Lisa Kleypas

“In Jack's view, you were obliged to sin on Saturday night so you'd have something to atone for Sunday morning.”

“[...] I always wondered how love could translate into an emergency room visit.”

“Justine, whenever someone says 'this is for your own good,' it's a guarantee they're about to cause you some kind of damage.”

“It’s like trying to describe a color you’ve never seen before. Words can’t make you understand what real love is like. But until you’ve felt it … you haven’t really lived.”

“You’re mad,” he said in a low voice, “if you think I would leave you now. I’ll see you safe and well no matter what it takes.”

“That's what life is. One problem after another. You can't control any of it. All you can do is reach out for something good whenever you can. And hold on no matter what.”

“So soon? But I sup pose that is only to be expected. Lord Ramsay will want to see his estate.""Yes, Mrs. Hunt." Leo said. "I adore bucolic settings. One can never view too many sheep.”

“Although Annabelle couldn’t see his face, she heard the note of quiet warning in his voice as he spoke to Westcliff. “We’ll continue our discussion later. Right now I intend to escort Miss Peyton to her room.”“That is not a wise idea, in my opinion,” the earl said.“I’m glad I didn’t ask for it, then,” Simon returned pleasantly.”

“Simon,” she whispered, vaguely surprised that she had just used his first name, for she had never used it even in the privacy of her thoughts. Moistening her dry lips, she tried once more, and to her astonishment, she did it again. “Simon…”“Yes?” A new tension had entered his long, hard body, and at the same time, his hand moved over the shape of her skull in the softest caress possible.“Please… take me to my room.”Hunt tilted her head back gently and regarded her with a sudden faint smile playing on his lips. “Sweetheart, I would take you to Timbuktu if you asked.”

“Annabelle stared straight ahead at the canvas, neither seeing nor caring about the fluctuations of light and color that conveyed impressions of approaching nightfall…the dusk of the Roman Empire. Hunt seemed similarly indifferent to the show, his head inclined toward hers, his gaze locked on her face. Though his breathing remained soft and disciplined, it seemed to her that its rhythm had changed ever so slightly.Annabelle moistened her dry lips. “You…you mustn’t stare at me like that.”Soft as the murmur was, he caught it. “With you here, nothing else is worth looking at.”

“A veces las fisuras de dos almas separadas puede ser lo que las une.”

“No one can tell you what your path is . . . but someday you'll discover it. . . and it won't be at all what you expected.”

“I learned that a sense of privacy doesn't have to depend on walls and doors. At least not external ones. Two people could sit in a room and read or work separately without ever breaking the silence. It's an ability to put up walls in your mind, so no one can get through.”

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”

“I've been exactly that lonly. You're not connected to anything. Some nights it feels like you're dying by the hour. You're so desperate you can't even attract the kind of person you once swore you'd never settle for.”

“You'll be my wife," he said inexorably."You want to own me!" she accused, trying to crawl away from him."Yes." He flung her down on the bed and flattened his weight on her. As he spoke, his hot breath fannedher mouth and chin. "Yes. I want other people to look at you and know you're mine. I want you to takemy name and my money. I want you tolive with me. I want to be inside you . . . part of your thoughts . . . your body . . . all of you. I want you totrust me. I want to give you whatever elusive, impossible, goddamned mysterious thing it is you need inorder to be happy. Does that frightenyou? Well, it frightens the hell out of me. Don't you think I'd stop feeling this way if I could? It's not as ifyou're the easiest woman in the world!!”

“She understood the risks, the limits, the possible consequences, and she was willing to accept all of that in return for the sheer joy of being with him. One night with him…one hundred… whatever fate allowed her, she would take.”

“Sleep," she heard him whisper. "And if you have any more nightmares...I'll kiss them all away.”

“Love, she reflected bitterly, wasn't something you bargained with or negotiated with...it lived by its own rules. Love appeared when you didn't want it and refused to go. It was like an invasive species that entered your garden without warning, and proceeded to grow wildly out of control, resistant to every method employed to kill it.Basically, love was pigweed.”

“One of the more ignominious features of love was that you could only express it with cliches...it made you sound like a fraud at a time when you were blazing with sincerity.”

“Hang it all, Haven, talk to a girlfriend if all you want is a pair of ears. Guys hate it when you give us a problem and then don't let us do something about it. It makes us feel bad. And then the only way to make ourselves feel better is to rip a phone book in two or blow something up. So let's get this straight — I'm not a good listener. I'm a guy." - Jack Travis”

“Easy, Marks,' he whispered. 'One of us has to have some self-control, and it really should be you.”

