Cora Carmack Quotes

I'm going to kiss you, princess. But not now, not when you're telling me to. Not when it's just something you want to check off a list. I'll kiss you when it counts. ~ Cora Carmack

Some relationships just end. Like a star, they burn bright and brilliant, and then nothing in particular goes wrong, they just reach their end. They burn out. ~ Cora Carmack

Sorry about that."
"You didn't hear me complaining."
I raised an eyebrow and said, "Forget about it. You will never see me in that skirt."
"Never? Is that a challenge, love?"
"It's a promise. ~ Cora Carmack

I read this book once where the girl yelled 'cat' right before they were about to get some bow-chicka-bow-wow,' I told him. 'It was high-larious. ~ J. Lynn

Dudes who look dangerous should just be dangerous. Period. The end. They should not be dangerous and beautiful all at the same time. It leaves the universe out of balance, and it makes me do stupid things like stare. ~ Cora Carmack

And that feeling, that attachment I'd felt to him was no longer a hook, but an anchor buried deep in my rib cage. ~ Cora Carmack

As soon as we arrived home, I told Bliss I was going to take a shower. Sundays were a two-show day, so I certainly needed it. I let her go in first to brush her teeth. I waited for the water to turn on, then leapt into action. I found Hamlet's feathered cat toy (the only reason she would ever willingly get close to Bliss), and hid it underneath the bed. Then I went to the closet and found the suit coat pocket where I'd hidden the ring. I popped open the box to look at it one more time.

It wasn't much. I was only an actor, after all. But Bliss wasn't one to wear much jewelry any way. It was simple and sparkling, and I hoped she would love it as much as I loved her. A popping sensation filled my gut like those silly candy rocks that Bliss loved.

What if I was pushing her too fast?

No. No, I'd thought this out. It was the best way. I opened the top drawer of the nightstand, and slid the ring box toward the back. The water in the bathroom shut off, and I went back to the closet, shucking my shirt. I tossed it in the hamper at the same time Bliss walked in the room.

She came up behind me and placed a hand on my bare back. She pressed a small kiss on my shoulder and asked, "Get Hamlet for me before you shower?"

I smiled, and nodded.

Bliss was so determined to make Hamlet like her that she played with the cat for at least half an hour before bed every night. Hamlet would stick around for as long as Bliss waved t ~ Cora Carmack

I give up. In the war for my parents' approval, I'd lost to a complete stranger. ~ Cora Carmack

Shiiiit. Cade weighs a lot. Way more than I thought! I moaned/sang. ~ Cora Carmack

Suddenly there was this intensity to everything we did and everything we said. Like my life had been itelicized. ~ Cora Carmack

Sometimes, it's the scary things in life that are the most worthwhile. ~ Cora Carmack

I don't show much of anything. ~ Cora Carmack

Just because you tell me not to worry about something doesn't mean I can stop. It's not a switch I can turn on and off. ~ Cora Carmack

I want to memorize the way your eyes clench shut and you bite down on your lip, so that I can sketch your expression from memory. I want to know the exact angle of the way your neck curves, and how many times your heart beats a minute. I want to know everything. ~ Cora Carmack

You are unbelievably sexy. ~ Cora Carmack

So what are you going to do? I make this weird noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob because, ironically enough... I don't know. ~ Cora Carmack

There is a better world Well, there must be . . . ~ Cora Carmack

If there's anything I learned with you, it's that one more day was never enough ~ Cora Carmack

In life, it's so easy to get tunnel vision, to imagine this world is a movie set and your story - ­what you see through your eyes and think with your brain and feel with your heart - ­is the only thing that matters. But the world was so much bigger than that. Life was so much bigger than that. Sometimes, I couldn't understand how it could hold all of us, all of the hope and hurt of humanity. ~ Cora Carmack

