think or feel about them. It's almost as if I absorbed completely what mattered most to me, and the rest could go. ~ Anna Quindlen

You know, right now, they say - I don't know who says this, but somebody told me - there's three male roles to every female role. And I guess I'd work on evening that up. Making great roles for women. It's just such a huge challenge. ~ Anna Faris

Deep in the drilled-in mud of the fields behind me, our bulbs are wrapped in their brittle skins with their messages of color stored inside. Blue iris, yellow crocus, tulips of all colors. ~ Anna Smaill

No, no, no! I am not giving birth backstage at a rock concert. I need to be in a hospital, pumped full of every drug that they can legally give me!
I was so shocked, my only repsonse was,
'Well, he was conceived backstage at a concert, so it's sort of fitting for him to be born at one. ~ S.C. Stephens

One of the best tricks a garden plays is that you never quite remember how it's going to be, that first day after winter has gone, when you go outside and can stay outside all day fiddling with jobs that aren't pressing enough to weigh heavily but will nevertheless pay dividends. A garden is made up of a thousand small inventions, but each small act is a defence (defiance even) against a world without anchors or safe harbours. ~ Anna Pavord

I worked for Harper's Bazaar. They fired me. I recommend that you all get fired; it's a great learning experience. ~ Anna Wintour

She was determined to sever the connection between her brain and her mouth before any unpleasant truths could escape. After all, she didn't need a brain to flirt, did she? ~ Anna Bradley

As we were about to cross the road, Davin suddenly grabbed my wrist and held me back a moment; a car peeled out of the driveway and roared past us. "Geez," I gasped, and then, glancing at him curiously, I added, "Thanks." He didn't say anything, but slowly released my wrist. Before he completely withdrew, I took his hand and interlaced my fingers through his. He looked at me, his lips parted in surprise, but then he smiled shyly and gave my hand a squeeze as we kept walking. It gave me a feeling of nervous flutters in the best way. As we walked up to the doors, Jill and Laurel came bursting out the exit. ~ J.M. Richards

It's not the sweet, tender kind of love I always dreamed of, but it's love. Dark, twisted, and obsessive, it's both a compulsion and an addiction. ~ Anna Zaires

Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky. I don't believe you can write poetry, or compose music, or become an actor without downtime, and plenty of it, a hiatus that passes for boredom but is really the quiet moving of the wheels inside that fuel creativity. ~ Anna Quindlen

There are Four of Us

I have turned aside from everything,
from the whole earthly store.
The spirit and guardian of this place
is an old tree-stump in water.

We are brief guests of the earth, as it were,
and life is a habit we put on.
On paths of air I seem to overhear
two friendly voices, talking in turn.

Did I say two?...There
by the east wall's tangle of raspberry,
is a branch of elder, dark and fresh.
Why! It's a letter from Marina.


November 1962 (in delirium) ~ Anna Akhmatova

But Emma's just as naïve as Rachel. They both maintain that the more you know about humans, the more you'll like them. It's at least partly why Rachel's encouraging him to go back to school, even if she hides it behind the other good reason he should attend-to keep some adolescent human male from getting himself killed. Just the thought of Emma walking the halls without him makes him ball his fists.
"You're right," he says with finality. "I need to stay in school." He peels off his shirt and tosses it over a chair. "Tell Emma I'm waiting for her. ~ Anna Banks

Other friends have said, "I don't understand why you've used this trumpet-style sound rather than a real one when you know you can write for trumpet." But it's most important to get the energy right. ~ Anna Meredith

Be careful not to judge anyone by the way they look. For when doing so, you are missing out on discovering who they truly are. Trials and triumphs are rerely seen at first glance. Look with your heart for another's heart. Here is the beauty. ~ Anna Taylor

You have to fight to hold on to the important things. ~ Anna Jarzab

The night of trouble is at times so dark that the interwoven gold with which Providence relieves the woof of calamity remains undiscovered. ~ Anna Leonowens

Safe isn't always better than sorry.
Sometimes you need sorry to appreciate the
safe. And sometimes safe is just plain boring. ~ Anna Banks

A young lady's most natural ally is her sister although sometimes our own relatives are as inscrutable to us as an antipodean. ~ Anna Godbersen

We are always afraid to ask because we aren't afraid of the answer but the feeling of rejection ~ Anna R.

