First Time I Saw You Quotes

You're my first love, and I never had the courage to tell you. My love for you is pure, ageless. I knew it the first time I saw you bob for apples at your ninth birthday party. I've known it all of our lives, and my love for you has grown as we've grown together, apart and back together again. ~ Trudy Stiles

Did you know, the first time I saw you, I thought: I've never seen anything more captivating and beautiful?"
"Why are you telling me this?" I said miserably.
"I saw you, and I wanted to be close to you. I wanted you to let me in. I wanted to know you in a way no one else did. I wanted you, all of you. That wanting nearly drove me mad." Patch paused, inhaling softly, as though breathing me in. "And now that I have you, the only thing that terrifies me is having to go back to that place. Having to want you all over again, with no hope of my desire ever being fulfilled. You're mine, Angel. Every last piece of you. I won't let anything change that. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

The first time I saw you," I say, "I had a premonition. I had the feeling I'd found the thing I'd always been waiting for. The next time I saw you, it was the same. And every time after it's been the same. ~ Hilary Thayer Hamann

First time I saw you, after I got over hating you, I knew," he said, echoing Ty's words, "I knew I'd fall in love with you ~ Abigail Roux

Does it scare you? That you might love someone that much someday, just to lose them too?" "Yes," I confess, "I've been scared since the first time I saw you. ~ Cheryl McIntyre

They never say this,
but it's true,
it was raining the first time I saw you. ~ Mandy Nachampassack-Maloney

He grasped her chin, tilted her face toward him, and kissed her deeply. She was wearing no perfume today, but her skin carried a faint scent that reminded him of apples. It could be because they had been living in an apple orchard, but Michael knew it was simply the way her skin naturally smelled. When he withdrew, he smiled at the attractive flush that darkened her cheeks and made her eyes sparkle. "If you had looked at me like that the first time I saw you," he murmured, "I would have flung you over my shoulder and carried you off to the nearest church. No man can have a woman look at him like that and not want to marry her. ~ Elizabeth Camden

When the first time I saw you, when you have been totally stranger, suddenly, somehow everything completely disappeared and I realized that I found it... true love... From that moment nothing else matters... ~ Rati Tsiteladze

I didn't share her concern. Damn it. I should have banished you the first time I saw you. I don't have time for this, not with everything else. You should be in the Underworld by now. Kiyo isn't going to kill me. ~ Richelle Mead

I can remember thinking I'd been turned inside out. Kind of like the first time I saw you. ~ Lauren James

Don't defend him! This is bullshit!" he said as he turned for the door, and then turned back to face me. "I've been sitting at work this whole time, staring at those fucking things. I wanted to calm down before I got here, but this is just . . . it's fucking disrespectful, is what it is! I bust my ass trying to prove to you that I'm better for you than he ever was. But he keeps pulling this shit, and showing up, and . . . I can't compete with some rich college boy from California. I'm barely getting by, with no degree, and up until a few days ago I still lived with my dad. But I am so fucking in love you, Cami," he said, reaching for me. "I have been since we were kids. The first time I saw you on the playground, I knew what beauty was. The first time you ignored me was my first broken heart. I thought I was playing this right, from the moment I sat down at your table at the Red. No one has ever wanted someone as much as I want you. For years I . . ." He was breathing hard, and he clenched his jaw. "When I heard about your dad, I wanted to rescue you," he said, chuckling, but not out of humor. "And that night at your apartment, I thought I'd finally gotten something right." He pointed to the ground. "That my purpose in life was to love you and keep you safe . . . but I didn't prepare for having to share you. ~ Jamie McGuire

And now I'm looking at you," he said, "and you're asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before – bits of myself to the Lightwoods, to Isabelle and Alec, but it took years to do it – but, Clary, since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me. ~ Cassandra Clare

It's always been you, Caro. The first time I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful girl that I'd ever seen. I thought you must be a princess like Cinderella. It's only ever been you. ~ Jane Harvey-Berrick

Haven't I? - he thought. Haven't I thought of it since the first time I saw you? Haven't I thought of nothing else for two years? ...He sat motionless, looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself to form, the words he had felt, known, yet had not faced, had hoped to destroy by never letting them be said within his own mind. Now it was as sudden and shocking as if he were saying it to her ...Since the first time I saw you ...Nothing but your body, that mouth of yours, and the way your eyes would look at me, if ...Through every sentence I ever said to you, through every conference you thought so safe, through the importance of all the issues we discussed ...You trusted me, didn't you? To recognize your greatness? To think of you as you deserved - as if you were a man? ...Don't you suppose I know how much I've betrayed? The only bright encounter of my life - the only person I respected - the best business man I know - my ally - my partner in a desperate battle ...The lowest of all desires - as my answer to the highest I've met ...Do you know what I am? I thought of it, because it should have been unthinkable. For that degrading need, which would never touch you, I have never wanted anyone but you ...I hadn't known what it was like, to want it, until I saw you for the first time. I had thought : Not I, I couldn't be broken by it ...Since then ...For two years ...With not a moments respite ...Do you know what it's like, to want it? Would you wish to hear what I ~ Ayn Rand

