Mamma Quotes

We've got work to do. Strip."
"Strip for what?"
"I'm going to measure you for your dress. Strip!"
Rachel saved me ... sort of. "You can do her measurements with her clothes on, Mamma," she chastised.
"Oh, I know I can." She pointed at me. "But look at her face! Ha! I just wanted to see her face pucker up like that. ~ Shelly Crane

Moominmamma had got up very early to pack their rucksacks, and was bustling to and fro with wooly stockings and packets of sandwiches, while down by the bridge Moominpappa was getting their raft in order.
"Mamma, dar," said Moomintroll, "we can't possibly take all that with us. Everyone will laugh."
"It's cold in the Lonely Mountains," said Moominmamma, stuffing in an umbrella and a frying pan. "Have you got a compass?"
"Yes," answered Moomintroll, "but couldn't you at least leave out the plates
we can easily eat off rhubarb leaves. ~ Tove Jansson

And cried for mamma, at every turn'-I added, 'and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain.-Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to the glass, and I'll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines between your eyes, and those thick brows, that instead of rising arched, sink in the middle, and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes-Don't get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its desert, and yet, hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers.'
'In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton's great blue eyes, and even forehead,' he replied. 'I do - and that won't help me to them.'
'A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,' I continued, 'if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking - tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows, but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them ~ Emily Bronte

Children don't know the meaning of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night. ~ Elena Ferrante

Rose sighed softly, in a way that seemed to signal a close to the conversation. "I love him, Mamma."
Adeline closed her eyes. Youth! What chance had the most reasonable arguments against the arrogant power of those three words? That her daughter, her precious prize, should utter them so easily, and about such a one as he!
"And he loves me, Mamma, he told me so."
Adeline's heart tightened with fear. Darling girl, blinded by foolish thoughts of love. How to tell her that the hearts of men were not so easily won. If won, rarely kept.
"You'll see," Rose said. "I shall live happily ever after. ~ Kate Morton

I have discovered that our great favorite, Miss Austen, is my countrywoman ... with whom mamma before her marriage was acquainted. Mamma says that she was then the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers ... ~ Mary Russell Mitford

On December 12, 1829, Paganini wrote his friend Germi: "The variations I've composed on the graceful Neapolitan ditty, 'Oh Mamma, Mama Cara,' outshine everything. I can't describe it!" He was writing from Karlsruhe, in the midst of his triumphal tour through Germany. That letter marks the earliest known mention of the variations that would become famous as "The Carnival of Venice." At the time of his letter, Paganini had already performed the piece in at least four concerts. From then on, it would be one of his most popular compositions. ~ Niccolo Paganini

And Mamma was still asleep. I called it the sleeping sickness because coma is the ugliest word in the entire universe. If I could, I'd erase it from the dictionary, but Old Webster would probably hunt me down. ~ Kimberley Griffiths Little

'Mamma Mia' and 'Dallas' have proved to me that the things you dream about can happen. I don't ask myself, 'How did I get here?' but instead, 'I deserve to be here. I was right to think this would happen.' I'm a firm believer in the power we have in our minds to want something and pursue it in a sane and focused way. ~ Juan Pablo Di Pace

Mamma says if we stay so focused on our past failings, we won't be able to move beyond them and learn what we need to know. ~ Annette Bridges

Mamma used to stay at home with her sweet friend, Madame Guerard. She used to read novels whilst Madame Guerard embroidered. They would sit there together without speaking, each dreaming her own dream, seeing it fade away, and beginning it over again. ~ Sarah Bernhardt

Mamma was the first person who had given her the pleasure of feeling that her peasant existence, with its simple joys and sorrows, might offer some interest, might be a source of grief or pleasure to some one other than herself. My ~ Marcel Proust

Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first request I make to you, as Queen. Let me be by myself for an hour. ~ Queen Victoria

