The Music and the Mirror Quotes

“Do you know what turns me on more than success?” Victoria runs her fingers through Anna’s hair, stopping short to tug at it with intent.

Their gazes meet, and Anna is openmouthed in her desire to keep touching, to continue being touched. “What?” she rasps. “Tell me.”

“Nothing,” Victoria confirms”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“I don’t hate tradition. I simply live to shake it up.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“I don’t want to give her up,” Victoria admits with a hollow laugh. “Pathetic, I know.”
“Not pathetic.” She flags down a server for the check. “Just love.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“As long as the dice is in the air, the currents beneath it can still shift, still affect what number it lands on. She’s never been a gambler, but she’s willing to start now.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“There’s a dignity in the way she conducts herself sometimes, something faintly regal behind that soft and bumbling exterior. Every time Victoria thinks she has Anna down to the last layer, she develops some new interesting facet.
It’s deeply annoying and somehow completely fascinating.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“Life is short. These careers of ours desperately so. Don’t you want to feel alive for a while Something beyond rehearsals and dead composers and tulle?”
“Is that how I make you feel?”
“Yes,” Victoria says, barely a whisper, and Anna has goosebumps from the sultry sound of her voice. “Yes, you do.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“I’m sure loads of other people already checked on you, but I wanted to see for myself.”
“Did you?”
“And, uh.” Anna reaches into the pocket of her denim jacket as Victoria returns her keys to her purse. “Give you back your scarf.”
“You remembered.”
Their eyes meet as fingertips brush over the exchange of silk. Truthfully, Victoria would have been sorry to see this one go. It’s a classic for a reason. With practiced hands, she unfolds it with a flick, whipping it quickly into a long braid of sorts. The spark from earlier reignites, and there isn’t water enough in New York to put out the blaze now.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“You’re the canvas, Anna. My dances are the art painted on it.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“Anna remembers coming here for the first time with her mother, the way the lights sparkled so much she didn’t realize there was a roof.
“You’re up in the stars, Anna,” her mother whispered, and even in daylight, Anna can still feel that hitch of excitement in her breath every time she steps into the space.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“Can I get you a drink? And then I’ll change the tape and gauze,” she adds when Victoria attempts to interrupt. “I’m lucky—a few Band-Aids will probably do it.”
“Do you have vodka?”
“For my toes? I was going to just use some antiseptic.”
“To drink, Anna.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“But tomorrow is another day. I’ve been told my temper is like wine, all the more potent for having some time to breathe first.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“I had this, but then I lost it.”
“You can have that one, then. I hope your shrine to me is appropriately unsettling, Anya. I don’t believe in half measures.”
“Oh, I’ve got the votive candles and surveillance shots, sure,” Anna teases right back, the shadow that passed over her chased by another brilliant smile. “Do I need a lock of your hair too?”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“Stop that,” Victoria says. “Stop worrying about everyone else and putting them in front of your own success. If I teach you nothing else, Anya, at least let me teach you that. Nobility is severely overrated.”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“Usually she can spot the tragic ones from a mile away. Anna is deceptive, not a word Victoria would have picked out for her at first. Those bright, sunny smiles don’t give away anything of the pain she must be carrying. How heavy is the loss if the girl can still barely speak about it, other than in such an oblique way?”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror

“No one cares. Least of all me. Learn to handle it, because it’s part of the job. Not one of these people would get out of the way for you. If you want to be everything I can make you, you won’t get out of the way for them. Understood?”
― Lola Keeley, The Music and the Mirror