Bristly Quotes

I don't think that writing talent has much to do with where one went to school, or the number of degrees on one's business card, but I do get a bit bristly at the implication that romance authors couldn't possibly be smart enough to get into an Ivy League school. ~ Julia Quinn

We used pesi, perejil, parsley, the damp summer morningness of it, the mingled sprigs, bristly and coarse, gentle and docile all at once, tasteless and bitter when chewed, a sweetened win wind inside the mouth, the leaves a different taste than the stalk, all this we savored for our food, our teas, our baths, to cleanse our insides as well as our outsides of old aches and griefs, to shed a passing year's dust as a new one dawned, to wash a new infant's hair for the first time and--along with boiled orange leaves--a corpse's remains one final time. ~ Edwidge Danticat

I hunt feral hogs. I try not to shoot creatures. That doesn't do anything for me. But big, nasty, smelly, bristly things with tusks that destroy everything that they touch. Yeah, I'll shoot them. ~ David Feherty

I'm honest enough to say that I dinna care what the right and wrong of it may be, so long as you're here wi' me, Claire," he said softly. "If it was a sin for you to choose me ... then I would go to the devil himself and bless him for tempting ye to it." He lifted my foot and gently kissed the tip of my big toe.
I laid my hand on his head; the short hair felt bristly but soft, like a very young hedgehog.
"I don't think it was wrong," I said softly. "But if it was ... then I'll go to the devil with you, Jamie Fraser. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Men, she thought, were one of the world's few sure comforts, like a fire on a cold October night, like cocoa, like broken-in-slippers. Their clumsy affections, their bristly faces, and their willingness to do what needed to be done - cook an omelette, change lightbulbs, make with hugging - sometimes almost made being a woman fun. ~ Joe Hill

Many very intelligent agreeable persons have warts on the forehead, not brown, nor very large, between the eyebrows, which have nothing in them offensive or disgusting. - But a large brown wart on the upper lip, especially when it is bristly, will be found in no person who is not defective in something essential, or at least remarkable for some conspicuous failing. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater

Will you be there waiting for me every night, in our cottage?" he murmured.
She nodded, leaning against him.
McKenna's bristly black lashes lowered until they cast shadows on his cheeks. "And you'll scrub my back when I'm tired and dusty from the field?"
Aline pictured his large, powerful body lowering into a wooden tub... his pleasured sigh at the heat of the water... his bronzed back shining in the firelight. "Yes," she breathed. "And then you can soak while I hang the stew pot over the fire, and I'll tell you about the argument I had with the miller, who didn't give me enough flour because his scale was weighted."
McKenna laughed softly while his fingertip skimmed lightly along her throat. "The cheat," he murmured, his eyes sparkling. "I'll speak with him tomorrow- no one tries to fleece my wife and gets away with it. In the meantime, let's go to bed. I want to hold you all night long."
The thought of being tucked in a cozy bed with him, their naked bodies entwined, made Aline tremble with longing. "You'll probably fall asleep as soon as your head touches the pillow," she said. "Farming is hard work- you're exhausted."
"Never too tired to love you." His arms slid around her, and he hunched over to nuzzle the curve of her cheek. His lips were like hot velvet as he whispered against her skin. "I'm going to kiss you from your head to your toes. And I won't stop until you're crying for me, and then I'll pleasure you until you're weak from my lovin ~ Lisa Kleypas

Should I leave you two alone?" he asked, changing the subject.

"He's taken," I said, accepting the fact that forgiving himself was something Reyes didn't do. "Osh. By someone very special."

"And who might that be?"

This might be a little hard for him to swallow. Tact was definitely in order. Or I could just blurt it out and watch his expression go from content to disbelief to horror to a bristly, murderous kind of fury. I chose door number two. "He's destined to be with our daughter."

Reyes's expression slowly changed from content to disbelief to horror to a bristly, murderous kind of fury. "Oh, hell, no." He shot to his feet. "A Daeva? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Just like a dad.

"Yes, a Daeva. But I wouldn't dismiss him so offhandedly."

He whirled around and scowled. Not really at me. Just in general. "What do you mean?"

I pressed one corner of my mouth together in thought. "Okay, you know how I was the grim reaper all of my life, then suddenly I'm also this god from another dimension? And how you're the son of Satan all your life, then suddenly you're a god from this dimension? Who does that? Our lives are so weird. I think that maybe Osh is something else, too." I traced one of the dark lines on his face. "I think there's more than meets the eye. I see greatness in him, Reyes. I see a power beyond our imaginings. I see him giving his life for our daughter."

"Oh." He sat bac ~ Darynda Jones

Get off me, baby, gotta shower." I rolled off but he rolled right on top of me. "I thought you had to shower," I asked when I caught his eyes. He held my gaze for a moment and I couldn't read his face before his head dipped and I felt his nose tweak my ear. "I'm sorry I was a dick," he whispered there. There it was. That was all he had to do and I knew at that moment there would be times when he'd be a jerk and that was all he'd ever have to do. My arms slid around him. "Honey," I whispered back. He gave my shoulder a bristly kiss and then he was gone. ~ Kristen Ashley

Scarlet O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin-that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns. ~ Margaret Mitchell

for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject. But she smiled when she spoke, consciously deepening her dimple and fluttering her bristly black lashes as swiftly as butterflies' wings. The boys were enchanted, as she had intended them to be, and they hastened to apologize for boring her. They thought none the less of her for her lack of interest. Indeed, they thought more. War was men's business, not ladies', and they took her attitude as evidence of her femininity. Having ~ Margaret Mitchell