In my opinion, it is in the smile of a face that the essence of what we call beauty lies. If the smile heightens the charm of the face, then the face is a beautiful one. If the smile does not alter the face, then the face is an ordinary one. But if the smile spoils the face, then the face is an ugly one indeed. Mamma ~ Leo Tolstoy

Here's Meg married and a mamma, Amy flourishing away at Paris, and Beth in love. I'm the only one that has sense enough to keep out of mischief. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Why don't the men propose, Mamma? Why don't the men propose? ~ Thomas Haynes Bayly

He has gone, Mamma,' she said, as she entered the breakfast-room. 'And now we'll go back to our work-a-day ways. It has been all Sunday for me the last six weeks. ~ Anthony Trollope

But I stood my ground, head-crackin' mamma jamma that I was, no retreat. ~ Kristen Ashley

Mamma," whispered Rannoch as he nestled by her side, "what is man?"
Bracken looked into her calf's eyes. "Man? Man is something you must always fear."
"But why must I fear him?" asked Rannoch.
"Because, my little one ... man is cruel and cold. He eats up everything he touches. He enslaves Lera and breaks the laws of the forest. Because, Rannoch, he is the only creature that hunts without need. ~ David Clement-Davies

I don't care what they say, we are only to love those who deserve our love and love them to the degree that they deserve it! You see, we are not God. Only God can love people undeserving without spoiling them. Us, on the other hand, can love someone so undeserving, and actually turn the person into someone so vile who is convinced that they were always entitled to every bit of it! Mamma mia! And what about giving? Yes, they all want us to give and expect nothing in return, they all have many scriptures to lay on our tables when it is they who are at the receiving end! But when the tables are turned and we are the ones at the receiving end, suddenly all the scriptures mean something else! And all the times they were on our end and we gave to them- suddenly are all forgotten! ~ C. JoyBell C.

What's got into me? Do I want children? Do I want to be a mamma, nursing and singing lullabies? Marriage plus pregnancy? And if my mother should emerge from my stomach just now when I think I'm safe? ~ Elena Ferrante

Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out. Whatever influence I ever had over mamma, I lost at the age of three. ~ Oscar Wilde

My throat tightened. 'I'm not good at these games. Not like you are, Mamma.'

'Then don't play. Figure out what you are good at, and make that the game. ~ Melissa Caruso

Sara!" she cried, aghast. "Mamma Sara!" She was aghast because the attic was so bare and ugly and seemed so far away from all the world. Her short legs had seemed to have been mounting hundreds of stairs. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

My mamma says I shouldn't go on the other side ... My mama says the same thing. But she never said nothing about sitting on it ~ Jacqueline Woodson

She finally pushed and moved through the small doorway into the shadow of the narrow street beyond as she heard one last thing from her dying mama.
'I love you, Elleth.'
'Love you too, mamma. ~ J.P. Ashman

You really want to know what being an X-Man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of color in a contemporary U.S. ghetto. Mamma mia! Like having bat wings or a pair of tentacles growing out of your chest. ~ Junot Diaz

Of course no one will consider," said Anisim, and he heaved a sigh. "There is no God, anyway, you know, mamma, so what considering can there be?"
Varvara looked at him with surprise, burst out laughing, and clasped her hands. Perhaps because she was so genuinely surprised at his words and looked at him as though he were a queer person, he was confused.
"Perhaps there is a God, only there is no faith. When I was being married I was not myself. Just as you may take an egg from under a hen and there is a chicken chirping in it, so my conscience was beginning to chirp in me, and while I was being married I thought all the time there was a God! But when I left the church it was nothing. And indeed, how can I tell whether there is a God or not? We are not taught right from childhood, and while the babe is still at his mother's breast he is only taught 'every man to his own job.' Father does not believe in God, either. You were saying that Guntorev had some sheep stolen.... I have found them; it was a peasant at Shikalovo stole them; he stole them, but father's got the fleeces ... so that's all his faith amounts to. ~ Anton Chekhov

