It Happened One Midnight Quotes

“Why are you holding a knife?” he asked, mimicking her tone.
Shock blurred her vision.
The ease had gone out of his posture. Suddenly she knew he was a man poised to spring if he needed to. And this was what he’d been leading up to all along.
She cleared her throat. “Oh . . . this?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “That.”
She remained silent. She idly tested the tip of the knife with her fingertip. Very sharp. Perfectly deadly.
“Let me guess. It’s not what I think.”
Think, Tommy, think. “I’m carrying a knife,” she said slowly, “because . . . I don’t own a pistol.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“Good God. He doesn't know me at *all*.
How crushing.
How illuminating.
How ... potentially very useful.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“She wouldn't look up at him, wouldn't take her hands from her eyes; she didn't want him to see her. So he wrapped his arms around her like armor, making a shelter for her to fall apart ... He surreptitiously rested his cheek against the top of her head. That rich hair was too silky and fine and warm, and her narrow pale part seemed ridiculously pale and vulnerable as a fontanelle. Here, it seemed to say, was proof that Thomasina de Ballesteros could be broken. Cracked like an egg. That she was human.
The rage he felt then toward the duke was almost euphoric. Almost holy.
This is how crusades are born, he thought. With this kind of certainty about right and wrong, good and evil, and the need to avenge.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“I am going to take you every imaginable way,' he promised on a whisper, tugging her bodice lower.
'Excellent,' she murmured. She tugged his shirt from his trousers.
'Right side up, upside down, sideways, sitting, standing. You on top. Then me on top.'
'A brilliant plan.' His shirt fell from his shoulders. Oh, his shoulders. The vast glorious curve of them. She couldn't wait to lick one.
'Backward, forward. On the bed, on the table, on the settee.'
He paused, and lifted her dress off over her head with all the ceremony of an unveiling. It fell to the floor.
'And then?' she whispered.
'And then we'll do it all over again.'
It was the never-ending story!”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“She didn't usually mind being just a bit in over her head. She generally flailed like a becalmed ship, irritable and purposeless and panicked, when things were simple.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“Oh, God,” he said softly to himself. “I knew you were trouble.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“Picture, if you will, Tommy, the fuse of a cannon. Now, when one touches a flame to a fuse, what happens? It's consumed bit...'
He stepped toward her, so close that his boot toes nearly touched the toes of her slippers.
She sucked in a breath. But she stood her ground when his knees brushed hers.
'...by bit...'
His voice had gone perilously soft. '...by bit. Until...'
His breath fluttered her hair.
His mouth was next to her ear now. 'Boom.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“Men who are fatally struck usually take a moment to drop. He felt rather suspended in that moment.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“She mulled how very Jonathan of him to effortlessly find his way to her when she needed him, labyrinth or no. Just as he'd effortlessly uncovered her secrets. But that was simply because he'd been born knowing the secret to her. He was hers and she was his. Just as there was one key for every lock”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“I shall expect your reply within a month. Surely that is time enough to ... weigh your other offers.'
She stared at him. Well. She'd underestimated Lord Prescott. Or perhaps, more accurately, she hadn't fully estimated him ...
'Thank you, Lord Prescott. It's helpful to know that your desire for me will expire by a particular date.'
'Much like the desirability of any woman. You of all people should be fully aware that a woman's bloom doesn't last forever. Nor does her ability to bear children.'
...
'Thank you for reminding me. It slipped my mind, temporarily.'
He nodded, smiling a little, acknowledging her little barb. 'Good day, Miss de Ballesteros. I am not a man without feeling, and I think I shall depart now, to recover from the decidedly ambivalent receipt of my proposal.'
She smiled a little at that.
'Good day, Lord Prescott. Perhaps I should retire, too, to preserve my bloom.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“The way to achieve the impossible is to simply do it as if it were the most possible thing in the world.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“The cheek of the man. She liked cheek. She liked a man who spoke to her as if she was a person, an equal as if she were in on the joke.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“And for a moment he simply held her and she held onto him.

It might have been the most perfect moment of his life so far.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“He wanted to be a man she admired. The way he admired her. He wanted her to think of him as brave. He wanted to be better because of her, and for her.

He was better because of her. She'd changed him irrevocably.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“This man offered her forever.

And if Prescott had asked a month ago...If he'd asked the day before she'd encountered Jonathan Redmond at midnight outside the Duke of Greyfolk's house...

Ah, but she was a different woman now. One kiss had changed that.

And a ballroom orgasm.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“Backward now?' he suggested.
'Are you going to call out our lovemaking like a billiards game?”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“Life is short, Tommy. Short and dangerous. A bit like you.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“You wouldn't consider riding me, would you?' he asked politely.
'You've lovely manners," she purred. 'But of course.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“You believed in me,' he said slowly. 'You trusted me.'
'Of course I did. That, and I love you more than life itself.'
She saw her words enter him like cupid's arrow. He closed his eyes swiftly, as if bracing against an onslaught of emotion. He mouthed something that might have been 'Hallelujah.'

Then he opened them again, as if he couldn't bear not to see her in the aftermath of those words.
'Say it again.'
'I love you.' Those magical powerful words that she never dreamed she'd be able to say to anyone.
And look, look what it did to Jonathan Redmond's face when she said them. What a humbling power she held.
He recovered, and smiled a slow satisfied smile. 'Of course you love me. How could you help it?”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight

“And in his weariness, only one word came to Jonathan, like a prayer. Tommy, he thought, invoking what was good and real. Tommy. The word for love in his world right now. Tommy. And he supposed the word that occurred to you in your darkest moments...well, that word meant love. That was perhaps how you knew. And perhaps that was the purpose of dark moments.”
― Julie Anne Long, It Happened One Midnight