Overture Quotes

“How am I supposed to be interested in boys who are dancing in clubs, when this man has kissed me? How can I be satisfied with warmth when I know how it feels to burn?”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Growing up isn’t about learning something new. It’s about unlearning the fairy tales you believe as a child.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Did you ever want me?” she asks. “Really want me?”
… “Yes, I want you,” I say, my voice hard. “Not, that doesn’t even begin to describe…I need you. I crave you.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“It’s not right.”
... “Then be wrong with me.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“That I loved you as soon as I heard you play. That I saw the way your father left you to fend for yourself, well before he died. That I wanted to hide you away from the world that would hurt you and scare you and use you, and I was just selfish enough to actually do it.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“She didn’t mean to kill me with this dress. She doesn’t mean to torture me, I’m almost sure.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“How can I resist her? The girl was beautiful and strong. The woman is devastating”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Before the nineteenth century, the violin bow was shaped like a hunting bow.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Miss you?” he says, almost tasting the words, as if they’re foreign to him. Maybe for a man like him they are foreign, the whole idea of needing someone else. Of longing for them. He’s so strong. So self-contained. Is that something I’ll find as I get older? Or is it unique to him, forever out of my reach?”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Violin strings were originally made from dried sheep intestines.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“I want to leave my mark on her body, on her soul.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“The violin was considered the leader of the orchestra before conductors became common.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“He doesn’t think he has it in him to love someone.” My heart aches for what could have made him that way. “He’s wrong, of course.” “No, sweetheart. That’s the problem. He’s right.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“You have nothing to worry about here,” Josh says, his voice dry. “I’m not worried.” “He hasn’t slept with a woman in so long I’m pretty sure he’s forgotten how. Or maybe key parts of his anatomy have atrophied and fallen off. It’s not healthy.” I give him a sideways glance. “How would you know?” “Because no one who’s gotten laid would be that tense.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Without a word I tuck my violin case beneath the risers near the house. It’s always strange to walk around carrying something worth a quarter of a million dollars. Some people say the violin is like a limb, but it’s more than that. It’s my heart. My soul. And it’s sitting in a velvet-lined case on the grass. No one would dare steal from Liam North, and technically the instrument belongs to him. How vulnerable it makes me to have something vital to my existence belong to another human being.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Some people say the violin is like a limb, but it’s more than that. It’s my heart. My soul.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“I try to imbue the words into the bow, into the strings—I trust you, I trust you. But I’m afraid they aren’t completely true. I love him. I need him, but I don’t necessarily trust him. Maybe it’s part of growing up to realize that they aren’t the same thing—and I’m forced to look away.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“It wasn’t only him. All three of the North brothers took me in. Josh taught me how to throw knives even though Liam nearly killed him for it. I’m weirdly good at them. Turns out the upper body strength and nimble fingers you cultivate playing violin translates well to six inches of stainless steel. I can hit the painted targets almost as well as a soldier. It was the youngest North brother who drove to the convenience store to buy maxi pads because I started bleeding when Liam was on an overnight trip. It was my first period. Even if Daddy had been alive, I don’t know how he would have handled that. Probably one of his aides would have taught me. Instead Elijah knocked at the bathroom door, grim-faced as he answered my questions—how long would it last and why did it happen.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Composer Franz Liszt received so many requests for locks of his hair that he bought a dog and sent fur clippings instead.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“You saved me,” I say simply, unable to lie about this. Surprise flashes through those pretty brown eyes. “It was the other way around.” “Ah, no, Samantha. I was nothing when you came to me. A man with a death wish. A business that kept me from drinking myself into a stupor every night. When you came to me, it gave me something to live for. Something to believe in.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“At the club you said you don’t think of me like a daughter.” Slowly I shake my head, my gaze locked on hers. “I don’t.” “Then how do you think of me?” My greatest pride and my deepest regret.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Yes, I want you,” I say, my voice hard. “No, that doesn’t even begin to describe… I need you. I crave you. I dream about that kiss in the club.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“I can’t begin to explain the complexity of my feelings for her. The way I shouldn’t want her. The way I want her anyway.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“A goddamn bull, that’s what I am—and her innocence is the red I run toward.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“How am I supposed to be interested in the boys who are dancing in clubs when this man has kissed me? How can I be satisfied with warmth when I know how it feels to burn?”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“A small shake of his head. “It’s not right.” I’m not sure what right and wrong mean when it comes to us, but I know what it means for music. Someone can play a piece with perfect timing and notation. They can hit every single note, but it still won’t have passion. That part comes from inside. “Then be wrong with me. Don’t make me do it alone.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“I’m not sure what right and wrong mean when it comes to us, but I know what it means for music. Someone can play a piece with perfect timing and notation. They can hit every single note, but it still won’t have passion. That part comes from inside.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“Baritone Leonard Warren died onstage at the Met in 1960 just as he had finished singing Verdi’s “Morir, Tremenda Cosi,” which means “To Die, a Momentous Thing.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“It doesn’t matter that I don’t know the song. I know the beat. The notes. The rhythm. Music is a universal language, and it speaks through me now, moving my hips in time. In the best moments I don’t move the bow or the strings. It’s they who move me the way they need. That’s what happens now, a kind of perfect passivity. The bass takes hold of me. My body reacts to the overt sexuality of the lyrics, turning warm and then hot, molten by the time the track thump thumps its way to transition to a new song.”
― Skye Warren, Overture

“The word “music” comes from the word “muse” in Greek. The Muses were daughters to Zeus and Mnemosyne, and protected the arts, including writing, dance, and music.”
― Skye Warren, Overture