The first time I saw you, at the Governor, I handn't been to watch the birds at the border in years. But that's what you reminded me of. You were jumping up, and you were yelling something, and your hair was coming loose from your ponytail, and you were so fast ... " He shakes his head. "Just a flash, and then you were gone, Exactly like a bird. ~ Lauren Oliver

That deepest thing, that recognition, that knowledge, that sense of kinship began the first time I saw you,and it is the same now - only a thousand times deeper and tenderer. I shall love you to eternity. I loved you long before we met in this flesh. I knew that when I first saw you. It was destiny. We are together like this and nothing can shake us apart. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Ava, the first time I saw you, this lost beautiful creature that swept me into this unimaginable world, I knew I was in trouble. I should've left you then, but I couldn't, because of what I felt for you. I've tried to figure out how I could be captivated so quickly by someone I barely knew and then it hit me ... that book. It's opened my eyes, revealing you and what I truly feel inside. ~ Nicole Gulla

Once I fucked you, it would be all over for me. I had to have a guarantee I could get you back. Christ, Blue, the first time I saw you, I wanted to throw you over the couch and fuck you."
Blue flushed but smiled a little. "So why didn't you?"
"Common decency."
"Highly overrated. ~ S.E. Jakes

He pulled back just enough to growl, "Goddamn, I love you. From the first time I saw you, pointing a gun at me, I knew you'd be either my death or my salvation. ~ Zoe Archer

I remember the first time I saw you," Allie said.
"I thought you smelled me first."
"Right," said Allie. "The chocolate. But then I saw you as I sat up in the dead forest, thinking I knew you. At the time, I thought I must have seen you through the windshield when our cars crashed…. But that wasn't it. I think, way back then, I was seeing you as you are now. Isn't that funny?"
"Not as funny as the way I always complained, and the way you always bossed me around!"
They embraced and held each other for a long time.
"Don't forget me," Nick said. "No matter where your life goes, no matter how old you get. And if you ever get the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder, but there's nobody there, maybe it'll be me."
"I'll write to you," said Allie, and Nick laughed. "No really. I'll write the letter then burn it, and if I care just enough it will cross into Everlost."
"And," added Nick, "it will show up as a dead letter at that the post office Milos made cross into San Antonio!"
Allie could have stood there saying good-bye forever, because it was more than Nick she was saying good-bye to. She was leaving behind four years of half-life in a world that was both stunningly beautiful, and hauntingly dark. And she was saying good-bye to Mikey. I'll be waiting for you, he had said…. Well, if he was, maybe she wasn't saying good-bye at all.
Nick hefted the backpack on his shoulder. "Shouldn't you be heading off to Memphis?" he said. ~ Neal Shusterman

I remember the first time I saw you."
His voice breaks into my tumbling thoughts.
"You had no idea I saw you. I remember thinking that's a woman I can see spending the rest of my life with. ~ Terri E. Laine

You want the truth? ... I'm attracted to you. Really attracted to you. Have been since the first time I saw you. Tried to be respectful, considering you were seeing someone. Done doing that. If you work here, I'm going to try to get you into my bed. ~ Vi Keeland

I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, Molly mine. And when I look at you, that's all I'm ever going to see, the woman I love. It doesn't matter if you're perfect. To me, you will be, and that's all that counts. It'll be that way always. Even years from now, when you're old and withered, I'll see you with my heart, not my eyes. That's just the way it is when you love someone. The imperfections don't exist. If you see them at all, you think they're beautiful. ~ Catherine Anderson

If Conrad remembered the skinny, frightened girl he'd held for one brief moment on a frigid Boston street corner, he showed no signs of it when we met
...
Even as I tried to urge hum back against the pillows, he looked at me with wild eyes.
"What happened to your leather jacket?" he asked.
"Shh," I said, trying to sooth him. "There's no leather jacket."
"You were wearing it the first time I saw you," he said, frowning slightly. ~ Lauren Oliver

Tatum O'Shea, there is a very distinct possibility that I have been in love with you since the first time I saw you. ~ Stylo Fantome

For eight fucking years, I've been chasing you, Mel. Eight years of me calling and texting, instigating any kind of communication I could get just to keep you in my reach. Eight years of sparing you from the shit show that is my life. Eight years of sitting back knowing that at any minute, another man could walk in and take you from me permanently. Don't you dare stand there and act like I've been the one pushing you away and playing games for the last decade. Because I've been on my knees for you since the first time I saw you … It's about fucking time I got back on my feet."
… Resting my hand on his thigh, I bent until our noses were nearly touching. His broad shoulders and muscular body turned to stone from the contact. But I didn't let that slow me. "We've both been on our knees for the last eight years. But at least we were there together. You've always wanted me, just like I've always wanted you. And this is it. We can finally have the chance at something real. Don't you dare ask me to give that up. ~ A.S. Teague