Confusion leads to knowledge for those brave enough to seek it. ~ Cora Carmack

Someone's an easy grader."
"Someone just has a soft spot where you are concerned." He was leaning down towards me and even though his face was a good foot away from me, I swear I felt those words like he'd whispered them into my ear. ~ Cora Carmack

There's this funny thing about empathy. It's not actually in limited supply. Just because other people have it worse doesn't mean you don't deserve to be understood. To feel comfort. ~ Cora Carmack

Maybe it was because we were both actors. Maybe it was just because of who we were. But I could see in her eyes that she knew, too. This was the end of a chapter.
Cade ~ Cora Carmack

Trust me. This was much better than the alternative. I'm exactly where I want to be. He glanced down at me and gave me a half-smile. ~ Cora Carmack

And as much as I was dying to know, I also knew that there was bliss in oblivion. ~ Cora Carmack

He lifted the tent flap carefully, and called into the dark space, "Rise and shine, princess."

Locke heard the shuffling of blankets, and a grumbled, "I will murder you. ~ Cora Carmack

Oh shit. Shit taking a shit on a shit. ~ Cora Carmack

I nodded. Nodding was all I knew how to do, all I understood. Nodding, at least, still made sense. ~ Cora Carmack

And now suddenly there was this intensity to everything we did and everything we said. Like my life had been italicized. ~ Cora Carmack

He took my hand, and pulled me into his living room where a book was open on his sofa. It was poetry, of course, because he was perfect. ~ Cora Carmack

I love her, and I love Mom, and I would do just about anything for them. But when you think stuff like that ... you think of grand, heroic gestures. Pushing someone out of the way of a moving vehicle. Standing between them and danger. Sacrificing something important. But it's not like that. Not at all. It's not one big moment, it's a thousand. It's every day. And you don't sacrifice just one important thing, you sacrifice a little more and a little more until you start to feel hollowed out. It's not the sacrifice that hurts so much as the thought that it will never end. That you're stuck in your fate, and nothing and no one can change it. You'll just keep giving and giving until you don't even know who you are. ~ Cora Carmack

Bliss, I don't normally do things like that. But I was second-guessing everything about coming here, and you were everything I needed. I don't know how many times I've stopped myself from coming over here and knocking on your door. And yes, seeing you with Cade was definitely motivation, but more than that ... I just like you, Bliss. As a teacher. As a person. As a guy. ~ Cora Carmack

What nourishes me also destroys me ~ Cora Carmack

It was like my uterus was tapping out a happy dance on the rest of my organs. God, I was dying the longest, most tortuous, and arousing death in the history of the world. ~ Cora Carmack

But fear lets us know we're alive. It tells me that you care about what happens between us because the mind doesn't waste time being scared about things that don't matter. ~ Cora Carmack

I pulled, allowing her body to slide down mine. I kept my hands at her waist to slow her descent. The shifting of her body against mine was heavenly. She sucked in a breath, and when our faces were level, her eyes were not narrowed, but closed. Her lips weren't pursed, but her bottom lip was caught between her teeth in a way that made my mouth dry. Her cheeks were still flushed, but I had a feeling it wasn't about anger anymore.
"You did that on purpose," she said.
I laughed, and it came out raspy. She wasn't the only one affected by our closeness. "I definitely did that on purpose. I think we should make this a post-show ritual actually. ~ Cora Carmack

I hoped she would love me as much as I loved her. ~ Cora Carmack

Mortification was becoming my default emotion. ~ Cora Carmack

I'll remind you every day how amazing it feels when your body touches mine. I'll remind you of the good times, and help you forget the bad. I'll remind you who you are when life has beaten you down and made you doubt it. I'll bust down yourdoor in the middle of the night and kiss you until you remember that your fears are just that, and they can't control you. I'll take my chances against your fickle heart if it means it's mine. ~ Cora Carmack

You're not horrible, Kelsey. You are vibrant and beautiful, and you burn. Burn so vividly. Fires can damage, but they're also beautiful and vital and they can purify and give the chance for a fresh start. You're not horrible. Not at all. ~ Cora Carmack

