Charming Young Man Quotes

“As has happened a few times in his life, a moment has so much in it that it locks into his memory. Like he’s had it painted. He knows he’ll be returning to this in his mind until whenever he dies. Happiness isn’t in the future; it is now, in this brief moment: fireflies over a freshly shorn field, plates empty of dinner, three men pushed back from the table, enjoying their conversation, his sister arriving with a box tied up in string, the hem of her simple dress wet from the evening dew, her husband with their wailing child on his hip, the setting sun lighting up the windowpanes of Félix’s house, of their house, inside it a piano with a bitten-down pencil and a half-filled sheet of music.”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man: A Young Adult Historical Romance About a Pianist and First Love in 1890s Paris

“Do you remember the puzzle that we made years ago when we sneaked into the carpenter’s shed? I have been putting the pieces together each morning as a way to say hello to you.”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man: A Young Adult Historical Romance About a Pianist and First Love in 1890s Paris

“Not when he was unnatural here and uncultured there. Charlotte was wrong. There was nowhere he could just be himself. Léon struggled to put words to it. “I’m wrong everywhere I go,” he said. “I’ll always be wrong.”
Charlotte wrapped her arms around him, and together they fell in the dark, wet grass. Her breath smelled like wine. “You could never be wrong with me.”
“Don’t start to hate me,” Léon cried into Charlotte’s shoulder. “I couldn’t stand it if you hated me.”
“I could never. Never.”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man: A Young Adult Historical Romance About a Pianist and First Love in 1890s Paris

“We’re both weird outsider fairy creatures, you and me, aren’t we?” Marcel said, his voice reducing to a dramatic whisper. Then he disappeared into the shadows of the hallway, as if by a spell.”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man: A Young Adult Historical Romance About a Pianist and First Love in 1890s Paris

“As he slotted the folded letter neatly into his music theory book, Léon felt a chill flood of something he realized was loneliness. He wanted Félix to be proud of him, and not to worry, but who could he be honest with? Charlotte and his mother were depending on him to keep them from poverty. Marmontel didn’t have an interior life, as far as he could tell. Reynaldo was Reynaldo. Robert de Montesquiou might have become a friend, but that adventure had ended terribly. Could he be honest with Félix? Everything he was going through felt foreign to their life of woodland walks and feeding ducks. How could Félix understand?”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man: A Young Adult Historical Romance About a Pianist and First Love in 1890s Paris

“Léon began anew, music and the vision of Félix’s freckles buzzing through his mind as he became aware of the Saussine guests pausing at the house entrance, staring at him. He’d arrived, and his tie was still undone. Over, under, fold, tuck. Why was that so hard?!”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man: A Young Adult Historical Romance About a Pianist and First Love in 1890s Paris