You still do not quite understand, do you?" she said softly. "I do not want you to change. I fell head over ears in love with you the first time I saw you just because you are who you are. ~ Mary Balogh

I've never felt a connection like this with anyone else ... I don't even know how to explain it. I feel like I already knew you before I met you, and the first time I saw you, the first time I talked to you, was incidental, because the connection was already there
. ~ M. Molly Backes

You strutted back and forth to the window at Fulsham's Custard Stand five times while I was sitting there, eatin' my cone the first time I saw you, 'cause you wanted some of this and got it by swinging your ass in my face. ~ Kristen Ashley

Rogue Planets

As a kid, I would count backwards from ten and imagine at one, there would be an explosion - perhaps caused by a rogue planet crashing into Earth or some other major catastrophe. When nothing happened, I'd feel relieved and at the same time, a little disappointed.

I think of you at ten; the first time I saw you. Your smile at nine and how it lit up something inside me I had thought long dead. Your lips at eight pressed against mine and at seven, your warm breath in my ear and your hands everywhere. You tell me you love me at six and at five we have our first real fight. At four we have our second and three, our third. At two you tell me you can't go on any longer and then at one, you ask me to stay.

And I am relieved, so relieved - and a little disappointed. ~ Lang Leav

The first sixth-grade assembly."
I look up at him. "Huh?"
"That's the first time I saw you. You were sitting in the row in the front of me. I thought you were cute."
I laugh. "Nice try." It's so endearingly Peter to make up stuff to try and sound romantic.
He keeps going. "Your hair was really long and you had a headband with a bow. I always liked your hair, even back then."
"Okay, Peter," I say, reaching up and patting him on his cheek.
He ignores me. "Your backpack had your name written on it in glitter letters. I'd never heard of the name Lara Jean before. ~ Jenny Han

I'm pretty sure you were in my dreams before you walked into my life. I felt it the first time I saw you. You pulled at me. Took hold of my heart and never let go." ... "You were never supposed to be with Dillon. You were always supposed to wind up with me, but fate interrupted us for awhile ~ Gail McHugh

As if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. Since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. ~ Cassandra Clare

Since the first time i saw you, I've belonged to you completely. ~ Cassandra Clare

Grant-"
But he barely touched her, only cupping her face as they stood beside the bed. "You're beautiful." His eyes were on hers,intense,searching. "The first time I saw you,you took my breath away. You still do."
As moved by the long look and soft words as she had been by the tempestuous kisses, she reached up to take his wrists. "I don't need the words unless you want to give them. I just want to be with you."
"Whatever I tell you will be the truth, or I won't tell you at all. ~ Nora Roberts

You have been driving slowly mad since the first time I saw you, so that is nothing new. ~ Nadine Millard

The first time I saw you, my world stopped," he says, catching me off guard, and my gaze goes to his. "Nothing else existed but you, and then it stopped again when I held Hope for the first time. And since that moment, there have been a million pauses, each one giving me something beautiful to remember, ~ Aurora Rose Reynolds

Erica," his voice was soft and soothing. "Since the very first time I saw you, you've kept me tied in knots. It took me a month to get the nerve to talk to you. Was it love at first sight? Maybe not love, but it was definitely the recognition of a soul mate. Every day I have spent with you has done nothing but solidify that bond. I haven't said the words because you seemed so intent on taking things slow. But I really thought you knew how I felt. I thought it was obvious. ~ Melissa Hale

You are just as beautiful as the first time I saw you … You stopped my heart then – just froze it in my chest. And you stop it now. ~ J.R. Ward

He lifted the arm covering his eyes and turned his head to glare at her. "I knew you were trouble the first time I saw you."
"What do you mean, trouble?" She sat up, glaring back at him. "I am not trouble! I'm a very nice person except when I have to deal with jerks!"
"You're the worst kind of trouble," he snapped. "You're marrying trouble. ~ Linda Howard

Scriassine studied me in turn. "You're not so dumb, you know. Generally I dislike intelligent women, maybe because they're not intelligent enough. They always want to prove to themselves, and to everyone else, how terribly smart they are. So all they do is talk and never understand anything. What struck me the first time I saw you was that way you have of keeping quiet. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

Someday," he whispered softly in my ear. "I don't want to hurt you. Not until you're ready for me ... But someday I'm going to own all of you, Marie. You're all mine, babe. Knew it the first time I saw you. Couldn't give you up if I tried. ~ Joanna Wylde

Never believed in this shit, but now, I'm thinkin' I fell in love with the promise of you the first time I saw you. ~ Kristen Ashley

The first time I saw you, I wanted you. To me, you are perfect in every way. It physically hurts to be next to you and not be able to touch you. I think we could have something special if you gave it a chance. ~ Rhonda R. Dennis

You had me the first time I saw you, and I'll be in love with Josselyn Grace Winters until I die. ~ Ginger Scott

When you got captured, I didn't know..." He trailed off, had to chug whiskey before he could continue. "If it'd be like..."

