The Girl Before Quotes

Saul is as different from Simon Wakefield as it's possible to get, I find myself thinking. And Edward Monkford is utterly different from both of them. It seems incredible that Emma could have had relationships with all three men. Where Simon's eager to please, but also touchy and insecure, and Edward's calm and super-confident, Saul is pushy and brash and loud. He also has a habit of saying 'Yeah?' aggressively at the end of his sentences, as if trying to force me to agree with him. ~ J.P. Delaney

We're all connected now, I think as I send it off into cyberspace. Everyone and everything. ~ J.P. Delaney

It's the sketch Edward did of me before he went away, the one he said was fine but didn't want to keep. It's as if he's drawn me not once but twice. In the main drawing I have my head turned to the right. It's so detailed, you can see the tautness of my neck muscles and the arch of my clavicle. But underneath or over that there's a second drawing, barely more than a few jagged, suggestive lines, done with a surprising energy and violence: my head turned the other way, my mouth open in a kind of snarl. The two heads pointing in opposite directions give the drawing a disturbing sense of movement.

Which one's the pentimento, and which the finished thing? And why did Edward say there was nothing wrong with it? Did he not want me to see this double image for some reason? ~ J.P. Delaney

In my art history degree course, we did a module on palimpsests - medieval sheets of parchment so costly that, once the text was no longer needed, the sheets were simply scraped clean and reused, leaving the old writing faintly visible through the new. Later, Renaissance artists used the word pentimenti, repentances, to describe mistakes or alterations that were covered with new paint, only to be revealed years or even centuries later as the paint thinned with time, leaving both the original and the revision on view.

Sometimes I have a sense that this house - our relationship in it, with it, with each other - is like a palimpsest or pentimento, that however much we try to overpaint Emma Matthews, she keeps tiptoeing back: a faint image, an enigmatic smile, stealing its way into the corner of the frame. ~ J.P. Delaney

All these men who loved Emma, I think. For all her problems, men were fixated on her. Will anyone ever feel like that about me? ~ J.P. Delaney

I was in love with a girl who had dreams, a girl who loved quietly and without expectation. But the girl before me had her dreams dashed, and she loved submissively, putting everyone else before herself until she found herself buried and gone. ~ Staci Hart

He was heartbroken, I say.

Heartbroken, he repeats. Of course. That's the great myth Edward Monkford's spun around himself, isn't it? The tormented genius who lost the love of his life and became an arch-minimalist as a result.

You don't think that's right?

I know it isn't. ~ J.P. Delaney

The same goes for Edward Monkford. Yes, based on what you've told me, it seems Emma was the real narcissist, not him. But there's no doubting he's an extreme controller. What happens when a controller comes up against someone who's out of control? The combination could be explosive. ~ J.P. Delaney

I will take what I can from Edward. And then I will let them fade into history, all the characters in this drama. Emma Matthews and the men who loved her, who became obsessed with her. They're not important to us now. ~ J.P. Delaney

This is when I became myself. The girl before this time is a shadow, like a soul who is practicing how not to become. She is the background, the hole in the fabric from which the real shape is cut. ~ Gabriel Weston

Please make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life.

I take a deep breath and pick up my pen. ~ J.P. Delaney

I don't want anything from you, Edward. If you'd only told me you were still in love with Emma - '

'You don't understand,' he interrupts. 'It was like an illness. I hated myself every second I was with her. ~ J.P. Delaney

And when I realized you had secrets too, I was glad. I thought we could be honest with each other. That we could finally rid ourselves of all the clutter from our past. Not our possessions, but the stuff we carry around inside our heads. Because that's what I've realized, living in One Folgate Street. You can make your surroundings as polished and empty as you like. But it doesn't really matter if you're still messed up inside. And that's all anyone's looking for really, isn't it? Someone to take care of the mess inside our heads? ~ J.P. Delaney

That was Emma - she'd have enjoyed knowing she had something like that, something that could blow her whole fucking life and mine apart if it came out. Her little bit of power. ~ J.P. Delaney