I can deny myself all I want, but one thing I cannot deny is just how fucking gorgeous this girl is. And exactly the kind of distraction I'm supposed to be staying away from. ~ Cora Carmack

Somebody pinch me."
A man with a horrendously hairy chest and a Speedo so tight it was probably cutting off circulation passed by me at that moment, and did just that. I yelped and held a hand to my ass, gawking at his retreating back.
Jenny laughed. "Maybe this place is magic, and whatever we say comes true. Ryan Gosling, please! ~ Cora Carmack

Sometimes it's hard to see past our own broken pieces. ~ Cora Carmack

She enjoyed her time alone, reading or riding her horse, Honey, or studying. She did not want to wear fancy dresses or attend parties or experience the frivolity of court life. At least, that was what she always told herself. Now she felt as if she had stepped into the pages of one of her books or strode out of the shadows of her own life for the first time. ~ Cora Carmack

He was still a mystery to me. And God, did I want to play Nancy Drew. ~ Cora Carmack

Music wasn't complicated. It was math. ~ Cora Carmack

I'm not dealing with it at all. I'm fucking disintergrating, but I'm not dealing. ~ Cora Carmack

I think everyone does. Even happy people. They may not admit it to anyone, but I think they feel it. I think they close their eyes, or go for a run, or take a long shower, so that hey can forget just for a second who they are and what they have to do day in and day out.
Living is hard.
And every day our feet get heavier and we pick up more baggage. So, we stop and take a breath, close our eyes, reset our minds. It's natural. As long as you open your eyes and keep going.
(Cade) ~ Cora Carmack

What? Just because I can't have you right now, doesn't mean I'm okay with him having you. ~ Cora Carmack

Our oh-so-brief relationship had been like spending a day in the sunlight when you've lived your whole life underground (my former self being the mole man in this story). Maybe that was all we got when it came to relationships like that - flashes of sunlight. Maybe it was too bright to be sustained for any extended period of time. Maybe I should be thankful. ~ Cora Carmack

This is what it is to be a muse. I walk the line between want and need, between power and submission. And I make the hard choices. ~ Cora Carmack

And Rusty is a douche! And the wind in my hair smells like whoosh!"
Cade laughed, "Don't you mean sounds?"
"What sounds?"
"Nevermind," he chuckled ~ Cora Carmack

That guy is trying to be a gentleman, because as much as he wanted you to come back to his place and as much as he wants to kiss you-you're hurt, I'm afraid you don't actually want me here ~ Cora Carmack

Perhaps death is all that waits for me across the great waters, but better to know death than to choose fear of the unknown. ~ Cora Carmack

Women love a mystery. But only if we think we can figure it out. ~ Cora Carmack

Jesus. That low, teasing tone is like a punch straight to the chest. Or the babymaker. Both, really. "I'm just not a big fan of blood." His lips are still at my ear, and he lowers his volume so that Matt won't hear. "I promise not to get you dirty. Unless you ask real nice." I don't even . . . I can't . . . Oh my God. I plant my elbow in his side and use it to pry myself a little space. "You're incorrigible." "You're gonna have to use smaller words with me, Pickle. Or better yet, no words at all. ~ Cora Carmack

So, what made you decide to get a cat?
Oh, you know. I nearly had a one-night stand with our professor, but ran away using my imaginary cat as an excuse, and now he might want us to be together together even though it's the worst idea ever, but I kind of don't care either, because my body and probably my heart are telling me it's the best idea ever. So now I need a cat so he won't realize I was lying about the cat because I'm a virgin and chickened out of having sex with him. ~ Cora Carmack

I know now why caring about another person is so damn scary. It's not that they won't care about you back, because that either happens or it doesn't. You live with it or you do everything you can to change it. The really scary thing is the moment you realize that for the rest of your life, you'll feel twice the pain, twice the joy, twice the fear.
Twice as helpless to control it all, too. ~ Cora Carmack