She went a little fucking overboard on her anger." He looks at me. "Her daughters are all a bit nuts, so you know exactly where they get it from."
"She called the fucking cops on me," I retort. "That's not nuts that's
"
"It's nuts," he rebuts.
"It's fucked up."
"That too," he says. ~ Krista Ritchie

I'm not good, of course; I wouldn't give a fig to be good. So it's not vanity. It's on a far grander scale; a splendid selfishness, - authorized, too; and papa and mamma brought me up to worship beauty, -and there's the fifth commandment, you know. ~ Harriet Prescott Spofford

As soon as that majestic force,
which had already pierced me once
before I had outgrown my childhood, struck my eyes,
I turned to my left with the confidence
a child has running to his mamma
when he is afraid or in distress
to say to Virgil: 'Not a single drop of blood
remains in me that does not tremble
I know the signs of the ancient flame.'
But Virgil had departed, leaving us bereft:
Virgil, sweetest of fathers,
Virgil, to whom I gave myself for my salvation.
And not all our ancient mother lost
could save my cheeks, washed in the dew,
from being stained again with tears. ~ Dante Alighieri

Stop talking to me. I'm trying to channel my head-crackin' mamma jamma. ~ Kristen Ashley

When it comes to words Mamma says, If they are not good, then maybe they should not be said. ~ Annette Bridges

I think I might be one of the only people in America, or at least the only person I know, who saw both 'The Dark Knight' and 'Mamma Mia!' on their shared opening weekend. ~ Diablo Cody

The 'action' began: to me it seemed all the more obscure because in those days, when I read to myself, I used often, while I turned the pages, to dream of something quite different. And to the gaps which this habit made in my knowledge of the story more were added by the fact that when it was Mamma who was reading to me aloud she left all the love-scenes out. ~ Marcel Proust

... not once more will/I be found with beings/who swallowed the rail of life//And one day I found myself with beings/who swallowed the nail of life/-as soon as I lost my matrix mamma,//and the being twisted under him,/and god poured me back to her/(the motherfucker)... ~ Antonin Artaud

I suppose you are not musical,' said Fanny, 'as I see no piano.'
'I am fond of hearing good music; I cannot play well myself; and papa and mamma don't care much about it; so we sold our old piano when we came here.'
'I wonder how you can exist without one. It almost seems to me a necessary of life. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Demetrius: Villain, what hast thou done?
Aaron: That which thou canst not undo.
Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother. ~ William Shakespeare

Up or down, it seemed to us that we were always going toward something terrible that had existed before us yet had always been waiting for us, just for us. When you haven't been in the world long, it's hard to comprehend what disasters are at the origin of a sense of disaster: maybe you don't even feel the need to. Adults, waiting for tomorrow, move in a present behind which is yesterday or the day before yesterday or at most last week: they don't want to think about the rest. Children don't know the meaning of yesterday, or the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this is the night. ~ Elena Ferrante

Why should the generations overlap one another at all? Why cannot we be buried as eggs in neat little cells with ten or twenty thousand pounds each wrapped round us in Bank of England notes, and wake up, as the sphex wasp does, to find that its papa and mamma have not only left ample provision at its elbow, but have been eaten by sparrows some weeks before it began to live consciously on its own account? About ~ Samuel Butler

Thank ye, miss, I'd like that,' Elleth said as they passed the green haired woman, who smiled at Elleth with what looked to her like pity. Well, she didn't need pity now did she? She'd found a life, and a lady she would be. Mamma would be so proud. ~ J.P. Ashman

Little miss is taught by her mamma that she must never speak before she is spoken to. On this she sits bridling up her head, looking from one to the other, in hopes of being called to and addressed by the name of pretty miss ... But if this should not happen and no one should take any notice of her, she is ready to cry at the neglect. But should there be another miss in the room caressed and taken notice of whilst she is thus overlooked, it will be impossible for her to contain her tears, and blubbering is the word. ~ Sarah Fielding

They can all get some. Remember this! I will do this to all y'all down here. Look at his face. I don't care if you're a flyweight, or your mamma weight! I will kick your ass! ~ James Toney