In Ronan's hand, the mask was as thin as a sheet of paper, still warm from Adam's gasped breaths. Orphan Girl buried her face in his side, her body shaking with sobs. Her tiny voice was muffled: "Tollerere me a hic, tollerere me a hic ... "
Take me away from here, take me away from here. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I take it this is one of the ones crushing on you."
"What? They all crush on me. I'm a hot college girl, remember?" I laughed and his eyes burned into mine.
He leaned in close and whispered into my ear. "So hot. Now you've got me thinking what you looked like this morning, when i woke up with you in my arms, in my bed. Would it be too greedy to ask you to stay tonight, too?"
"I was afraid you weren't going to ask. ~ Tammara Webber

You know in sixth grade, when they made all of us girls go into this other room and watch a video about getting our periods and stuff? I bet while we were gone, the boys were watching a video about how to look at each other in that infuriating way. ~ Meg Cabot

You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls. ~ J.M. Barrie

I just feel - specifically about that holiday - why is it just one day that you have to tell the person that you love how much you love them? I think that is a little silly. I am much more the girl that likes the spontaneous. ~ Michelle Trachtenberg

Hallorann saw a grave sort of beauty there that had been missing on the day he had first met her, some nine months ago. Then she had still been mostly girl. Now she was a woman, a human being who had been dragged around to the dark side of the moon and had come back able to put the pieces back together. But those pieces, Hallorann thought, they never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ~ Stephen King

Maybe she's helping him because his hands are full," Lydia suggested.
The girl kissed a trace of chocolate from the corner of his mouth.
"Or not. ~ Diana Peterfreund

Staring at herself in the mirror, she found that she'd lost the ability to see herself through her own eyes. She was only what humans would see. Not a girl or a woman or someone in between. They wouldn't see her loneliness or fear or courage, let alone her humanity. They would see only obscenity. Calamity. ~ Laini Taylor

I don't want to be the funny girl or the serious girl. I would hope to touch on all different genres and all different types of characters, which I think I've been lucky enough to do, so far. ~ Yvonne Strahovski

Her smile was hesitant and flickering, the smile of a girl who does not know her fate. But when she raised her head, her eyes were surprisingly bold... the eyes of a woman no man had as yet taken into account. ~ Margaret Pemberton

She wanted this man with an intensity that defied logic. Which was part of the reason she'd been ignoring him. A girl only had so much self-control when faced with all this deliciousness. ~ Katie Reus

As a little girl, I thought I'd like to get married on the beach. But I'm not the quintessential girl who had these sort of fantasies about that stuff. ~ Mandy Moore

Was it new for one, perhaps too busy to seek, to be the prize of a girl who would seek him? ~ Jane Austen

The Lord givith and the Lord takith away. I was given a lot of signs from the universe and looking at it in retrospect made me feel like God was telling me I needed to follow my dream. My granny getting in that car accident and being at that hospital when I was going there to see my girl ... that whole part of the story where I go to the show and come back to the hospital ... and it was almost like as soon as I found out that my granny didn't make it as soon as I got back, I also found out that my son had just come out. ~ Ryan Montgomery

You ran miles and miles to find me, didn't you? You clever boy! I don't know if I should be scolding you or hugging you!" And with that, I wrapped my weak arms around my knight in furry armor. "You're the best friend a girl could ever have, Maze. I love you. ~ Karen Luellen

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rusack. In the late afternoon, after a day's march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending. ~ Tim O'Brien

I dunno." She sat on the bench and hugged the robe like a pillow. "I still think that Brett guy is cute."
"Good luck getting him away from Bekka." Cleo gathered her silky black hair into a high pony and pink-dabbed Smith's Rosebud Salve on her lips. "She's got more grip than Crazy Glue."
"More cling than Saran Wrap," Lala added.
"More hold than Final Net." Cleo giggled.
"More possession than The Exorcist," Lala managed.
"More clench than butt cheeks," Blue chimed in.
"More competition than American Idol," Frankie stuck out her chest and showed them her diva booty roll.
The girls burst out laughing.
"Nice!" Blue lifted her purple gloved hand.
Frankie slapped it without a single spark.
"I hate to be a downer..." Claudine shuffled back into the conversation wearing her slippers and robe. "But that girl will destroy you if she catches you with Brett."
"I'm not worried," Frankie tossed her hair back. "I've seen all the teen movies, and the nice girl gets the boy in the end. ~ Lisi Harrison

