Riley Nash > Quotes

“I try to hide my sappiness, but Gray sees all, like a business-casual Eye of Sauron.”
― Riley Nash, And All Their Stars

“Maybe none of us can be saved. Or maybe, like Werner said, I’ve been handed the key to saving everyone. Because Victor was right. Trying to fix lost causes has always been my thing. All of them except myself.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“I wish, as I disappear into the darkness, that I didn’t live in a world where the only way not to hurt was to shut everything out and live among your dreams.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“Sometimes, when you open the door of a cage after so many years, the wild thing inside is more afraid to be free than it was to be caged. All I can do is sit next to the door and wait.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“I never thought. I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I’d know what it means to be happy. And sometimes we say I love you, and sometimes we say I hate you, and sometimes we just exist together without a name, two stars in the universe, and it doesn’t matter because they’re all different names for the same thing, something that will never belong to anyone but us.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“You tore me open and put me back together, but you kept something for yourself. You won't give it back, and now I belong to you”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“He drinks up the lie like a plant in the desert, nodding as if a few extra years of life gives me some kind of power to make the world a safe place.”
― Riley Nash, Make Me Fall

“Hurt me once, shame on you. Hurt me twice, shame on me. Hurt me a thousand times, I must have done something to deserve this. I was born wrong.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“And maybe I’m doing this just to humiliate him, but deep down I want to know if being hurt by someone who hates you makes cleaner, sharper wounds than the hideous scars love leaves behind.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“That’s what this is. He orchestrated a job offer and lost his case and somehow sprained my wrist all in an elaborate plot to get out of his promise to wear jeans. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
― Riley Nash, Make Me Fall

“Don’t turn around. Don’t touch me. Don’t speak. Don’t go. Fall asleep between me and the door. Give me your dreams, the dreams of someone who has never done anything wrong. You tasted good. You sounded even better. But I’m not what you deserve. I just needed to make sure you’d stay here, between me and the door. And I don’t know any other way to ask. Sometime in the night, you climb out of bed and put on a shirt, some shorts. I watch you go, because I’m not asleep, and I expect you to leave. Maybe for good. Maybe, after everything I’ve done, it was this that drove you away. But you don’t leave. You pull back the sheet and climb in next to me. No one ever comes back for me. Until you.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“This is the opposite of pretending nothing ever happened.
He crawls back up my body, eyes lidded, and puts his forehead against mine. Right now, his irises are the color of the moon. It hurts too much, he whispers. I need to quit you slow, or it's going to kill me.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“I was put on this earth to ruin your life,” he breathes in my ear. “Fucking right.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“Maybe fate is recursive—the mention of fate can, itself, be fate, signposting the steps our unlikely journeys take through the universe. Or maybe fate is a word people invoke to manipulate those who are desperate for meaning.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“I missed you so fucking much,” he whispers. Then we’re kissing so hard it’s not about lips anymore, just tongues and moans and the fracturing of our breath as Ollie and Jax do this for the first time and Oliver and Jackson do it for the last.”
― Riley Nash, Show Me Wonders

“I’m getting his jacket wet, which seems unforgivable—you could probably sell me into slavery for less than the price of that suit—but when he rests his cheek against the top of my head, I can’t move and I can’t stop crying so I give up, just for a minute.”
― Riley Nash, Make Me Fall

“I’m furious because you’re mine and I stood there and watched those cunts destroy you. I’m fucking furious because I didn’t know—” His voice wobbles, then breaks. “All these fucking years, I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t know you needed me. I didn't protect you.”
― Riley Nash, This Might Hurt

“I’m gone, dangerously gone. I can’t come back from this. Even if we break up, even if I never see him again, some part of me will forever be stuck on the moment where Gray Freeman remembered my hand.”
― Riley Nash, Make Me Fall

“Everything’s good.” It’s always been a lie, but sometimes the truth does more harm.”
― Riley Nash, Show Me Wonders

“On paper, none of this works—a boy and a man, the sun and the moon, things that aren’t supposed to touch. Neither of us are ready. It feels like reversing the tide,”
― Riley Nash, Make Me Fall

“I’m going to crack soon; I can always feel the rage coming. When metal scrapes against metal again and again, it makes sparks. And you can only throw so many sparks into dry tinder before something ignites.”
― Riley Nash, Bad Dogs

“When I destroy things, people hear me.”
― Riley Nash, Bad Dogs

“I think I finally found my princess, Mom. He’s six and a half feet tall, grumpy as hell, and talks dirty as sin.”
― Riley Nash, Make Me Fall

“You’re a force of nature,” he says, very seriously. “Nothing can break you.”
― Riley Nash, Make Me Fall

“If this is it, what’s your biggest regret?” He barely thinks about it at all. “Being born.” My grip on him tightens. “That’s awful.” “Do you want me to lie to you?”
― Riley Nash, Show Me Wonders

“It’s the first time I’ve really smelled him, and something about the scent of his skin sets off a tidal wave of endorphins–words like safe and mine, feelings”
― Riley Nash, Show Me Wonders

“I don’t think I’m ever going to kiss someone again. But if I had, maybe it would have been right here, right now, just like this.”
― Riley Nash, Make Me Fall

“He stands behind me and rests one elbow on my shoulder. He’s always so strong and stable, like he’s anchored solidly to this earth, like he could keep me from floating away.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“You scared?” He’s smirking at me. “You seem like a sensitive guy.” “Are you? You let every single one of these people down.” “That sounds like a them problem.” He pats my knee. “If you’re looking for my conscience, you’re about ten years too late.”
― Riley Nash, Hold Me Under

“Fuck you,” he mumbles, sounding hurt but also like he knows I’m right. “That’s a horrible thing to say.” “Maybe I’m a horrible person. But I’m also alive.” He has no idea how many times I’ve looked death in the face while he was writing novels and knitting unicorns.”
― Riley Nash, Show Me Wonders