Sol > Sol's Quotes

“What hath night to do with sleep?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“You got a boyfriend or something?”
I hate it when he figures me out before I have a chance to do it myself.
Especially when I’ve been counting on at least seven more years of denial.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“What I don’t understand is how come I got seven thousand chromosomes that make me smart and not a single one that makes me cool.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“Would you care to comment on the complexities of the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine?” Yeah, about as much as I’d care to have a Fleet enema, sir.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“Mr. Puckett,” he grunted, with snakes coming out his eyes, “have you something to say?” Boy, did he ever.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“Mr. McKenna: In the unlikely event that you achieved this of your own accord without any outside assistance, you’re to be commended. Otherwise, disregard the accolade.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“It would have served me right if I’d had a cerebral aneurysm on the spot. Instead, I forgot all about my foot—until we shoved the flat onto the stage. I think we broke my ankle.
This is bullshit. I have finals to worry about.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“Scientists didn't need to figure this out—Travis did it for them.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“[...]and at first I couldn’t tell if he liked it or not. It was only after I’d finished “Light My Fire” that he sort of yelped and wrestled me to the ground (translation: he liked it). But I pinned him first. (Grin.)”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“And as long as I’m being brutally candid, I only wound up teaching American History because I followed a cute ass into the country-and-western section at Barnes & Noble”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“My mother claims she didn’t raise her son to settle down with a construction foreman who operates his own hardware chain. Even with the M.B.A. from Harvard. But it’s not really the blue-collar thing that crawled up her ass. She and Clayton haven’t agreed on anything since she found out he makes more money than she does.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“Hey Trav, When I first got in this course, I didn’t want a pervert teaching me. Now I don’t mind. —Tony”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“Strong Points: I could definitely spend the rest of my life with him.
Shortcomings: He killed his last boyfriend (acquitted: involuntary manslaughter).
Comments: The knockout blonde he kept having lunch with wasn’t his lover—she was his attorney. Serves me right for spying on him.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“How come you kept them from smithereening me when we didn’t even know each other yet?”
“You never saw your ass in football pants. It would have been like letting them take a jackhammer to the Mona Lisa.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“His feelings for Adam were an oil spill; he’d let them overflow and now there wasn’t a damn place in the ocean that wouldn’t catch fire if he dropped a match.
<...>
“Headlights? That’s hardcore, Parrish.” Ronan held out his hand; Adam took it. Ronan hauled him up, his mind all palm against palm, thumb crossed over thumb, fingers pressed into wrist bone – and then Adam was facing him and he released his hand.
The ocean burned.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“No boy was ever so interesting to them as when he was interesting to someone else.”
― Anna-Marie McLemore, When the Moon Was Ours

“The difference between baptism and drowning is a few faithless breaths.”
― Anna-Marie McLemore, When the Moon Was Ours

“It shouldn't have mattered, not when Miel and the other girls in his class wore jeans more than they wore skirts. Not when they told their brothers what to do, and borrowed their fathers' books.
But there was everything else. The idea of being called Miss or Ms. or worse, Mrs. The thought of being grouped in when someone called out 'girls' or 'ladies.' The endless, echoing use of 'she' and 'her,' 'miss' and 'ma'am.' Yes, they were words. They were all just words. But each of them was wrong, and they stuck to him. Each one was a golden fire ant, and they were biting his arms and his neck and his bound-flat chest, leaving him bleeding and burning.
'He.' 'Him.' 'Mister.' 'Sir.' Even teachers admonishing him and his classmates with 'boys, settle down' or 'gentlemen, please.' These were sounds as perfect and clean as winter rain, and they calmed each searing bite of those wrong words.”
― Anna-Marie McLemore, When the Moon Was Ours

“They're expected to forget everything they knew about being anything other than what they're supposed to be.”
― Anna-Marie McLemore, When the Moon Was Ours

“Her mother did not guess that water could be more dangerous when there was less of it.”
― Anna-Marie McLemore, When the Moon Was Ours

“Look," Aracely said. "I know what you're going through."

"No you don't." Sam sat up. "I still have to live like this. Nothing is gonna fix me. There's no water that's gonna make me into something else."

"And I'd start from where you are if it meant what happened that night didn't have to happen," Aracely said. "We don't get to become who we are for nothing. It costs something. You're fighting for every little piece of yourself. And maybe I got all of me at once but I lost everything else. Don't you dare think there's any water in the world that makes this easy.”
― Anna-Marie McLemore, When the Moon Was Ours

“Some conversations are not about what they're about.”
― Anne Carson, Red Doc>

“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”
― Warsan Shire

“how far have you walked for men who’ve never held your feet in their laps?
how often have you bartered with bone, only to sell yourself short?
why do you find the unavailable so alluring?
where did it begin? what went wrong? and who made you feel so worthless?
if they wanted you, wouldn’t they have chosen you?
all this time, you were begging for love silently, thinking they couldn’t hear you, but they smelt it on you, you must have known that they could taste the desperate on your skin?
and what about the others that would do anything for you, why did you make them love you until you could not stand it?
how are you both of these women, both flighty and needful?
where did you learn this, to want what does not want you?
where did you learn this, to leave those that want to stay?”
― Warsan Shire

“1. I’m lonely so I do lonely things
2. Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.
3. You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood.
4. I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for a ride home.
5. You’re a ghost town I’m too patriotic to leave.
6. I stay because you’re the beginning of the dream I want to remember.
7. I didn’t call him back because he likes his girls voiceless.
8. It’s not that he wants to be a liar; it’s just that he doesn’t know the truth.
9. I couldn’t love you, you were a small war.
10. We covered the smell of loss with jokes.
11. I didn’t want to fail at love like our parents.
12. You made the nomad in me build a house and stay.
13. I’m not a dog.
14. We were trying to prove our blood wrong.
15. I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things.
16. Yes, I’m insecure, but so was my mother and her mother.
17. No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot.
18. He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me.
19. You were too cruel to love for a long time.
20. It just didn’t work out.
21. My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back.
22. I can’t sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth.
23. I cut him out at the root, he was my favorite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home.
24. The women in my family die waiting.
25. Because I didn’t want to die waiting for you.
26. I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me.
27. You’re the song I rewind until I know all the words and I feel sick.
28. He sent me a text that said “I love you so bad.”
29. His heart wasn’t as beautiful as his smile
30. We emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love.
31. Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you.
32. I’m a lover without a lover.
33. I’m lovely and lonely.
34. I belong deeply to myself .”
― Warsan Shire

“With you, intimacy colours my voice.
even ‘hello’ sounds like ‘come here'.”
― Warsan Shire

“Don't assume, ask. Be kind. Tell the truth. Don't say anything you can't stand behind fully. Have integrity. Tell people how you feel.”
― Warsan Shire

“To my daughter I will say, when the men come, set yourself on fire.”
― Warsan Shire, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

“The ego hurts you like this: you become obsessed with the one person who does not love you. blind to the rest who do.”
― Warsan Shire

“i give myself five days to forget you.
on the first day i rust.
on the second i wilt.
on the third day i sit with friends but i think about your tongue.
i clean my room on the fourth day. i clean my body on the fourth day.
i try to replace your scent on the fourth day.
the fifth day, i adorn myself like the mouth of an inmate.
a wedding singer dressed in borrowed gold.
the midas of cheap metal.
tinsel in the middle of summer.
crevice glitter, two days after the party.
i glow the way unwanted things do,
a neon sign that reads;
come, i still taste like someone else’s mouth.”
― Warsan Shire