Every year I go to Broadway to see a musical - I like the music. I saw 'Mamma Mia;' I saw 'Les Miserables;' I saw 'Phantom of the Opera' like six, seven times. ~ Rafael Nadal

I'm sure you understand my meanin'. After all, you're one of us. Your daddy was born here and your mamma was buried here. You belong here. Not everyone does. I stared back at her. She was in her van before I could say another word. This time, Mrs. Lincoln was after more than burning a few books. ~ Kami Garcia

He felt entombed and stifled and desperately craved oxygen. He vainly raised the question: Why have you forsaken me?

'Call my mother,' he yelled. He had meant to say: I'm dying. Please call a priest.

The shadowy Presence, who had been in a panic, rushed over to him and, disregarding the fact that it was live, pushed the cable aside.

'You're alive,' the Presence said in breathless tones. 'Mamma's here to help.'

The elevator continued to descend, creating a vacuum. Barnes gasped for breath.

'Breathe in, breathe out,' the Presence urged. She tapped his pulse rapidly with two fingers. 'Come on, you can do it. One, two, three. Breathe in. Mamma's here to help.' ... In his delirium he thought that indeed his mother was here to help. However, in all of Barnes's twenty-nine years of so-called living, his mother had never come so comfortingly close as this. ~ Joseph G. Peterson

I use my mom's shampoo sometimes," I blurt out. "I know I shouldn't. I know it's lady shampoo. But it smells better than mine, and I think my hair might like it better, and – but that doesn't change the fact that that stuff, that's for chicks. And, that, that's probably
gay, isn't it? Like, at least a little."
"I don't know whether - "
"And I cried once listening to 'The Scientist' by Coldplay. I don't know, I was in sort of a lousy mood anyway, but it's not like that excuses that stuff. Like, that was gay, wasn't it? Guys don't just sit around and cry over Coldplay."
"Howie - "
"And I loved Mamma Mia. Like, loved it. Amber made me watch it with her on TV once, and I didn't want to, and she wound up thinking it was this sentimental piece of crap, but I loved it. It was all sunny and happy and there was all that blue sky and blue ocean, and everyone was just, like, so chill, all bouncing and singing and being so happy, and I just wanted to, I don't know, live there or something. Jump right into the screen and sing
backup to Dancing Queen. That's gay, right? That's queeriest queerdom. There's no way that's not totally gay. It's gay. It's so gay. I'm … I …"
"If I may," Arthur says.
I take a deep breath. "Yeah, okay."
"I don't like any of those things," Arthur says, "and I am gay. So maybe you're just
girly."
That?
That's his answer?
"I'm not girly," I say, affronted.
"Just an observation," Arthur replies innoc ~ Hannah Johnson

I have been very, very happy. Mamma always said that even if there wasn't any happiness one must try to be happy without it. ~ Angela Thirkell

Well," Mamma began, "there are some people who think we are different from them. They don't understand what scientists have taught us, that all the peoples of the world are one family and that all human blood is the same. They don't realize that we all have the same Heavenly Father, and they forget that this country is for all people to have an equal chance. ~ Marguerite De Angeli

Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair. In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he unaccustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.

The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: 'Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,' had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but it certainly didn't apply to himself. That Caius - man in the abstract - was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite separate from all others. He had been little Vanya, with a mamma and a papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with toys, a coachman and a nanny, afterwards with Katenka and with all the joys, griefs, and delights of childhood, boyhood, and youth.

What did Caius know of the smell of that striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his mother's hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle for Caius? Had he noted like that at school when the pastry was bad? Had Caius been in love like that? Could Caius preside at session as he did?

Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but as for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my thoughts and emotions, it's altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible.