"What?"

"Like it was with Clotile."

"Oh, Jackson, no. I was okay. I'm unharmed."

"Didn't know if I'd get there too late," he said with a shudder. Then he crossed over to me, until we stood toe-to-toe. "Evie, if you ever get taken from me again, you better know that I'll be coming for you." He cupped my face with a bloodstained hand. "So you stay the hell alive! You don't do like Clotile, you doan take that way out. You and me can get through anything, just give me a chance."--his voice broke lower "just give me a chance to get to you." He buried his face in my hair, inhaling deeply. "There is nothing that can happen to you that we can't get past."

...

"When you say we...?"

He pulled back, gazing down at me, his eyes blazing. "I'm goan to lay it all out there for you. Laugh in my face--I don't care. But I'm goan to get this off my chest."

"I won't laugh. I'm listening."

"Evie, I've wanted you from the first time I saw you. Even when I hated you, I wanted you." He raked his fingers through his hair. "I got it bad, me."

My heart felt like it'd stopped--so that I could hear him better.

"For as long as you've been looking down your nose at me, I've been craving you, an envie like I've never known."

"I don't look down at you! I'm ~ Kresley Cole

The first time I saw you at the basement, I was fascinated. At the time I didn't understand why. But now I understand. I understand by being with you even only for a while. You accept your fate and fight. You even fight alone in that basement. I was mortified. How pathetic. I'm sick of myself who kept on running away. From that time on, you became my goal. You became a special person. ~ Tooru Hayama

Later, Antonio said to me - and how I treasure this, how I wish he's say it to me every day! - 'The first time I saw you, I saw the sun in your face. ~ Tanya Mendonsa

I should've saved you the first time I saw you." "You did save me." "How?" "You fell in love with me. ~ Pepper Winters

The first time I saw you, when you stepped into that Skiz ring against Kaede, I thought you were the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. I could've watched you forever. The first time I kiss you ... " That memory overpowers me now, taking me by surprise. I remember every last detail of it, almost enough to push away the lingering images of the Elector pulling June to him. "Well, that might as well have been my first kiss ever. ~ Marie Lu

From the first time I saw you, I've belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me. -Jace ~ Cassandra Clare

The shrieks were coming from two quite naked girls, who were pursued by a pair of apes snapping at their bottoms. [...] So he now raises his double-barrelled Spanish rifle, fires and kills both apes. 'God be praised, my dear Calambo! I have delivered these two poor creatures from grave peril; if it was a sin to kill an Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have made ample amends by saving the lives of two girls [...]'
He was about to continue, but words failed him when he saw the two girls throw their arms lovingly around the two apes and collapse in tears over their corpses, filling the air with the most pitiful lamentations. 'I was not expecting quite so much tenderness of heart,' he said at last to Cacambo, who replied: 'You've excelled yourself this time, Master; you have just despatched the two lovers of these young ladies.' '-Their lovers! Is it possible? You're making fun of me, Cacambo; how could anyone believe in such a thing?' - 'My dear Master,' retorted Cacambo, 'you are always astounished by everything; why do you find it so strange that in some countries it is apes who enjoy the favours of young ladies? After all, they are one-quarter human, just as I am one-quarter Spanish. ~ Voltaire

In a slow, pleasant voice, Prince Alaerec asked mild questions--weather, travel, Bran's day and how he'd filled it. I stayed silent as the three of them worked away at this limping conversation. The Renselaeus father and son were skilled enough at nothing-talk, but poor Bran stumbled over half his words, sending frequent glances at me. In the past I'd often spoken for both of us, for truth was he felt awkward with his tongue and was somewhat shy with new people, but I did not feel like speaking until I'd sorted my emotions out--and there was no time for that.
To bridge his own feelings, my brother gulped at the very fine wine they offered. Soon a servant came in and announced that dinner was ready, and the old Prince rose slowly, leaning heavily on a cane. His back was straight, though, as he led the way to a dining room. Bran and I fell in behind, I treading cautiously, with my skirts bunched in either hand.
Bran snickered. I looked up, saw him watching me, his face flushed. "Life, Mel, are you supposed to walk like that?" He snickered again, swallowed the rest of his third glass of wine, then added, "Looks like you got eggs in those shoes."
"I don't know how I'm supposed to walk," I mumbled, acutely aware of that bland-faced, elegantly dressed Marquis right behind us, and elbowed Bran in the side. "Stop laughing! If I drop these skirts, I'll trip over them."
"Why didn't you just ask for riding gear?"
"And a coach-and-six while I was at it? This is w ~ Sherwood Smith