“Catherine went still. Her eyes closed against a sudden wet sting. 'Did you accept her proposal?'Leo nuzzled tenderly into the hollow beneath her ear. 'Of course not, pea-goose.”

“I know when something is too important to be decided by logic.”

“The way I was brought up ‘he needed killing’ is an airtight alibi.”

“That is kind of you, my lord. But I will never dance with you.'Which, of course, made it the goal of Leo's life.”

“Sometimes silence was easiest, when the only word left was good-bye.”

“Yes, something [book] to transport your mind from where and who and what you are. Everyone needs that. A time or two in my past, it seemed that a book was the only thing that stood between me and near insanity.”

“Evidently you think I'm a fool who will easily succumb to flattery, or else your standards are quite low.”

“First of all, there is no need to patronize me by implying that I'm Helen of Troy when it's clear that I'm no beauty.”

“Because handsomeness is always accompanied by vanity.And I suppose ugliness is accompanied by a wealth of virtues?”

“Sometimes the only difference between life and death is the ability to retain the smallest scrap of hope.”

“From his own experience, Alex knew that parental love is an ideal, not a guarantee.”

“If I were an opera singer, I"d have sung you an aria. If I were an artist, I would have painted your portrait. But cooking is what I'm best at.”

“Because the problem with having tried something new and amazing was that you could never go back and take the same pleasure in the thing you used to enjoy. You could never erase the awareness that somewhere out there was a better experience you weren't having. You knew you were eating a canned biscuit after you'd tried a fluffy, tender homemade one with a crisp buttered top, the whole of it split open and doused with honey.”

“My point is, when someone is hurting you, they can call it whatever the hell they want. They can even call it love. But words lie, actions don’t.”

“I don't need any trinkets or pictures to remind me of my faith—all I need to do is stare out the window at the woods, and see how beautiful they are.”

“You shouldn’t rule out second chances. Sometimes they come with interesting bonus features.”

“You want a favor from me, it's going to involve crown molding or adding extra can lights. I draw the line at amusing your bouche”

“Because one day of something wonderful is better than a forever of nothing special.”

“Justine," Zoe said, "I don't want to curse anyone.""Of course you don't, you're much too nice. But I don't have that problem.”

“Logan: I don't care who you are or what you've done. Just tell me why you want to leave. Are you in love with this other man?Maddy: Oh, no. It's not that, it's... I promised God that I would go back home if you got well again.Logan: That's not my idea of a good bargain, sweet. Besides, I wasn't consulted.”

“Women. You'll interpret anything as love. You see a man wearing an idiotic expression, and you assume he's been struck by Cupid's arrow when in reality, he's digesting a bad turnip.”

“Love was the secret behind everything...love was what made vineyards grow and filled the spaces between the stars, and fixed the ground beneath his feet. It didn't matter if you acknowledged it or not. You couldn't stop the motion of the earth or hold back the ocean tides, or break the pull of the moon. You couldn't stop the rain or pull a shade over the sun.”

“I've never been convinced that everything in a relationship needs to be talked about. Some things can't be fixed by a conversation”

“At first I wasn’t all that tempted by him, but then he killed the spider. Which was a huge point in his favor.” “Absolutely. I love men who kill bugs.” “And then when I was freaking out and couldn’t breathe, he was so…gentle.” Zoe sighed and colored, remembering. “He was holding me, and talking to me in that voice…you know, sort of low and rough around the edges…” “All the Nolans sound like that,” Justine said reflectively. “Like they’ve got a mild case of bronchitis. Totally hot.”

“There isn’t going to be a ‘next lover,’” Grant said automatically, outraged by the idea. “I’m the only man she’s going to have.”

“You are everything that's ever been my favourite thing," she wanted to tell him. "You're my love song, my birthday cake, the sound of ocean waves and French words and a baby's laugh. You're a snow angel, crème brulée, a kaleidoscope filled with glitter. I love you and you'll never catch up, because I've gotten a head start and my heart is racing at light speed.”

“I don't really like this song," Emma had said."You told me it was your favourite.""It's beautiful. But it always makes me sad.""Why, love?" he'd asked gently. "It's about finding each other again. About someone coming home."Emma had lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him earnestly. "It's about losing someone, and having to wait until you're together in heaven.""There's nothing in the lyrics about heaven," he'd said."But that's what it means. I can't bear the idea of being separated from you, for a lifetime or a year or even a day. So you mustn't go to heaven without me.""Of course not," he had whispered. "It wouldn't be heaven without you.”

“A woman could do that to you - reach that place in your soul where the best and worst of you was kept. And once she was there, she owned that place and never left.”