No tragedies here, Roar. This world will make you a victim every chance it gets. Don't let it. ~ Cora Carmack

Each one you take is a commitment. If you break that commitment, the gods of alcohol will punish you with a hangover so bad you'll think Satan himself took a dump on you. -Milo ~ Cora Carmack

Four.
That's the number of people who saw me hiding around the corner from my own apartment in just a skirt and a bra. Eleven.
That's the number of ant bites I got on my shoeless feet.
Twenty-seven.
That's the number of times I was tempted to do myself physical harm because I am an IDIOT.
One.
That's the number of times I tried not to cry, but failed. ~ Cora Carmack

I never dated a girl like her, and she's probably never dated a guy like me. But sometimes you don't know what you're looking for until it's already knocked you flat on your back. ~ Cora Carmack

I drop my head against the steering wheel and groan. "You are in so much trouble, Dylan Brenner." And trouble's name is Silas Moore. ~ Cora Carmack

If she were a storm, she could destroy him, and he would never lift a finger to protect himself. ~ Cora Carmack

I don't know anything about this guy except that his eyes make my mind fuzzy, and his muscled arms make my mouth water, and the things he keeps saying... they burn – beginning in my flushed cheeks, blazing through my blood, and curling between my legs until I feel like I have to squeeze them together just to keep from combusting on the spot. ~ Cora Carmack

I'm already there. ~ Cora Carmack

We've had too much death and disappointment, so we don't know how to accept the good things when they happen to us. ~ Cora Carmack

Life wasn't pretty, but it also wasn't scary until she met a man who touched her without taking and made her miss the pieces she had lost. ~ Cora Carmack

You don't know how much I've thought about this tattoo. I want to memorize it so that every time I close my eyes I can see the way it accentuates your body. ~ Cora Carmack

Oh, I burned it with my straightener."
"You burned your leg with your straightener? How long is your leg hair? ~ Cora Carmack

I think I break more than I fix." Her ~ Cora Carmack

But sex ... that was the opposite of control. There were emotions, and attraction, and that pesky other person that just had to be involved. Not my idea of fun. ~ Cora Carmack

How much of my fever-induced dream was real? I felt safe assuming that my time as a bee was fiction, as well as a few mythological animals that I swear I'd seen. Then I'd lived on the sun with aliens. ~ Cora Carmack

Every day. I will prove every day how much you mean to me. How real this is. ~ Cora Carmack

Because it was time.
To say good-bye to Roar.
And become Aurora once more. ~ Cora Carmack

Rora played along, saying the right words, smiling the right smile, and nodding, but her mind wasn't in it. Not really. She was outside herself. Her heart grew calm and steady and quiet-- the kind of quiet that came before the Rage season. As if the whole land was bracing itself for the battle to come. All the nerves and the confusing emotions melted away, and she was nothing more than a series of actions cobbled together by instinct alone. That was what happened to an animal when it was cornered. When the danger was high and adrenaline took over. Reason disappeared then, and the only thing left was an instinct older than blood and bones. And her instinct? It told her two things. To lie. And to run. ~ Cora Carmack

Everyone deserves one grand adventure, that one time in life that we always get to point back to and say, Then ... then I was really living. ~ Cora Carmack

There's a truth you learn early on in the activism scene . . . most protests are lost before they even start. We hope for change. Beg for it. But even when we know it won't come, still we stand with our signs and say our chants. Still we show up. Because to lie down and say nothing means the cause dies with us, and a little piece of us with it. So we chant. And we chant. And we say the same words again and again and again. Louder and louder. We do it to put words to the ache we feel in our hearts. And there's this small, innocent hope somewhere in the back of our minds that even if there's no point, even if it's a done deal . . . we hope that if we say something enough times, people will listen. Or that if we say it enough, it will finally make sense. ~ Cora Carmack

