Running Barefoot Quotes

“What softened your heart?" I asked softly.
"Good music and a friend."
I felt my eyes burn a little and turned from him, blinking quickly to lap up the sting of tears. "Music has incredible power"
"So does friendship," he supplied frankly.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“And true love suffereth long, and is kind; true love envieth not; true love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. True love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; true love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. True love never faileth…”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“You can't build walls and then be mad when no one wants to climb over them.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“Like a shoe that has lost its mate is never worn again, I had lost my matching part and didn't know how to run barefoot.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“You see beauty in things other people just take for granted. You need understanding, and, and…deep conversation, and someone who can keep up with that mind of yours!”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“Human beings are not designed to be alone. Our creator gave us smooth, sensitive skin that craves the warmth of other skin. Our arms seek to hold. Our hands yearn to touch. We are drawn to companionship and affection out of an innate need.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“If you push people away for long enough, isolation become a terrible habit. People start to believe your prefer it.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“But sometimes in my reading I would discover new insights or have seemingly profound thoughts that would change my way of thinking.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“When you realize there's so much you can't control, you get pretty stingy with what you can.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“Oh Josie," Samuel sighed gently. "Your heart is too tender for your own good."
"I don't usually cry like this, Samuel. Geez, it's been years since I've cried like this. Since you've been back I can't seem to stop. It's like a cloud has burst inside me, and I'm caught in a constant downpour"
"Come here, Josie," Samuel said, and when I slid over next to him he kissed me gently on the forehead and smoothed my hair from my damp cheeks. "Well then, maybe you should go ahead and just let it rain for a while"
And so I did.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“Do you hear it?" Samuel asked, his eyes penetrating.
"I don't hear it...but I know it's there." I struggled to express something that I'd never put into words. "Sometimes I think if I could just SEE without my eyes, the way I FEEL without my hands, I would be able to HEAR the music. I don't use my hands to feel love or joy or heartache - but I still feel them all the same. My eyes let me see incredibly beautiful things, but sometimes I think that what I SEE gets in the way of what's...what's just beyond the beauty. Almost like the beauty I can SEE is just a very lovely curtain, distracting me from what's on the other side...and if I just knew how to push that curtain aside, there the music would be." I threw up my hands in frustration. "I can't really explain it.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“This place is in my heart, but it can't be my home, not now, maybe not ever..." - Samuel Yates”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“I clung to him like my life depended on it. Maybe it did. I hadn’t seen him for so many years, and so much had happened in my life since I had last seen his face, but at that moment I was thirteen again. Someone I had loved had returned, someone lost had come back to me, and I held him fiercely, with no intention of ever letting him go.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“I hated making small talk and avoided people in the grocery store and other places just so that i wouldn't have to think of things to say. I liked people, i cared about them, and i wanted to be a good person, but don't make me chat idly on the telephone or make pleasant conversation just for the sake of being polite.- Josie Jo Jensen”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“we become what we surround ourselves by,”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“We crunched over the gravel in front of my house. It was dark and empty, my dad long gone on his way to Moab and the beckoning Book Cliffs.

“Would you like to come in for a minute? You could check the house for bad guys, and I could make us something yummy to eat. I think I have ice cream in the freezer and I could make us some hot fudge topping to put on top?” I waggled my eyebrows at him in the dim interior of the truck, and he smiled a little.

“Bad guys?”

“Oh you know, I’m here all alone, the house is dark. Just look under the beds and make sure no one is hiding in my closet.”

“Are you afraid to be alone at night?” His brows were lowered with concern over his black eyes.

“Nope. I just wanted to give you a reason to come inside.”

His expression cleared, and his voice lowered even further. “Aren’t you reason enough?”

I felt the heat rise in my face. “Hmmm,” was all I said.

“Josie.”

“Yes?”

“I would love to come in.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“Someday, I would be the one to leave.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“It was too good to be true, too sweet to be reality for too long, so when someone set out to destroy his belief in her, it made more sense to doubt her than to believe that she had truly loved him in the first place.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“I hadn’t even spoken to him, other than to breathe his name, and I was suddenly wrapped around him in a rainstorm, in the middle of the road. Slowly, I felt his strong arms come up around me, holding me, enfolding me. I was enveloped in warmth. The pleasure of the embrace was so intense I shuddered with it. I felt his hand in my hair, and he made those soft shushing noises. I realized I was crying. We stood in the rain, and he held me up, letting me hold him in return. No comments, no questions, just comfort.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“I kind of prefer being by myself, but I can’t expect anyone to want to get to know me if I purposely keep myself separated.” I paused as his face remained stony. “Mrs. Grimaldi says you can’t build walls and then be mad when no one wants to climb over them.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“You make me feel safe, Fern. You make me forget. And when I kiss you I just want to keep kissing you. Everything else falls away.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“Oh, a wan cloud was drawn o’er the dim weeping dawn

As to Josie’s side I returned at last,

And the heart in my breast for the girl I lov’d best

Was beating, ah, beating, how loud and fast!