Such was his feeling. ~ Leo Tolstoy

It is a remarkable irony that many of the best shows in London - Chicago, Oklahoma! - and even such harmless diversions as The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast - are imports from the colonies, while the homegrown productions include such luxurious twaddle as Mamma Mia!, Bombay Dreams, and Starlight Express. Brits who view' American culture with disdain are the ones who must pay the freight here, being careful not to throw stones from inside their glass houses. Though it is doubtless a bitter pill to swallow, not everything that is idiotic, pandering, or unsophisticated originated in the land of the free and the home of Kenny G. Americans did not invent Cats. ~ Joe Queenan

I hope your mamma is quite well?"
This unexpected inquiry put me into such a difficulty that I began saying in the absurdest way that if there had been any such person I had no doubt that she would have been quite well and would have been very much obliged and would have sent her compliments, when the nurse came to my rescue. ~ Charles Dickens

Gabriel stared at the dashboard of Hunter's Jeep and made no move to get out of the vehicle.

"I don't know what the hell we're doing here," he said.

"Well," said Hunter, "we could always go back to the house and watch Mamma Mia! with my grandparents. Or maybe we could stare at the police scanner for another hour and wait for nothing to happen. Or maybe "

"I just don't feel like being at a party." At this party. Full of guys who'd know he wasn't allowed on the team. Full of girls who'd tease him about being an idiot.

Hunter's dog stuck his head between the seats, and Gabriel reached up to scratch him behind his ears. "I'll just stay here with the dog."

Hunter sighed and gave him a look. "Come on, baby, don't be like that. Did you pack your Midol?"

"All right, all right." Gabriel climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind him. "I don't even know why I like you. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

A man blessed with a good mamma and a good wife has no right to complain about anything else. ~ Claude Pepper

When a man's dog turns against hime, it is time for his wife to pack her trunk and go home to mamma. ~ Mark Twain

My father had put these things on the table.
I looked at him standing by the sink. He was washing his hands, splashing water on his face. My mamma left us. My brother, too. And now my feckless, reckless uncle had as well. My pa stayed, though. My pa always stayed.
I looked at him. And saw the sweat stains on his shirt. And his big, scarred hands. And his dirty, weary face. I remembered how, lying in my bed a few nights before, I had looked forward to showing him my uncle's money. To telling him I was leaving.
And I was so ashamed. ~ Jennifer Donnelly

running to and fro with trays of refreshments. Odo, who knew that his mother lived in the Duke's palace, had vaguely imagined that his father's death must have plunged its huge precincts into silence and mourning; but as he followed the abate up successive flights of stairs and down long corridors full of shadow he heard a sound of dance music below and caught the flash of girandoles through the antechamber doors. The thought that his father's death had made no difference to any one in the palace was to the child so much more astonishing than any of the other impressions crowding his brain, that these were scarcely felt, and he passed as in a dream through rooms where servants were quarrelling over cards and waiting-women rummaged in wardrobes full of perfumed finery, to a bedchamber in which a lady dressed in weeds sat disconsolately at supper. "Mamma! Mamma!" he cried, springing ~ Edith Wharton

Here comes Mamma Vauquerr, fair as a starrr; and strung up like a bunch of carrots. Aren't we suffocating ourselves a wee bit?' he asked, placing a hand on the top of her corset. 'A bit of a crush in the vestibule, here, Mamma! If we start crying, there'll be an explosion. Never mind, I'll be there to collect the bits
just like an antiquary.'
'Now, there's the language of true French gallantry,' murmured Madame Vauquer in an aside to Madame Couture. ~ Honore De Balzac

I used to go to musicals every birthday - that was my birthday present. We'd go to London, me and my two brothers and mum and dad. I think I saw 'Mamma Mia' about five times. ~ Lily James

It seemed strange that with so much softness in her actual construction Mamma gave such a feeling of hardness. When ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Don't call the doctor, don't call ya mamma, don't call the preacher; no, I don't need it. ~ Diana Ross

Well, mamma, the Indians believed they knew, but now we know they were wrong. By and by it can turn out that we are wrong. So now I only pray that there might be a God and a heaven – or something better. ~ Mark Twain