You don't realize how small you really are until you're faced with something like that. We live our lives as if we're at the center of our own universe, but we're just tiny pieces of a shattered whole. ~ Cora Carmack

God, I've missed you. ~ Cora Carmack

Oh how I had underestimated tender kisses. ~ Cora Carmack

Sex.
I was going to have sex.
With a boy.
A hot boy.
A hot BRITISH boy.
Or maybe I was going to throw up.
What if I threw up on the hot British boy?
What if I threw up on the hot British boy DURING SEX? ~ Cora Carmack

If brains could have orgasms, I'm pretty sure this was what it would feel like. ~ Cora Carmack

I was going to be so terrible at this ... the worst he'd ever had probably. And then he'd never want to see me again (and I really wanted to see him again). I'd probably be traumatized and never want to have sex again, which meant every relationship for the rest of my life would fail, and I would end up alone and miserable with nine cats and a ferret. ~ Cora Carmack

I'll make you a deal. A question for a kiss. ~ Cora Carmack

He wore his hope like a winter coat, layered over the top of all of him. ~ Cora Carmack

And it wasn't that I didn't love them ... I did. I just didn't love the person they wanted me to be. ~ Cora Carmack

I'm going to shatter into a thousand pieces from the intensity of this kiss alone. ~ Cora Carmack

You're bruised and battered from dealing with things you should not have had to face, but you are not less because of that. You're more. ~ Cora Carmack

Tell me I'm not crazy, He said. I couldn't do that. I was nowhere near sane enough at the moment to advise anyone else on rational behavior. ~ Cora Carmack

I stared at them while my control unraveled. I wanted to throw them in the trash. I wanted to return them. I wanted to keep them. I was a mess of wants, none of which mattered, because she didn't want me. ~ Cora Carmack

Do me a favor? Be a gentleman tomorrow? ~ Cora Carmack

Because Mateo Torres is loud, and I'm quiet. Because he's reckless, and I'm cautious. Because he belongs everywhere, and I don't.
Because I think I'm in danger of falling in love with him. ~ Cora Carmack

I'm tired of the way we both pretend.
Tired of always wanting and never giving in.
I can feel it in my skin, see it in your grin.
We're more. We always have been.
Think of everything we've missed.
Every touch and every kiss.
Because we both insist.
Resist. ~ Cora Carmack

The best parts of our life are the things we can't plan. And it's a lot harder to find happiness if you're only searching in one place. Sometimes, you just have to throw away a map. Admit that you don't know where you're going and stop pressuring yourself to figure it out. Besides ... a map is a life someone else already lived. It's more fun to make your own map. ~ Cora Carmack

I let people go. ~ Cora Carmack

I told you I would never let anything bad happen to you. ~ Cora Carmack

Aurora thought about Nova, afraid to even discuss the Eye's existence. She thought about the crammed, ramshackle homes she'd passed that people had no choice but to live in if they wanted the safety that Pavan provided. She thought about every time she'd ever heard of some traveling party that disappeared, lost to the dangers of the wildlands. Maybe she could do something. With magic of her own, she would gain the crown. Not Cassius. Not a husband. And then maybe she could change everything for the better. No more treason or banishment. No need to sell the magic in secret. She thought of her favorite book again. She had no boat to leave the sea, no skills as a sailor, but perhaps she culd have a similar voyage of her own. If they could not sail away to some better land, then the only choice was to make this land better. ~ Cora Carmack

Hey", I take hold of her chin for extra emphasis." You don't ever have to worry about impressing me. ~ Cora Carmack

It wasn't until I'd walked halfway across the parking lot that I realized:
1. I wasn't wearing shoes.
A. Or a shirt.
2. I didn't bring my keys
A. Or anything really.
3. I'd just left a complete stranger in my apartment.
A. Naked.
Whoever said one-night stands were supposed to be simple with no strings attached had clearly never met the disaster that was me. ~ Cora Carmack