I saw her once, in a faraway land that no horse or boat can reach, but that all will find," I said, my voice thick.
"How was she?" asked Gauri.
This time, tears were sliding down her face, shining against the helmet she wore.
A part of me wanted to grab Gauri by her shoulders and shake her into remembering me. But that would've done nothing. And so, as I had done so many years ago, I told her a story. I glossed over the grotesque and emphasized the beautiful. I created details where there were none, things pulled out from my imagination, things as I may have imagined them myself at some point or another.
In the end, I did whatever I could to stave off her nightmares.
"She is happy. She fell in love and ran away, but she misses you very much. Her husband is a kind man with a large smile, who treats her as an equal and never shares his bed with anyone but her. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Even though we get a lot of people into the shop, only a small percentage of them buy anything. The best customers are the ones who just have to buy a record on a Saturday, even if there's nothing they really want; unless they go home clutching a flat, square carrier bag they feel uncomfortable. You can spot the vinyl addicts because after a while they get fed up with the rack they are flicking through, march over to a completely different section of the shop, pull a sleeve out from the middle somewhere, and come over to the counter; this is because they have been making a list of possible purchases in their head ('If I don't find anything in the next five minutes, that blues compilation I saw half an hour ago will have to do'), and suddenly sicken themselves with the amount of time they have wasted looking for something that they don't really want. I know that feeling well (these are my people, and I understand them better than I understand anybody in the world): it is a prickly, clammy, panicky sensation, and you go out of the shop reeling. You walk much more quickly afterwards, trying to recapture the part of the day that has escaped, and quite often you have the urge to read the international section of a newspaper, or go to see a Peter Greenaway film, to consume something solid and meaty which will lie on top of the candyfloss worthlessness clogging up your head. ~ Nick Hornby

And then he saw her burning eyes. They gazed at him calmly and he saw in them benediction.
He fell to his knees before her, pressing his face to her purple-velvet-clad-belly. "Séraphine, Séraphine, Séraphine. O most beloved of women, most fiery of saints, never leave me, please. I'll erect columns of white marble to you, build gardens of delight for you, cause ships to sail and warriors to rise for you, if you'll only remain by my side."
She smiled down at him and cupped his cheeks. "Valentine, do you love me?"
Ah, God, it was like a shot to the gut.
He squeezed tight his eyes. To come so close and lose her because of this. "If I were able I would love you as no man has ever loved a woman since the beginning of time."
She knelt then to face him and whispered, "But you are able."
He clutched her. He wouldn't let her go, no, not even when she realized... "Séraphine, my darling, burning one, do you not remember? I told you, so long ago now, that I lacked that part. I cannot-"
"But you can, Valentine." She touched a finger to his cheek and then showed it to him.
He blinked.
Her finger was wet. His eyes were wet.
She smiled at him, his burning Séraphine, and it was as if the night sky were ablaze. "You love me."
"I love you," he said in wonder, and felt his chest fill with warmth. "I love you."
"And I love you," she whispered, her hands cupping his face.
So he kissed her until she was limp and pliable and so very hot ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

Now your return has started to be real. I've always been convinced that until you were in the door that you'd never get here and have always felt I'd never see you again when I saw you off, which is why I wept. And I always used to half dread your coming, because it meant the beginning of your going away and every moment that you were here seemed terribly fraught somehow, painful... I've never had such a sense of the rush of time, and yet the weeks that you were here seemed very, very long, and when I was alone again, it seemed as if I'd been away for a year. Strange... And now it will be different - there'll be more ease between us, I think... Well, I wonder what you think about all this... I used to doubt whether you knew anything about me... but perhaps now I think you've known everything all along. Didn't think you were as wise as you are now, but your perfect knowledge of yourself and everything around you shook me up and astounded me. ~ Joyce Johnson

I had come by then to be conscious of this aspect of slave lives: at one and the same time the masters held contrary beliefs about those they bought into their homes, viz., It did not matter what a slave saw and so behaviour that the masters would be ashamed to even have rumoured about them was carried forward unchecked in front of their slaves; and at the same time they protested: how dare you, a slave, look at us as we do thus or thus? ~ Claire Robertson

I told you everything I know", said the messenger. Arin had gone to his childhood suite, feeling anxiety verging on panic at the thought of not finding the man there, of having to track him down, of time lost…but the man had opened the outermost door almost immediately after Arin's pounding knock.
"I didn't ask you the right questions," Arin said. "I want to start again. You said that the prisoner reached trough the bars of the wagon to give you the moth."
"Yes"
"And you couldn't really see her."
"That's right."
"But you said she was Herrani. Why would you say that if you couldn't see her?"
"Because she spoke in Herrani."
"Perfectly."
"Yes."
"No accent."
"No."
"Describe the hand."
"I'm not sure…"
"Start with the skin. You said it was paler than yours, than mine."
"Yes, like a house slave's."
Which wasn't very different from a Valorian's. "Could you see her wrist, her arm?"
"The wrist, yes, now that you mention it. She was in chains. I saw the manacle."
"Did you see the sleeve of a dress?"
"Maybe. Blue?"
Dread churned inside Arin. "You think or you know?"
"I don't know. Things happened too fast."
"Please. This is important."
"I don't want to say something I'm not sure is true."
"All right, all right. Was this her right hand or her left?"
"I don't know."
"Can you tell me anything about it? Did she wear a seal ring?"
"Not that I saw, but –"
"Yes? ~ Marie Rutkoski

