Laura Florand > Quotes

“She loved sinking into her bed on evenings like this, but apparently she shouldn't, because it worried her aunts, who thought she ought to be out dancing. It worried her a little bit, too, because what if they were right, and because sometimes a great loneliness welled up in her and threatened all the dams she built to hold it back. You couldn't cure loneliness by wallowing in it, up above the world, on an island removed from everything. She knew that. But she had such a hard time with all the cures. They seemed rough and brusque and brutal, as if they abused her skin with a pot scrubber . . . forcing herself into a mass of people, a stranger among strangers. . . . But it was much more tempting to curl up with a book under her thick white comforter.

Still, sometimes after she curled up, she regretted her lack of courage and felt bleakly lonely.

It was important to have a really good book.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss

“It’s true that if
friends can never count on you being there the next time
they need you, the place they leave for you might be very
small. That’s self-defense. If you abandon people—even if it’s
not your fault—they will eventually get over you and find
someone else. Good for them. But you’re an adult now, and
you can build things as deep and as long-lasting as you want
to. I wish you wouldn’t underestimate your ability to make
people love you. - Aunt Aja”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss

“She had to lift both hands to illustrate what she meant, but he just let her carry his hand with her, not about to let go. She pushed the free hand toward the one he held, apparently trying to gesture closeness. "Warm," she said again. And then she did something that undid him to the last faint whisper of his soul: she gave his hand a squeeze with fingertips that could just barely reach around his, apparently using him to indicate what she wanted to say. He meant warmth. He meant this word she couldn't find.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Touch

“My feelings are my own responsibility. I don’t see what trust has to do with it. I can’t go around handing them off to other people.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss

“He had suddenly the clearest understanding he had ever had of the way his father had gone so wrong. A man's strength was supposed to be against the outside world; to fight it back from himself and from those he took under his protection: his wife, his children, and for a man strong enough, more people still, people like his employees. To turn it inward, against the very people you had been given the strength to protect, because you couldn't deal with the outward fight, was the ultimate weakness.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Touch

“A man's strength was supposed to be against the outside world: to fight it back from himself and those he took under his protection: his wife, his children, and for a man strong enough, more people still, people like his employees. To turn it inward, against the very people you had been given that strength to protect, because you couldn't deal with the outward fight, was the ultimate weakness.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Touch

“It was hard to trust in happiness, coming from another person, but . . . there was so much of it, around him.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss

“Lea--when a man climbs a glass mountain, it's not usually for the damn golden apple. It's for the person he gives the apple to.”
― Laura Florand, Turning Up the Heat

“She was all-out, delighted enthusiasm, like a stupid, bubbling stream, and the guy would just cup that in his hands for the hell of it, splash his face with it, and drop the leftovers back into the river.”
― Laura Florand, Kiss the Bride

“Humble people were unsettling at best. All that lack of backbone. It was just creepy. Like talking to linguine.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss

“Snails first,” Pépé said, bright-eyed. “That season’s only six weeks away.” “You have a season for hunting snails?” Layla asked incredulously. Pépé gave her an indignant look. “You can’t just gather them whenever you’re hungry, you know. You’ll decimate the population, and then no snails for the future.” “What a terrible loss,” Layla said dryly. Everyone at the table stared at her as if she had lost her mind. “Exactly,” his grandfather said firmly.”
― Laura Florand, Once Upon a Rose

“You can't ever really have enough worth that when you're gone, the spot you left won't close over.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss

“Kids aren’t bonsai. Maybe instead of trying to make them beautiful to the rest of the world, you should just love them and let them grow.”
― Laura Florand, Shadowed Heart: A Luc and Summer Novel

“meant us,” she whispered. “I destroyed us.” His fingers tightened against her cheek. “I’m not destroyed.” Her breath stopped. “I’m scarred.” He withdrew his hand and closed it carefully into a fist at his side. Again it slid in search of a pocket, but found none in which to bury itself. “I’m battered. But I’m still standing, Kai.”
― Laura Florand, Snow-Kissed

“With aggressive come-ons, at least you knew where you stood. Holding hands, you got - hopeful.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Rose

“Never choose half of anything just to be safe when you have a chance to have something whole and perfect.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Rose

“Sylvain flung out his hands. “You think my father never screwed up with me? You think I never screwed up with him? You don’t get only one chance, for God’s sake. You get five million chances, second after second every day. You don’t have to get every single one of them perfect. Merde. It’s not chocolate.”
― Laura Florand, Shadowed Heart: A Luc and Summer Novel

“In his view of what he wanted from the world, there were an infinity of moments that were beautiful, as this one was beautiful, with the light from the town hall gilding her jawline and shining off her hair in the cold northern night that made him want to pull her in and warm them both. “And”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Thief

“She snuck a guilty peek at Matt. She didn’t want to be selfish, she didn’t want to hurt him, but music was who she was. If she didn’t have that, she didn’t have anything. As long as she was going to let him have it back eventually, surely he could survive sharing part of his valley until she remembered how to sing?”
― Laura Florand, Once Upon a Rose

“He felt as if he were blooming outward, his heart one of their own roses unfurling in deepest winter, which scared him because...well, roses that bloomed in the winter got frozen in the cold.”
― Laura Florand, A Rose in Winter

“If you were only crumbs on a plate, I would pick every last one up with my finger”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Touch

“for some reason, he didn’t want her to look back at him with rejection or reciprocal challenge. He definitely didn’t want her to look at him as if she was mentally gauging her ability to kill him to defend herself. He wanted her to look at him like she looked at his chocolate, as if she was absorbing strength and happiness. And was in no hurry to leave it. It turned his heart all funny to think of being”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Touch

“May you love your life and seize it with both hands.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss

“And,”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Rose

“You don’t meet many people who let you practice your self-confidence on them that way. The ones who do are either very weak or very strong.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss

“catastrophes in his kitchen, too. And he hadn’t even blamed her when”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Rose

“compliment,”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Rose

“clearly cast him in the role, but the brilliance of his imagination, the sensual joy he took in pleasing others through food, belied it. Now his villain face was subtly slackened, as if he had been drinking too”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Rose

“Remember karma: the fruit you harvest grows from the seeds you plant.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss

“You only open a present for the person it’s for.”
― Laura Florand, The Chocolate Kiss