Rough Canvas Quotes

“When you know you’re worth loving, you can be a little imperfect. Hell, look at me—a lot imperfect. It makes all the difference in the world when you believe someone loves you enough that they don’t overlook the spot and the messed up hair. They just add it to the things about you that make them love you all the more.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“You're what my art's all about, Marcus. We see something and think we know it, understand it, but really we're lucky if we ever understand any more than a small piece about anything. The infinite of the universe is in each one of us. You're grace, faith. Hopelessness, despair. Violence and anger. Beauty. You overwhelm me.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“I want you to marry me, Thomas." Marcus' attention had weight and heat on every exposed, raw part of him. "We can get a license in a state where it's legal, have a ceremony wherever you want, however you want. And I don't care if there's no law for it on the books, it will be the law between you and me and whatever God there is. I want it to be impossible for us to leave each other without a hell of a lot of paperwork, ugly custody battles over furniture, whatever.

"I want to marry you," he repeated. "I want you to know that every morning when you wake up and see me that I want to be there, that I made an oath to be there. To stand by you. And that there's no one else for me. Not ever.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“I thought...it was easy when I thought it was something to do with the flesh. But what I'm seeing is more than that. It's love, and love isn't a sin. So how can God be so cruel as to give that feeling to two men or two women if it's a sin? I've always believed God to be compassionate. Loving.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“I was here, pet. I was always here. Even if you told me you needed me just for an hour, for this, I would have been there." Marcus spoke gruffly into his hair, holding him tighter. "Why is it so fucking hard for you to believe I love you?”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“What I have is surface. Grooming, good genetics, whatever. Whether you've rolled out of bed an hour ago without having had a shower for three days, or you're wearing a designer suit, there is a deep, perfect beauty to you that takes my breath away.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“The only thing that ever scared him was finding out there was something he couldn't do, so he damn well made sure there was anything he couldn't.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“That's when I got it. The rough canvas. God paints our bodies over that, over our heart and soul. It's the eyes that tell us what we're really seeing, what's underneath. So all I painted in the picture were greens. Patterns, random slashes, shapes over shapes, shadows, emotions, it's all there.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Oh, for Christ's sake. Nothing is going to make your boy straight, Elaine. I didn't drag him into anything. But you're absolutely right. This is a battle for his soul, and while you may think I'm Lucifer, you sure as hell aren't God. This isn't about you or me. It's about the gift that defines his soul more than you or I will ever hope to do. If he doesn't have that for himself, neither of us will have anything.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“At least she (Thomas' mom) knows what she wants is dead. What I want just refuses to be with me. Maybe I should compare notes with her on what's worse, for I swear to God sometimes I think if you were dead this would hurt less.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Accepting what people are, what they can't change and loving them with every part of yourself anyway. That's what love is about." He glared at Elaine. "You take that away from him, you make him believe that kind of love doesn't exist…It would be better for you to shoot him rather than destroy him inch by inch, year after year. If you do that, you're not saving his soul, you're killing it. If you'd look into his eyes for once, you'll see it. How we love is our soul.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“I can imagine you and us a million ways here, Thomas. I will make my home where you are, because you are my home. I don't know any way to say it any more clearly. So now the ball's in your court.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“See yourself the way I see you. Feel the way my hands touch you, think about the way I look at you. I see all of you, Thomas. You think I don't, but I do. Hide it, don't hide it, I know all of it, feel all of it. You're mine. Just let go. Let go and see it. I always have.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Pain. You overwhelm me," he said quietly. "And every time I see you or think of you, I can't grab a brush fast enough. I thought I couldn't paint you, but it turns out I've been painting you all along, from the beginning, before I even knew you.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Thomas stood in the manacles, vibrating , overwhelmed with words he couldn't say. Didn't know if he knew how to say them, because they contained all the heartbreak of the world mixed with it's ephemeral joy. Waking to the aroma of breakfast when he was eight. Feeling the heat of the setting sun on his skin while falling asleep on Kate's back at ten. Turning and seeing Marcus for the very first time. Moments too powerful to be contained by the human heart and therefore having a peculiar way of making the soul hurt, as if there was something to mourn in the midst of the happiness. As if happiness itself couldn't exist without shadows to define it... ”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“I wanted everything for him. I wanted to see him achieve every dream, embrace every desire. I wanted to protect him from anyone who would cause him harm or a moments pain, tear them apart with my bare hands. Never let him out of my sight, even as I wanted him to stretch out his wings as far as they could go and soar. And at the bottom, top and middle of it all, I just wanted to stand there, just that way forever. Not disturb him. Just look at him and love him. Do nothing but simply love him for everything he is, a creation too perfect to be anything but God's gift to the rest of us.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“From the first time Thomas has seen him, he hadn't known who or what Marcus was, just that he wanted him. Wanted to be his. And the fact Thomas has thought of it that way should have given him a clue to the hidden craving in his own makeup. An unexpected sexual preference. Preference. There was a grimly amusing word. As if any need this elemental was a choice.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“The sub has the upper hand in a true Master and sub relationship, Thomas. Always. I can possess you only as long as you want to belong to me.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Their curved bodies were two parts of the same heart, and though he couldn't put this on canvas any more than he'd been able to capture Marcus' face there, he knew moments like this were imprinted on the universe, already rendered by a Master Artist far greater than he would ever be.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“When I’ve come inside you, lain on you, felt you tremble, felt that silence between us that has everything…you don’t think God is there?”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Angst is the indulgence of the middle class.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Can I get back to fucking your brains out now?" Thomas grinned. "You forget how to be a Master? Why are you asking?”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Your have a purity I've lost, pet. But in some ways, the important ones, you're not naive. You understand the darkness without ever having been in it.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Shadows gripped him at the thought. If Thomas changed his mind once Marcos got his grief and emotional shit under control, if he tried to withdraw again... Marcus knew he didn't have the energy left to fight him. After all the harrowing years when he never let himself entertain the notion, even in his darkest moment, Marcus now knew he would have a compelling reason to take his own life.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“It was a tough night," Marcus said briefly, another humorless smile crossing his mouth. "But they got what they paid for." "Jesus," Thomas murmured. Marcus slanted a glance at him, and his green eyes were hard, brittle. "Don't think about it, pet. I don't. No one who lives it dwells on this fucking stuff. You just thank God or your own balls for getting yourself through it, pulling yourself up into something better. The day I see pity in your face, I want your fucking ass out of my life.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Tell him... You think it's kinder not to, but it isn't.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Your voice started to get all low and sexy at the end. You practically purr like a tiger when you're about to get off.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Please touch me." He needed intimacy, the emotion behind the physical punch of what Marcus had just done to him.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“It's never going to be that way with us. Anything you say "stop" about, I respect. No apologies, no guilt on your part, no feeling like you've disappointed me. I want you to feel comfortable saying it. You want to get out of here now?.”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas

“Get out." Marcus' eyes went freezing cold, his face as hard mask, the cleaned but unstitched slash making him look far more dangerous. "I don't want to deal with this carp right now."
"I've never gotten in, so how the hell can I get out?”
― Joey W. Hill, Rough Canvas