Group therapy was the only place I could feel "not crazy." Every time we met, I exhaled. Because when you've been raped, you really feel like you're on an island. Then to be in this room, where everyone could relate, changed everything. Wow, that girl is getting straight A's. That girl got a great internship. This girl is engaged. It gave me the calm I so desperately needed. I saw the possibility of hope. ~ Gabrielle Union

I was really unfit last year, so I worked out for a long time, then spent time by myself in Oregon. For about two months the only person I saw was my trainer. Every day I did a lot of running and I just didn't want to talk to anyone for two months. So when I started talking again, it was like you would communicate wrongly, like you wouldn't really remember how to speak. That was one of the key things as well as just reading the book, reading the script a million times, just figuring things out. ~ Robert Pattinson

I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diphtheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing would save it, one saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference. Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand propping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentery which was scouring their bowels, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated. It was shortly after the British Red Cross a ~ Imperial War Museum

Once I thought I saw you in a crowded hazy bar,
Dancing on the light from star to star.
Far across the moonbeam I know that's who you are,
I saw your brown eyes turning once to fire.
I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream,
You could have been anyone to me.
Before that moment you touched my lips
That perfect feeling when time just slips
Away between us on our foggy trip. ~ Neil Young

For a minute I thought he was going to turn around and leave. Not even watch Times of Our Seasons. Then I saw him take a deep breath and do that thing. You see grown-ups do it all the time. They're about to lose their patience or get mad and then instead they take a deep breath and do not lose their patience and do not scream.
It's a weird thing to see a little kid do. I used to see Ben do it and it tore me up. ~ Ally Condie

This is all very interesting," Briarly said. "But, perhaps you can reacquaint yourself with Miss Peyton at a more appropriate time, Captain Oakes. Though you may be my sister's guest, here you are very much de trop."
"Am I?" Neill asked. "Allow me to rectify the situation." He turned to Kate. "I believe I saw you limping just now."
She blinked in confusion. She wasn't limping-Before she knew what he was about, he'd taken hold of her hand, pulled her forward, and was scooping her up into his arms as neatly and carelessly as a laundress collects bedding. ~ Connie Brockway

That was interesting.Who was that?"
Matt looks unhappy. "What?" I ask him.
"You'll talk to that guy,but you won't talk to us anymore?"
"Sorry," I mumble, and climb out of his car. "He's just a friend.Thanks for the ride."
Matt gets out,too. Cherrie starts to follow,but he throws her a sharp look. "So what does that mean?" he calls out. "We aren't friends anymore? You're bailing on us?"
I trudge toward the house. "I'm tired, Matt.I'm going to bed."
He follows anyway.I dig out my house key,but he grabs my wrist to stop me from opening the door. "Listen,I know you don't want to talk about it,but I just have this one thing to say before you go in there and cry yourself to sleep-"
"Matt,please-"
"Toph isn't a nice guy.He's never been a nice guy. I don't know what you ever saw in him.He talks back to everyone, he's completely unreliable, he wears those stupid fake clothes-"
"Why are you telling me this?" I'm crying again.I pull my wrist from his grasp.
"I know you didn't like me as much as I liked you. I know you would have rather been with him,and I dealth with that a long time ago.I'm over it."
The shame is overwhelming. Even though I knew Matt was aware that I liked Toph,it's awful to hear him say it aloud.
"But I'm still your friend." He's exasperated. "And I'm sick of seeing you waste your energy on that jerk. You've spent all this time afraid to talk about what was going on between you two,but if you'd bothered to ju ~ Stephanie Perkins

I think that, every time you saw the word EBITDA, you should substitute the word "bullshit" earnings. ~ Charlie Munger

amusement in her eyes and had to grin.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, his voice dropping to a low, intimate tone that excluded everyone else in the cafe and made several women draw in their
breath.

Her mouth quirked in that self-amusement that made him want to grab her to him.

"This isn't one of my good days. The only thing holding me together is static cling."

"Come home with me, and I'll take care of you."
She looked him in the eye and said quietly, "Give me one good reason why I should."

Right there in front of God and most of Crook, Montana, he drew in a deep breath and took the gamble of a lifetime, his words plain and heard by all, because no one was making even the pretense of not listening.

"Because I love you."

Maddie blinked, and to his surprise he saw her eyes glitter with tears. Before he could start forward, however, her smile broke through like sunshine through a cloud bank. She didn't take the time to go around the counter; she climbed on top of it and slid off on the other side.