Not every story is about a girl who dreams of romance, waiting impatiently and dramatically for a tall, handsome, strong man to fall hopelessly in love with, in the foolish hope that he will protect her from all harm and give her the happily ever after she has always wanted. ~ Anuja Chandramouli

Her feisty interludes turned him on, and he wanted to push her into situations that encouraged the tigress in her to come out more often. The girl shimmered with untapped sexual potential. Her dick of a husband obviously wasn't able to see what he could see ... ~ Kitty French

You're not the kind of girl a guy wants to be friends with, you're the kind of girl he wants to give his heart to. ~ Tess Oliver

So many guys try to show off to a girl by boasting of their financial assets and flashing their cash around etc, but a girl who makes her own money and is building her own empire is not impressed by such things. -Show me the integrity not the money. ~ Miya Yamanouchi

The Roman form of serenade is to race a motorcycle motor under the girl's window, but mufflers are not common in any situation; the only things as dearly loved as a good noise are breakneck speed and eye-splitting lights, preferably neon - all expressions of well-being, like a huge belly-laugh. ~ Eleanor Clark

The only rules to follow were instincts and color palettes. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Me and my girl split the buffet at KFC. ~ Kanye West

The Thorn of Istra, her mind supplied. That's the Thorn of Istra.
Lots. He's killed lots and lots and lots. ~ Holly Black

I make you vulnerable because you love me. That's the price you pay for love, baby girl. ~ Tarryn Fisher

I was never the kind of girl who said, "One day, I am going to be a beautiful bride, and I am going to have a family." I wanted to work and support myself and make my parents proud. All I did was work. I did three or four films a year, and felt like I was on a treadmill. Finally I said, "Nothing is exciting to me anymore." So I took six months off, which turned into a year, and said, "God, I don't miss it." That's when all kinds of interesting things crossed my path. ~ Sandra Bullock

Listen, girl, I came to tell you that life is stupid. It just pulls the same shit over and over. Sometimes you think you can make it come out different, but you can't. You're in a story and the body writing it is an asshole. ~ Catherynne M Valente

It is hard to write it in words that I can read, that re-establishes the fact that has been haunting me for the past one year. ~ Kudrat Dutta Chaudhary

Oh I'm sure you're right," Auntie said. "Probably she's just as you say. But she looks to me like a very clever girl, and adaptable; you can see that from the shape of her ears. ~ Arthur Golden

Right at the beginning, I didn't know if Miffy was a boy or girl. ~ Dick Bruna

Young girls are like helpless children in the hands of amorous men, whatever is said to them is true and whatever manipulation on their bodies seems like love to them, sooner or later, they come back to their senses, but the scars are not dead inasmuch as her spoiler lives. ~ Michael Bassey

I mean to do something grand. I don't know what, yet; but when I'm grown up I shall find out.Perhaps,it will be rowing out in boats, and saving peoples' lives,like that girl in the book. Or perhaps I shall go and nurse in the hospital, like Miss Nightingale. Or else I'll head a crusade and ride on a white horse, with armor and a helmet on my head, and carry a sacred flag. Or if I don't do that, I'll paint pictures,or sing, or scalp – sculp – what is it? you know – make figures in marble. Anyhow it shall be something. ~ Susan Coolidge

If I kissed her now, one of two things would happen. We'd either get naked right here on the beach and probably get arrested, or I'd somehow manage to get us up the hill to my house, and then we'd get naked.
But kissing her once, then letting her go. That ... wasn't possible. I couldn't kiss her then go back to my ordinary life. I wasn't Superman.
If I was, though, the girl in my arms was more lethal to me than kryptonite. ~ Ophelia London