I'll tell you how it happened. The phone rang. Paul, my agent, goes, 'Would you like to play Meryl Streep's?' I said, 'Yeeees! I'll do it, whatever it is.' He said, 'It's Mamma Mia!.' I said, 'Oh no, which character? The fat friend? ~ Julie Walters

I never wanted to write 'Mamma Mia!' or 'The Book of Mormon' - they're not my thing, I don't care about them. What I do is very different. ~ Jason Robert Brown

Yes," said Mamma, "this is the worst of life, that love does not give us common sense but is a sure way of losing it. We love people, and we say that we are going to do more for them than friendship, but it makes such fools of us that we do far less, indeed sometimes what we do could be mistaken for the work of hatred. ~ Rebecca West

Angel spent another week taking lessons at home before starting at the school. I drove her in on her first day.
"Mamma, I feel like Daddy's with us in the car," she told me. "He never missed my first day."
"You're right," I told her. "I'm sure he is. ~ Taya Kyle

Of course it was Mamma who both stopped my career and crystallized my determination to resume it. ~ Loretta Young

My sole consolation when I went upstairs for the night was that Mamma would come in and kiss me after I was in bed. But this good night lasted for so short a time, she went down again so soon, that the moment in which I heard her climb the stairs, and then caught the sound of her garden dress of blue muslin, from which hung little tassels of plaited straw, rustling along the double-doored corridor, was for me a moment of the utmost pain; for it heralded the moment which was to follow it, when she would have left me and gone downstairs again. ~ Marcel Proust

Lottie had always found, while in her own nursery at home, kicking and screaming would always be quieted by any means she insisted upon. Poor plump Miss. Amelia was trying first one method, then another.
"Poor darling!" she said one moment; "I know you haven't any mamma, poor-" Then in quite another tone: "If you don't stop, Lottie, I will shake you. Poor little angel! There-there! You wicked, bad, detestable child, I will smack you! I will! ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

Mamma says God uses the bad times to build strength. Wonder how strong a person needs to be before things get easier. ~ Toni Teepell

Mr. Morganthal shuffled out of the elevator and winked at me. "Hey, hootchie-mamma," he said. "Want a hot date?"

He was ninety-two and lived on the third floor, next to Mrs. Delgado. "You're too late," I told him. "I've already made plans."

"That's just as well. You'd probably kill me," Mr. Morganthal said. ~ Janet Evanovich

Mamma said that when you don't love someone one bit, you have to try to see them like Jesus would. It's a hard thing to do. Even Mamma has to squint sometimes. ~ Martha Finley

Mamma was just pulling your tail to see if it squeaked. ~ Kami Garcia

Here is a sermon for you, Reverend: Everything not dead dies. Just like those little fellows scooting around beside that dead mamma goose, little downy fellas who are gonna meet a hungry weasel or vicious farm dog before nightfall, their world stands in chaos, and not of their own doing. ~ Allan Dare Pearce

Talk about keeping slaves, as if we did it for our convenience," said Marie. "I'm sure, if we consulted that, we might let them all go at once."
Evangeline fixed her large, serious eyes on her mother's face, with an earnest and perplexed expression, and said, simply, "What do you keep them for, mamma?"
"I don't know, I'm sure, except for a plague; they are the plague of my life. I believe that more of my ill health is caused by them than by any one thing; and ours, I know, are the very worst that ever anybody was plagued with. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

Mamma says we would be wise to remember that what goes around usually comes back around to us - the good or the bad - depending on which we dish out. ~ Annette Bridges

The variations I've composed on the graceful Neapolitan ditty, 'Oh Mamma, Mama Cara,' outshine everything. I can't describe it ~ Niccolo Paganini

[Y]et, I wondered why Marshall did not at least attempt a kiss. In many ways, his treatment of me reminded me of the way I had behaved toward the doll that Mamma Mae had given me as a child. I favored it so that I had refused myself of the joy of playing with it, daring to love it only with my eyes. But in doing so, I had denied myself its very purpose. ~ Kathleen Grissom