The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love Quotes

“All may be fair in love and war, but this is ornithology. Cheating is practically one of our scientific principles.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Angel was too feeble a word for her. She was heaven entire, embodied in a woman’s body. She was every superlative in every ridiculous emotional dictionary printed in a man’s heart.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Beth quite simply bewitched him, beyond linguistic sobriety, beyond quantifiable data analysis. She was beauty. She was peace.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Just be aware,” he whispered, “that as soon as I can, I’m going to kiss you until your corset falls off.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“He’d never fallen so fast for a woman before. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she uplifted him, drawing him out of cynicism into a happiness he was enjoying wholeheartedly; a happiness that had taken him so off-guard, his usual defenses were useless against it. Then again, maybe he didn’t want to employ them anymore. Beth was welcome in.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Why people--?!' (That was the full extent of the sentence. Extroverts need not trouble themselves asking for an explanation.)”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“I will always come for you, Beth. You are my sunlight.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Beth,” Devon whispered. “Beth.” He said her name again and again, kissing her throat or jaw or mouth each time, as if he were tasting something sweet. “You’re like a night full of bird stars and magical dreaming. I am so in love with you.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“He wanted her, his clever angel, his rival, his friend.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Villain,” she said lightly.
“Angel,” he retorted.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“I know what I’m talking about. People aren’t interested in romance. They want sober, informative reports that use complex words and make them feel stupid, thereby inspiring them to seek higher education.”

A moment of silence followed this speech as Messrs. Fettick and Flogg tried to decide if it was satire.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“You truly are an angel, aren’t you?” he whispered.
“Not as much as you’d think,” she said.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Your eyes are like a sky spun by wild and beautiful wings.”
― india holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Not that she didn’t intend to save herself, but a girl does like to have someone waiting in the wings, wanting to rescue her.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“She was beyond description. She was something for which he needed a language of heartbeats and deep, satisfied sighs.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“A wise woman allows nothing to ruffle her feathers; she is the ruffler of feathers.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“He wanted to undress her brain, stroke her perspective, make her gasp out the most fascinating theory she hid from all other men. He also wanted to kiss the hell out of her, but that went without saying.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“A wise woman allows nothing to ruffle her feathers. She is the ruffler of feathers.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“We expected to see accounts of diligent, noble-minded scientists using research libraries and crouching in rain-soaked hides. But what do I read instead in the newspapers? *Romance*.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“And it might have been an offer, or it might have been just him dreaming. Either way, he could not seem to help himself. The narrative gravity drew them together slowly; so slowly, either one of them might have stepped back, packed their clothes, and left the room before the other moved an inch.
But they did not leave. And so the momentum or some unknown magic kept going, until at last their lips met.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“It was the lightest of kisses, but it reached deep inside her to stroke some exquisitely sensitive nerve and illuminate her inner darkness like the magical flash of some bird whose name she could not even begin to remember in that moment. She could barely remember her own.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“She was British right through to her tea-flavored, rain-colored core, and the thought of a summer without fog and storms horrified her.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“After all, what good was love if it failed at the first uncertainty?”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“But instead he found himself fighting back the desire to buy some beeswax polish and offer to polish her furniture until it shone. And the fact that this wasn’t a metaphor disturbed him considerably.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Sooty shearwater? What even was a bird?!”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“Devon rolled his eyes, but he was grinning, and Beth warmed at the sight of it. Before she could chide him (or, God help her, giggle)”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“I thought you were a nice girl,” he said. She looked him in the eye steadily. “That doesn’t mean I’m weak.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“He was an unmapped horizon, a bar chart without category names along the X axis.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“All along the streets to the museum, Beth met no trouble. Her plain brown coat, accompanied by a small hat and gloves and air of cultivated intelligence, triggered fear in any man who glanced her way. One catcall and she might educate them.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

“… in defiance of intellect that had always placed her so far at the top of her classes, they had to keep inventing new ceilings for her.”
― India Holton, The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love