"It's about time," she said as she went into his arms. ~ Linda Howard

Dear Madeline,
I miss you. I never got to meet you. I never heard your voice and I never saw your smile. Though I imagine it's a lot like mine. And yet I miss you so much.
Every time I see another set of twins just like us, I miss you even more. Seeing other twins, seeing the life I could have had with you, just rips another hole through my heart. I never met you, but I still feel the hole where you're supposed to be. Its' unfair. It's too hard. And it's so many things it shouldn't be.
I should be sharing a room with you. I should be telling you all the things I can't tell anyone .But it's not like that. One day we'll be together again, but until then you have left a hole in me that cannot be filled by anyone else. And I'm left missiing you.
All the love in the world
from your other half,
K ~ Emily Trunko

You've always had my heart, Emmy. I know I fucked up by leaving but I thought it was my only choice. It took me a long time to realize I had other options. And by then, I was afraid it was too late. That you'd moved on with your life. But the moment I saw you, I knew I had a chance to make it right. No man can ever make you happy because no other woman will ever make me whole. We're it for each other. ~ Devney Perry

I had a dream about you. Flowers were overflowing in the cemetery, so we decided to have a picnic there. You brought apple pie, and I brought my Aunt Mildred, who'd been dead for some time and I just hadn't gotten around to disposing of her body. I thought you'd think me both efficient and romantic, but it turns out you didn't. You only saw the romantic side of my action. ~ Jarod Kintz

Don't cry."
"How can I not?" I asked him. "You just said you loved me."
"Well, why else did you think all of this was happening?" He set the book aside to wrap his arms around me. "The Furies wouldn't be trying to kill you if I didn't love you."
"I didn't know," I said. Tears were trickling down my cheeks, but I did nothing to try to stop them. His shirt was absorving most of them. "You never said anything about it. Every time I saw you, you just acted so ... wild."
"How was I supposed to act?" he asked. "You kept doing things like throwing tea in my face. ~ Meg Cabot

Chris smiled at me, showing two ridiculously cute dimples and a few feet away a waitress dropped an empty cup she had cleared from a table. Blushing, she muttered an apology and hurried inside.

I scowled at him, refusing to be swayed by his charm.

"I see," he murmured, nodding slightly as if he had just solved a puzzle.
"See what?" Ignoring my question, he pulled out a cell phone, hit a number and held the phone out to me. I hesitated for a few seconds then took the phone and put it to my ear.
"What's up, Chris?" said a familiar deep voice on the other end.
"Good question," I responded tersely.
"I told Chris you'd recognize him if he got too close." Was that amusement in his tone?
"Great. You won the bet. Buy him a beer or whatever." I glanced at Chris, saw that he looked amused now, too and I grew even more agitated. "I thought we had an understanding when you left here last week."
"And what understanding would that be?" I gritted my teeth. "The one where you go your way and I go mine and we all live happily ever after."
"I don't recall that particular arrangement," he replied in his infuriatingly easy manner. "I believe I told you I'd be seeing you again."
I opened my mouth but words would not come out. People say 'I'll be seeing you' all the time when they say good bye. It doesn't mean anything. It certainly doesn't mean they will send their friends to stalk you.
"Sara?"
"What do you want from me, Niko ~ Karen Lynch

For moderns - for us - there is something illicit, it seems, about wasted time, the empty hours of contemplation when a thought unfurls, figures of speech budding and blossoming, articulation drifting like spent petals onto the dark table we all once gathered around to talk and talk, letting time get the better of us. _Just taking our time_, as we say. That is, letting time take us.

"Can you say," I once inquired of a sixty-year old cloistered nun who had lived (vibrantly, it seemed) from teh age of nineteen in her monastery cell, "what the core of contemplative life is?"

"Leisure," she said, without hesitation, her china blue eyes cheerfully steady on me. I suppose I expected her to say, "Prayer." Or maybe "The search for God." Or "Inner peace." Inner peace would have been good. One of the big-ticket items of spirituality.

She saw I didn't see.

"It takes time to do this," she said finally.

Her "this" being the kind of work that requires abdication from time's industrial purpose (doing things, getting things). By choosing leisure she had bid farewell to the fevered enterprise of getting-and-spending whereby, as the poet said, we lay waste our powers. ~ Patricia Hampl

Dopey, in out of his depth, began to look desperate.
"Debbie Mancuso," he yelled, "and I are not having sex!"
I saw my mom and Andy exchange a quick, bewildered glance.
"I should certainly hope not," Doc, Dopey's little brother, said as he breezed past us. "But if you are, Brad, I hope you're using condoms. While a good-quality latex condom has a failure rate of about two percent when used as directed, typically the failure rate averages closer to twelve percent. That makes them only about eighty-five percent effective against preventing pregnancy. If used with a spermicide, the effectiveness improves dramatically. And condoms are our best defense - though not as good, of course, as abstention - against some STDs, including HIV."
Everyone in the kitchen - my mother, Andy, Dopey, Sleepy, and I - stared at Doc, who is, as I think I mentioned before, twelve.
"You," I finally said, "have way too much time on your hands."
Doc shrugged. "It helps to be informed. While I myself am not sexually active at the current time, I hope to become so in the near future." He nodded toward the stove. "Dad, your chimichangas, or whatever they are, are on fire."
While Andy jumped to put out his cheese fire, my mother stood there, apparently, for once in her life, at a loss for words. ~ Meg Cabot

