Barbara Samuel > Quotes

“How could you carry the inside of a person with you and not call them a friend, no matter what the rules said?”
― Barbara Samuel, The Sleeping Night

“Seems to me people are mean or evil because they're scared, mostly, or in pain, or afraid they're going to lose something.”
― Barbara Samuel, The Sleeping Night

“It's not being a woman I mind so much," she said slowly. "'Tis the way men seem to always order my life." She leaned earnestly toward him. "Your hand, Papa, has wielded a sword and cradled a child and held power over hundreds of men." She held up her own hand. "This one has far fewer adventures before it.”
― Barbara Samuel, A Bed of Spices

“Maybe not. But maybe that's how the world changes, Isaiah. One father, one child, at a time.”
― Barbara Samuel, The Sleeping Night

“He kissed her violently, wanting to somehow inhale her into himself, unable to stop the fury of his reaction, the trembling rocking hunger for her—so vast and all-encompassing, he couldn’t stand it.
Mattie, flowing all around him, met his savagery. He clasped her hips hard against him, found himself biting her neck, laving her breasts with his tongue. He felt such unblunted, furious desire he thought he might die of it.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“There is so little joy in any life, I will take this time with you until I must go." He smoothed a lock of hair from her face. "In our old age, we'll remember and be glad.”
― Barbara Samuel, A Bed of Spices

“She wanted him. Not in the sweet way of poetry, though there was that music in the symmetry of his body, in the careful meshing of bone and sinew and flesh that made him.
Her want was raw. Physical. She felt it in the palms of her hands and the flesh of her lips and the heaviness of her breasts.
In her life, she’d been hungry, and thirsty. She’d needed sleep. She had never, in her life, needed to touch a man.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“The man was in his late thirties, with coarse black hair and a powerfully angled face. The horse with him made a sudden noise, a high whining sound, and its graceful head tossed, jerked. The man let the reins go, and the horse galloped to the fence where Zeke stood waiting.
Mattie glanced at him. He’d climbed onto the fence and leaned over the top, softly whistling a series of notes. On his face was an expression Mattie had never seen—equal parts joy and sorrow.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“He kissed her before he knew he would do it. Cupped her small head against his hand and bent to touch her lips with his own, lightly tasting that sensuous mouth. He closed his eyes to feel it better—the moist plumpness of unseasoned lips, flavored with coffee and sugar and something that belonged only to her. And like an exhausted man sinking with gratitude into the down of a pillow, he sank into the softness, losing himself as he explored the edges and corners, the sensitive inner edge. He suckled gently and heard her sigh as she inclined her head to take him more fully.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“Yesterday in the restaurant, she’d seen his sex appeal and roughness. At her house, she’d seen his danger. This morning, at the river, she’d seen his beauty and teasing, and again that danger.
Of all of them, the tenderness she saw now was the most compelling. And terrifying.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“His mouth. It touched hers lightly, just touched at first. And it seemed every nerve in her body suddenly rushed toward her mouth to join the explosion of sensation his lips brought. He moved his head and his mouth slid one way, then the other, and his fingers tightened around her neck, pulling her closer.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“sometimes life is really hard. It just is. Things happen that make you want to die, but if you hang on, they do eventually get better.”
― Barbara Samuel, A Piece of Heaven

“He looked up at the rain and closed his eyes, his hands still wrapped around her back. Mattie knew with an acute awareness that she would always remember this moment: both of them nude in the falling twilight of a mountain summer, sated and yet still hungry, Zeke’s strong face tipped to received the gift of rain, his broad hands warm on her.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“She came apart, and Zeke let go, driving into her without restraint, thrilling to the cry that escaped her throat. Her body convulsed around him, a roaring filled his ears.
He splintered into a billion pieces.
His heart, made of thinnest glass, shattered.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“Mattie watched him cross the clearing with long-limbed ease, his movements loose and calm. His hair shone in the sunlight. Her heart caught. Strider.
Yes, she loved him. It wasn’t logical or sensible or anything of those other things. He was not the kind of man she’d daydreamed about all of her life, safe and stolid and dependable, but he was the one. The One.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“It only takes one man to make a woman a fool.”
― Barbara Samuel, A Bed of Spices

“His mouth was wet and hot and intensely demanding, so sharp and piercing with need that it broke through Mattie’s defenses the way nothing else could have. A burst of excruciating hunger made her almost frantic with wanting him. She shifted in his arms and met his kiss wide open, giving as furiously as she took.
“Oh, Mattie,” he said against her mouth. “I’ve never wanted a woman in my life like I want you. You’re driving me crazy.”
― Barbara Samuel, Breaking The Rules

“takes us directly to visceral memories, transporting us to a time and place instantly.”
― Barbara Samuel, The Scent of Hours

“And yet, as a mother, I still felt I’d made the right decision. Daniel had advantages to offer that I simply could not. Because he was black and so was Giselle, painful as it was to go there. Because he did love his daughter madly, and maybe he’d made some points about the desirability of his being the primary parent.”
― Barbara Samuel, The Scent of Hours

“How can the people in power not understand that a sick schizophrenic doesn’t have the tools to cope with such a confusing world? How can we be so rich and so idiotically poor all at once?” “I know,” Eldora says again.”
― Barbara Samuel, Lady Luck's Map of Vegas

“The real miracle is that I didn't kill anybody else.” “Or go to jail for a long time.” “Yeah. Lucky, I guess.” “Or white.” He smiled. “That, too.”
― Barbara Samuel, A Piece of Heaven

“Puffs of dust-scented air wafted around my ankles. The narrow wooden steps disappeared into yawning darkness, and even when I turned on the light, it wasn’t particularly inviting. I hate basements—spiders and water bugs and the possibility of creepy, supernatural things lurking.”
― Barbara Samuel, The Scent of Hours

“scent is the only sense that bypasses the brain and thought centers and goes directly to the limbic system?”
― Barbara Samuel, The Scent of Hours

“In all those women there is not one to match you. They have known my flesh. You have known my heart, and stolen my soul.”
― Barbara Samuel, A Bed of Spices

“Sins become more subtle as you grow older: you commit sins of despair rather than lust. —PIERS PAUL READ”
― Barbara Samuel, A Piece of Heaven

“For in twin pairs of eyes she saw not the lust she had believed, but love. Adoration, given and received.”
― Barbara Samuel, A Bed of Spices

“I would rather love with all my heart and soul and mind for one hour than to suffer all my life with the lack.”
― Barbara Samuel, A Bed of Spices

“My grandma always says there are green seasons." She tucked a foot up under her. "Times when everything goes on just right. Got money enough to pay the bills, and nobody dies and things are just the way they're supposed to be, most all the time.”
― Barbara Samuel, In the Midnight Rain

“I don't get why it's no big deal in the movies. Like everyone just says, “Oh, he fell in love with somebody else,” like it's normal to break up families and leave the kids all sad and the moms without anybody in their corner after they worked hard to make a good life.”
― Barbara Samuel, A Piece of Heaven

“Again, she wanted to photograph Thomas, or rather the scene itself—the quality of yellow against the wall behind his head, the smeary look of the water on the window, his strong brown hands clasped around that plain cup. The sight of his knuckles felt both too comfortable and too enclosing, and with a sense of rising panic, she looked at the rain and wondered how long it would last. How long could two strangers just make small talk”
― Barbara Samuel, A Piece of Heaven