The most frustrating things is when you read something that has so much potential, but there are other little red flags where you think, I don't know that I would see eye-to-eye with the people making this film. And that is the worst environment to enter, and absolutely not worth the risk. ~ Anna Kendrick

'He'll probably end up angling for a threesome. Then I'll have to get my animal name so I can be a part of the group. So Native American of you white boys. I'll probably go for something like Falcon. Or Wolf.'
'Jackass suits you better,' Anna intones. ~ T.J. Klune

They will stop calling brides beautiful after today - you have simply set the standard too high,' he said. ~ Anna Godbersen

Anna looked at Brother Wolf. 'I'd like to see someone try to put a radio control collar on Charles. It might be fun to watch on YouTube. ~ Patricia Briggs

Uh,we didn't get your name.Did we get his name Emma?" she says as if on cue.
"I tried,Chloe.But he wouldn't tell me,so I tackled him," I say rolling my eyes. ~ Anna Banks

Theater, for me, is no longer a conversation about how we destroy each other; it's much more about how we may be destroying everyone else. ~ Anna D. Shapiro

Whoever trains the children controls the future. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and a society will only ever be as strong as the families in it. ~ Anna Sofia Botkin

Some might call my trepidation at the idea of motherhood "selfishness" - I would call it "agency" - but those people are probably either (1) dudes or (2) self-satisfied professional parents, and I'm not sure I care enough about their opinions that I wouldn't just agree with them and shrug my shoulders in shared chagrin. ~ Anna Holmes

There's more, Anna. When we first got to California," she says, "you asked me if I remembered your birthday party." I nod, picking at a thread on her comforter. "I did remember. Matt was acting like such a space cadet that night after we got home – like he was floating. I can't believe I didn't figure it out, but of all the things that he could have been thinking about, you were the last – I mean, my mind just didn't even go there. You were like our sister."
"But I–"
"Wait – let me get this out." She looks at me hard, her broken wing eyebrow trembling to keep the tears back. "After I brushed my teeth, I walked into his room. He was sitting on his bed, playing with that blue glass necklace he always wore, a big smile on his face. Remember the necklace?"
The necklace.
"Of course."
"I asked him what was so funny. He jumped a little, not knowing I'd been watching him smile there like a goofy little kid. He said it was nothing – just that he had fun at the party. And I believed him, all the way up until the day I read your journal. That's when it all made sense. All the times he'd ask me about who you liked at school, or who wanted to take you to whatever dance."
She's quiet as I digest her story, putting the pieces together to form a complete whole from the missing half that's haunted me since that night – how did he really feel about me? Was it just one stupid moment, perpetuated a little too long, only to be forgotten as quickly as it came? A ~ Sarah Ockler

Am I picking you up tonight?" he asked. "Or do you still think I'm an ax murderer who might break into your house and off you and your family?"
"Pretty sure you'd go all parkour on us. Instead of using an ax."
"Parkour? You think I'd use your family as an obstacle course?"
"What?" I asked.
He smothered a laugh. "Parkour is non-contact."
I felt my face redden. How was I supposed to know all that guy crap? ~ Anna Cruise

I hate my muscles. I'm not Venus Williams. I'm not Serena Williams, I don't want to look like they look. ~ Anna Kournikova

The individuals inside are frequently fighting that their individual voices be heard, while the walls of the place, which are the mask, and the perception, are reluctant to give over to the voices of the individuals. Those in the margins are always trying to get to the center, and those at the center, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance. Part of the identity of a place is the tension between those in the margins, and those in the center, and they all live behind the walls which wear the tradition. ~ Anna Deavere Smith

Nature and truth are one, and immutable, and inseparable as beauty and love. ~ Anna Brownell Jameson

There's always moments where you creep yourself out, and you think you heard something and you convince yourself that some spirit is in the room with you, but truly, I don't believe in any of that kind of thing. A lot of my friends really do. ~ Anna Kendrick