While the doubts and the fears of the long aching years

Seem’d mingling their voices with the moaning flood:

Till full in my path, like a wild water wraith,

My true love’s shadow lamenting stood.

But the sudden sun kiss’d the cold, cruel mist

Into dancing show’rs of diamond dew,

And the dark flowing stream laugh’d back to his beam,

And the lark soared aloft in the blue:

While no phantom of night but a form of delight

Ran with arms outspread to her darling boy,

And the girl I love best on my wild throbbing breast

Hid her thousand treasures with cry of joy.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“Coyote was inside the belly of the giant, and he didn’t even know it. He was completely unaware that he was trapped. I think that’s what grandma was trying to say.”

“You could also argue that Coyote was the only one who wasn’t trapped.” I shrugged, knowing that Samuel’s grandmother’s interpretation of the legend had reminded him of me. My stomach twisted at the knowledge, and I was suddenly eager to turn the tables on him. “Coyote had no trouble getting out – but he knew he couldn’t leave everyone else behind.”

“Hmm. I should have known you’d see it that way.” Samuel reached out and brushed his fingertips down my cheek. “I feel like I’m back on the bus, trying to keep up. You were always two steps ahead of me.”

“Would it make you feel better if we arm wrestled?” I poked at him, “I’m sure I wouldn’t stand a chance.” I was relieved to turn the conversation in a different direction.

Samuel laughed out loud”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“There is beauty behind me as I walk

There is beauty before me as I walk

There is beauty below me as I walk.

There is beauty above me as I walk.

In beauty I must always walk.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“You made me question what I thought I knew.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“Music is 'that by which I live.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“I like red.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“My dad’s name is Jim, and my mother thought their names starting with the same letter was just further proof that they belonged together. So she named each of her babies a ‘J’ name to fit the mold. She wasn’t terribly original, because in Levan you’ll find families with all ‘K’ names, all ‘B’ names, all ‘Q’ names. You name the letter, and we’ve got it. People even have ‘themes’ for their children’s names - giving them monikers like Brodeo and Justa Cowgirl. I’m not kidding.

So in my family we were all J’s - Jim, Janelle, Jacob, Jared, Johnny, and Josie Jo Jensen-the “J Crew.” The only problem with that was that whenever my mom needed one of us she had to run through the litany of ‘J’ names before she stumbled on the right one. I don’t know why I remember this, small as it was, but in the days and weeks before my mom died, I don’t ever remember her tripping over any of our names. Perhaps the distracting details of daily life that had once made her tongue tied dissolved in their insignificance, and she gave her rapt attention to our every word, our every expression, our every move.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“On one end it had a few tables and a little kitchen that served as a diner where the old men sat and drank their coffee in the morning. “Sweaty Betty” Johnson (we called her Mrs. Johnson to her face) ran the diner and has for longer than I can remember. She’s a one woman operation - she cooks, waitresses, and manages it all on her own. She makes fluffy homemade donuts and the best greasy french fries on the planet. Everything she makes is deep-fried, and her face has a permanent sheen from the grease and the heat – which is how she got the nickname Sweaty Betty. Even cleaned up for church on Sundays her face glows and sadly, it isn’t from the Holy Spirit.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot

“Don’t ever do that again!!”

“What? Kiss you, or kiss you while we’re jumping out of a tree?” Samuel practically drawled the words, they were so slow and mild. He wasn’t breathing hard at all; in fact, he’d laid his head back in the water and barely seemed to be working at keeping himself afloat.

“Ugh!” I huffed, completely disgusted. “I feel tricked! You didn’t want to kiss me! You just wanted to get me out of the tree!”

“Oh, I wanted to kiss you,” the drawl was even more pronounced. “I just killed two birds with one stone.” He lifted his head up off the water and grinned at me, his teeth flashing, and I was dazzled. So much so, that I stopped kicking and my head sunk beneath the water like a stone. I splashed wildly and popped up, spitting and swiping at my hair again.

“Lean back, Josie,” Samuel commanded, the words gentle and coaxing as he slid up beside me. “Kick your legs out in front of you and float on your back. Quit fighting. Floating’s easy.”

“Ha!” I grumped. “I knew how to swim when you were still wearing floaties in the high school pool!” I wasn’t done being mad at him.

“Very funny,” he chuckled warmly.”
― Amy Harmon, Running Barefoot