Because he will grip you by the shoulders and
wrench you around and he will bring his bristly
mouth to yours and blow
stars
down your throat
until you are so full
of
light ~ Augusten Burroughs

Pam is petite, a bristly little chihuahua of a human being. She is the only woman I ever met who claims to be ten years older than she actually is so everyone will tell her how young she looks. ~ Sue Grafton

The ironic is a mere ancient whisper in this torqued narrative: its odd violence feels true. Today & Tomorrow crashes through the windows of strip malls and paints the hypertrophic aisles with bristly-creepy hilarity. ~ Stacey Levine

With the ferrule of his walking-stick Denis began to scratch the boar's long bristly back. The animal moved a little so as to bring himself within easier range of the instrument that evoked in him such delicious sensations; then he stood stock still, softly grunting his contentment. The mud of years flaked off his sides in a grey powdery scurf. "What a pleasure it is," said Denis, "to do somebody a kindness. I believe I enjoy scratching this pig quite as much as he enjoys being scratched. If only one could always be kind with so little expense or trouble ... ~ Aldous Huxley

In the Trees ON LOU'S SWEET, ROUND, BRISTLY FACE WAS THE LOOK OF A CHILD who has just seen a car back over his favorite toy. Tears sprang to his eyes, the brightest thing in the dark. It distressed her to see him nearly crying, to see his shock and disappointment, but the sound of the handcuff snapping shut - that sharp, clear click, echoing on the frozen ~ Joe Hill

I wait for a long time without anything changing. The room is still dark, the floor still cold and hard, my heart still beating faster than normal. I look down to check my watch and discover that it's on the wrong hand - I usually wear mine on my left, not my right, and my watchband isn't gray, it's black. Then I notice bristly hairs on my fingers that weren't there before. The calluses on my knuckles are gone. I look down, and I am wearing gray slacks and a gray shirt; I am thicker around the middle and thinner through the shoulders. I lift my eyes to a mirror that now stands in front of me. The face staring back at mine is Marcus's. ~ Veronica Roth

He was a horrid-looking fellow. Fat as a pig he was, and his face was the colour of cottage cheese. His collar was unbuttoned and his silk tie was spotted with egg stain. His stomach stuck out like a sagging pillow and his little thin legs fell away under it to end in torn felt slippers. He was all bristly blond jowls, tiny puffy hands and long blond curly hair, like some monstrous baby swelled to man size. ~ Brian Moore

To science." Ben chuckled and closed the distance between them, brushing his lips across Maddox's for the first time. As per his usual, Maddox was several days past needing a shave, and his cheek was bristly against Ben's hand and his upper lip tickled Ben's. Maddox ~ Annabeth Albert

The grass as bristly and stout as chives and me wondering when the ground will break and me wondering how anything fragile survives ~ Anne Sexton

She told no one of the otter. Garrett would want to trap it; Faina would ask her to draw it. She refused to confine it by any means because, in some strange way, she knew it was her heart. Living, twisting muscle beneath bristly damp fur. Breaking through thin ice, splashing in cold creek water, sliding belly-down across snow. Joyful, though it should have known better. ~ Eowyn Ivey

Moments later, Hawfield walked in. He wasn't alone.
"You've got to be kidding!" Hi blurted.
Carmine Corcoran's scowl was as deep as ever. He'd lost a few pounds, but was still a large man, with muttonchop sideburns and a bristly black mustache. His hair was graying at the temples, making him appear more distinguished than his forty-five years merited.
Ruth popped the back of her son's head. "Mind your manners, Hiram."
"Why does everyone do the?" Hi muttered. "And child abuse. In front of the police, I might add. ~ Kathy Reichs

She threw her arms around him and kissed his bristly face. He kissed her back, inhibited somewhat by being unable to stop grinning. "I must stink," he said between kisses. "I haven't changed my clothes for a week." "You smell like a cheese factory," she said. "I love it." She pulled him into her bedroom and started to take his clothes off. "I'll take a quick shower," he said. "No," she said. She pushed him back on the bed. "I'm in too much of a hurry." Her longing for him was frantic. And the truth was that she relished the strong smell. It should have repelled her, but it had the opposite effect. It was him, the man she had thought might be dead, and he was filling her nostrils and her lungs. She could have wept with joy. ~ Ken Follett

I'm spending until dawn with you," I said firmly. "Don't bother to argue."
"God forbid," said Jesse, solemn.
I pushed past him into the cottage. He'd been waiting up for me, I could tell. There was a book spread facedown upon the table, a pair of lamps lit beside it.
"I thought you said you were resting tonight.
"Aye. I was. But then it occurred to me that the bed wasn't nearly so comfortable without you. So I got up and hoped."
I crossed my arms over my chest and dug my toes into the soft nap of the rug. The cottage had been built within a protective circle of birches; even during the heat of the day, it was never very warm.
"You hoped for me?" I asked, uncertain.
Jesse came close, put his arms around me, and buried his face in my hair. "As always. As ever."
"And I came," I whispered, closing my eyes, breathing him. The ache behind my forehead began to unbind.
"And you came," he agreed.
And he summoned the magic that was all his own, beyond stars and starfire. A magic of mortal lips and hands, of bristly new whiskers scraping my chin, of melting kisses that made the whiskers unimportant.
Our bodies entwined, or hearts. Our lives.
I think that was the night a very quiet, very powerful part of me began to comprehend how it was going to be. I think the part of me that was magic, that had broken away from the practical earth to slip along Jesse's celestial family of stars, to allow them to bind me in their spell…
Shana Abe