But for as long as I've done this, there are still times I'm blown away when souls drop in for a visit. I'll never forget when, during a group reading, I saw a man sitting at the end of the dining room table. He wanted me to tell the host that he knew she was concerned about her best friend's husband. Then he looked at me and said, "I'm going to be with my father now." I told this story to the group in real time, and the host, overwhelmed with emotion, excused herself and left the room upset. When she came back, she said that just forty minutes before the session began, her best friend called to say that her husband died and his last words in private were, "I'm going to be with my father now." Are you kidding me with this? If that's a parlor trick, I'm one hell of a magician. ~ Theresa Caputo

Alex touches her arm. "You look nice."
"Nice?" she repeats. "Try harder, Alex."
He flushes adorably. "Really nice," he says.
"Next time, try this," Harry says. He reaches for my hand. "Franny, I didn't know what beauty was until I saw you walking toward us a minute ago.
"I like this better," I say, pulling away. "At least he sounded like he meant it."
"I meant it," Harry says, almost irritably. ~ Claire LaZebnik

When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed ... that was horrifying beyond words, and that's where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion that's where science leads you. ~ Ben Stein

On the doorstep Adele met Tony Limpsfield. She hurried him into her motor, and told the chauffeur not to drive on.

"News!" she said. "Lucia's going to have a lover."

"No!" said Tony in the Riseholme manner

"But I tell you she is. He's with her now."

"They won't want me then," said Tony. "And yet she asked me to come at half-past five."

"Nonsense, my dear. They will want you, both of them. . . . Oh Tony, don't you see? It's a stunt."

Tony assumed the rapt expression of Luciaphils receiving intelligence.

"Tell me all about it," he said.

"I'm sure I'm right," said she. "Her poppet came in just now, and she held his hand as women do, and made him draw his chair up to her, and said he scolded her. I'm not sure that he knows yet. But I saw that he guessed something was up. I wonder if he's clever enough to do it properly. . . . I wish she had chosen you, Tony, you'd have done it perfectly. They have got--don't you understand?--to have the appearance of being lovers, everyone must think they are lovers, while all the time there's nothing at all of any sort in it. It's a stunt: it's a play: it's a glory."

"But perhaps there is something in it," said Tony. "I really think I had better not go in."

"Tony, trust me. Lucia has no more idea of keeping a real lover than of keeping a chimpanzee. She's as chaste as snow, a kiss would scorch her. Besides, she hasn't time. She asked Ste ~ E.F. Benson

That's right", she says, wiping tears from her cheeks. "You weren't with me that time I walked in on them doing the deed. Seriously Freudian horror."
"You saw your parents at the best," Mom murmurs, before Dad sweeps her into another kiss.
"Go ahead," Josie calls. "Mate in public. Tonight we won't even mind. You deserve to break a few decency laws. ~ Claudia Gray

What is the matter with you?" asked Shcherbatsky.
"Nothing much, but there is little to be happy about in this world."
"Little? You'd better come with me to Paris instead of going to some Mulhausen or other. You'll see how jolly it will be!"
"No, I have done with that; it is time for me to die."
"That is a fine thing!" said Shcherbatsky, laughing. "I am only just beginning to live."
"Yes, I thought so too till lately; but now I know that I shall soon die."
Levin was saying what of late he had really been thinking. He saw death and the apprroach of death in everything; but the work he had begun interested him all the more. After all, he had to live his life somehow, til death came. Everything for him was wrapped in darkness; but just because of the darkness, feeling his work to be the only thread to guide him through the darkness, he seized upon it and clung to it with all his might. ~ Leo Tolstoy

What happened last night was my fault," I said. "I put up the rope, Sarah. I must have done it wrong."
"Fault?" said Sarah. "Oh, Caleb, I want you to listen to me. There comes a time when fault doesn't matter. Things happen. And we can't blame ourselves--or someone else--forever."
I heard a noise behind me, and saw Papa standing there, Cassie beside him. I knew he had heard Sarah's words. ~ Patricia MacLachlan

Time is so strange and life is twice as strange. You must promise me not to live to be too old, William. It if is at all convenient, die before you're fifty. It my take a bit of doing. But I advise this is simply because there is no telling when another Helen Loomis might be born. It would be dreadful, wouldn't it, if you lived on to be very very old and some afternoon in 1999 walked down Main street and saw me standing there, aged twenty-one, and the whole thing out of balance again? ~ Ray Bradbury