Ordinary Love Quotes

“You cannot live more than one life. Sometimes, you must choose.”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“She rewrote the moment when Athena first met Arachne:

I wanted to soak into the fibers of her being. I wanted to dye her wool with my permanence. I wanted to be the crimson on her skin, in the way of cherries and pomegranates. I loved her arrogance.”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“But she hated Arachne," Violet said. "In the original myth. Right? Athena was jealous that a mortal could weave better than she could, so she hit Arachne on the head with a shuttle and turned her into a spider."

"First, Athena loved her. At least, that's how I'm writing it.”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“From the first moment Emily held Connor in her arms, she loved him. He was dear to her, dear not just in the sense of cherished, but also in its older, forgotten meaning, the one that people didn't use often. Dear as in costly. Something that came at a high price. Whatever the price, Emily would pay it.”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“Emily learned, as everyone does, that happiness is often colored by worry or set-aside grief, even in the moment of happiness. It is rarely pure. But what Emily felt that summer, until the end of it, came close. It was the kind of happiness whose only worry is the loss of that happiness.”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“You'll come back but you'll always be different.

- From everyone else, or who I used to be?

Both.

- But I would see the moon.

You would see the moon.”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“I’m sure Gen Hall has the money to hire a round-the-clock private nurse but there are good ones and bad ones. If Nella’s in pain and it’s not time for morphine, she’ll need gabapentin, one hundred milligrams daily. Haloperidol for delirium, once it comes. I’m writing this down. If she can’t swallow good, give her glycopyrrolate, one milligram every four to six hours as needed. Stop looking at me like that. You think I worked at a hospital for fun?”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“Ugh, fine! But your most annoying habit is how you make choices for others. Use your words! Stop disappearing on people!”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“Figs are incubators for wasp babies. A female wasp enters the fig, loses her wings, gets trapped, lays her eggs, and dies. The male larvae hatch first.”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“Maybe you should tell me what you really think.

- If I'm honest, I thought you'd make something of yourself.

Meaning?

- You were never satisfied. Always wanted more. Another book. Another piece of cake. Didn't want me to say goodnight.

That's all children.

- You were different. You know it. You wanted to leave Washford. You left Washford. You wanted to go to a fancy school. You got into one. You married up. You decided to become a lawyer. Well, okay. What happens now? Having a baby and going to school and working is hard. I should know. But that's not my worry for you. My worry is that you *won't* do that. That you'll give up your plan. You'll just be some man's wife. Some baby's mother. That's not the Emily I know.”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love

“She circled the T stop for the art museum with orange nasturtium trailing down its interior courtyard and a hall that had held Rembrandts until thieves cut the canvases from their wooden frames. The paintings were rolled and taken away. Who is the frame and who is the canvas? she almost wrote, but knew the answer. Gen was the missing canvas: a huge emptiness in Emily's mind, which was the frame. It wasn't until after Gen's awful visit to Harvard later that year that Emily considered that Gen could be the thief, too, and the knife.”
― Marie Rutkoski, Ordinary Love