Jessica Joyce > Quotes

“Remember nothing lasts forever. You have to hold on to the good things, knowing you may be on borrowed time with them. And with the bad, recognize that eventually it will pass.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“It’s a privilege to have someone trust you enough to show you those pieces of themselves, the most vulnerable and tender, the least polished. It’s a show of trust to let you see them first thing in the morning, in the middle of a panic attack, right after they’ve cried. To give you a shaky smile after a messy fight. To come back to you again and again with their heart in their hands.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“Sometimes I swear adulthood is staring at your phone and wondering which of your friends has enough time to deal with your latest emotional meltdown, then realizing none of them do.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“For past me, who didn’t give up, and for future me, who will look back on all of this and be so proud.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the more perfect it looks on the outside, the messier that shit is on the inside.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“It’s a gift to know someone when you’re in love with them, and a curse when you’re out of it.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“When I say I’m still in love with you,” he says quietly, “I mean today and yesterday and this entire week. I mean at Nick and Miriam’s wedding and I mean for the past five years.” If possible, he gets even quieter, but now he’s closer so I get every word. “When I say I’m still in love with you, I mean the first time I saw you and right now. I mean every second in between.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be my best to still be enough.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“You were shown that you weren’t allowed to need things that inconvenienced people, and you learned to make yourself smaller. But why can everyone else be messy and you can’t?”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“Time is a miracle. It shows you what you had, and sometimes it brings it back to you. Different. Better.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“It means you're afraid to fail at something you really love to do, so you've barely put any effort into it.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“What’s that game called?’ he murmurs. ‘From last night?’
‘Tell Me a Secret,’ I manage, my heart in my throat.
His jaw ticks. ‘So, tell me one.’
I don’t want to admit it, but it’s the elephant in the room. His thumbs are inches from the spot throbbing worse than my knee.
‘I wouldn’t stop you if you kissed me right now.’ I say it quietly in case he changes his mind, but his eyes darken, pupils dilating. He doesn’t move, though his mouth parts like he can already taste it. ‘Now you.’
His breath dances over my lips. ‘If I kissed you right now, I wouldn’t stop.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“Look at the view,’ I say against his mouth when we pull back for a breath. His thumb grazes over the plane of my cheek. ‘I am.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“Are you holding yourself back from your natural inclination to choke me?’
He laughs, incredulous. ‘What?’
‘You always touch my neck when we’re doing things.’
‘Things?’ His hips start moving, too slowly, an unbearable drag.
I groan. ‘Kissing, touching, fucking now.’
His expression softens into something achingly vulnerable. ‘I like feeling your heart beat fast for me.’ A secret revealed in the middle of our sex. ‘That’s how I know you like me.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“It’s the power of photography. To capture it and let it live past the subject’s lifetime. To allow someone to look at it years later and smile along with them.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“You and I are going to have a reckoning, Georgia. It doesn’t have to be this week, but it’s going to happen.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“And I think about how utterly heartbreaking it is that we’re using the same connection that allowed us to conduct a wordless conversation across the room to know each other in such a clinical way now. Like strangers who’ve seen each other naked in every way that counts, in all the ways that wreck you.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“You were hers,” he whispers. “So, now you’re mine, too.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, With a View

“Fuck, the way I’ve wanted you,” he breathes against my mouth. “I don’t know how anyone can look at me and not see it.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“Isn’t that the way I deserve to be loved— completely, messily, imperfectly? Isn’t that the way I deserve to love myself?”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“Hope starts with a seed.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“But you deserve to let yourself feel whatever you need to. You can be messy. A disaster, if you need to. The people who love you will accept every single piece of it, I promise you.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“For a girl who struggled so mightily to know the shape and feeling of home, it’s a revelation to have so many places—and people—to call it.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“nothing lasts forever. Maybe these rocks will, but it’s a beautiful and painful reminder that no feeling does, bad or good. No moment or mistake.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“Yes, the kiss was five fucking stars, Spencer, now go away.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“There you are.” A smile melts across his face, slow and sleepy. “Hey, Peach.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“You were always enough for me. I wasn’t enough for myself. I had to get there, and I’m so fucking sorry I hurt you along the way.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“But while he was trying to fix what was broken in his past, he was breaking something that was right in front of him.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows

“It's easy to invest time in something you love when you have the money for it.”
― Jessica Joyce, You, with a View

“Each brick was a time he’d fucked up or I had, a time when either one of us could’ve said what was on our mind and said nothing instead. It was endless tiny transgressions that didn’t ruin us in the moment but added to the wall we built. On this night in December five years ago, I see how tall it is. How unclimbable.”
― Jessica Joyce, The Ex Vows