Courtney Milan > Quotes

“I’ll be your friend in daylight. I’ll treat you as a comrade in every gas-lit ballroom. But alone, under moonlight, I’ll not pretend that I want you for anything but mine.”
― Courtney Milan, Unlocked

“Maybe that’s what I have been looking for. When storms and rockslides threaten, I am looking for someone who will hold on to me and not let go.”
― Courtney Milan, Unlocked

“No man is broken because bad things happen to him. He’s broken because he doesn’t keep going after those things happen.”
― Courtney Milan, Unraveled

“I will not be browbeaten, however nicely you do it. I am done with things happening to me. From here on out, I am going to happen to things.”
― Courtney Milan, The Governess Affair

“Over the years, everyone stumbles. That's why I'll be here for you — and you'll be there for me. I don't expect perfection. I want you, and you're a thousand times better.”
― Courtney Milan, Unlocked

“Do not pollute my perfectly acceptable figurative speech with irrelevant facts!”
― Courtney Milan, The Duchess War

“I earned this, fair and square." We'll, maybe it hadn't been fair. And maybe it hadn't been precisely square. Still, she'd earned it legally. Legally and... rectangularly. That would have to do.”
― Courtney Milan, The Duchess War

“There is no such thing as a fallen woman--you just need to look for the man who pushed her.”
― Courtney Milan, Unclaimed

“When someone else's safety and acceptance in society is on the line, your personal discomfort comes in a very distant second.”
― Courtney Milan

“You need to control your wife.”

“Haven’t you figured it out?” Edward said quietly. “I married her to unleash her on the world, not to keep her under wraps.”

James blinked, as if trying to understand that.

“I married her because she made me believe in her,” Edward said. “Because I wished her beyond your power, not under mine. You have no idea of the debt I owe her. For her I’d do the unthinkable.”

He glanced back at Free.

“If she asked me to do it,” he told James, “I’d even forgive you.”
― Courtney Milan, The Suffragette Scandal

“I worry about you,” he finally said to Free. “I’m afraid that you’re going to break your heart, going up against the world.”

“No.” The wind caught her hair and sent it swirling behind her. “I’m going to break the world.”
― Courtney Milan, The Heiress Effect

“Libraries are the future of reading. When the economy is down, we need to make it easier for people to buy and read books for free, not harder. It is stupid to sacrifice tomorrow’s book buyers for today’s dollars, especially when it’s obvious that the source in question doesn’t have any more dollars to give you.”
― Courtney Milan

“Do you want to know why you don't meet my standards?" he asked.

She shook her head in mortification.

"Too late," he replied. "Here's my most important rule: Never have intercourse when one of the parties is in love with the other. It won't end well."

She gasped. "You arrogant cad! I'm not in love with you."

"I know." He didn't look away from her. "Isn't that what I said? Only one of us is in love, and it isn't you."

Violet stared at him. Her ears appeared to be working; her brain seemed to function. Tentatively, she added two and three and verified that they still made five.”
― Courtney Milan, The Countess Conspiracy

“Why did you do it? Give up everything to raise another man's son?'

His father did look up at that. 'I didn't raise another man's son,' he said sharply. 'I raised my own.”
― Courtney Milan, The Heiress Effect

“Friendship was a concept men bandied about to save face when they were rejected.”
― Courtney Milan

“But we’re not trying to empty the Thames,” she told him. “Look at what we’re doing with the water we remove. It doesn’t go to waste. We’re using it to water our gardens, sprout by sprout. We’re growing bluebells and clovers where once there was a desert. All you see is the river, but I care about the roses.”
― Courtney Milan, The Suffragette Scandal

“Her lips found his and a stab of exquisite desire shot through him. This is what he's been waiting for all this time. Not a stolen embrace. A gift, freely given. One that he would keep forever in some small part of his soul.”
― Courtney Milan, Unveiled

“She wagged a finger at him. “You’re mispronouncing that word.”
“Your pardon?” He groped, trying to remember what he’d said. “Suffragette? How does one pronounce it, then?”
“Suffragette,” she said, “is pronounced with an exclamation point at the end. Like this: ‘Huzzah! Suffragettes!”
― Courtney Milan, The Suffragette Scandal

“I am small,” she said, “but mighty.”
― Courtney Milan, The Suffragette Scandal

“You probably think battles are won with cannons and brave speeches and fearless charges." She smoothed her skirts as she spoke. "They're not. Wars are won by dint of having adequate shoe leather. They're won by boys who make shells in munition factories, by supply trains shielded from enemy eyes. Wars are won by careful attendance to boring detail. If you wait to see the cavalry charge, Your Grace, you'll have already lost.”
― Courtney Milan, The Duchess War

“I keep everything hidden because there's nothing about my true self that anyone likes. I'm not difficult, Sebastian. I'm the easiest person around. I don't belong, and I spend all my time pretending I do. Sometimes I get weary of it, and that makes me angry.

It's not fair to the people around me when I lose my temper. I say awful things when I'm angry. But it's not fair to me, either, that I was made this way.”
― Courtney Milan, The Countess Conspiracy

“The truth is simply this: you can find a better man than I. God knows you wouldn't have to look very hard. But I don't believe you can find one who loves you more.”
― Courtney Milan, Unraveled

“You've always been your own knight, riding to your rescue. I'm just the man who came along and saw how brightly your armor shone.”
― Courtney Milan, Unclaimed

“The dog looked up in entreaty. Liquid brown eyes begged: Take me with you. I’ll be good. Oh, the lies that dogs told.”
― Courtney Milan, Unraveled

“How long did it take her? People usually react to her fairly swiftly—either love or hate, there’s rarely an emotion between. A day? A week?”

He thought of Free the way he’d first seen her: standing on the bank of the Thames, leaning forward.

“Two to five,” Edward muttered.

“Days?”

“Minutes.”
― Courtney Milan, The Suffragette Scandal

“Never hit a man with a closed fist," he told her. He could feel her pulse.

"Why? Because it gives you an excuse to manhandle me?"

He let go. "Slap his face instead."

"Ha."

"It will make him take you less seriously, and then he won't be expecting it when you knee him in the groin.”
― Courtney Milan, The Governess Affair

“You could make me say it again," he whispered. "Make me say it always. Make me say it so often that you never have cause to doubt. I love you.”
― Courtney Milan, The Governess Affair

“Are you really left-handed?” Mr. Marshall asked.

“No. I’ve just been pretending to use my left hand my entire life because I enjoy never being able to work scissors properly.”
― Courtney Milan, The Suffragette Scandal

“Mr. Clark,” she repeated, looking up at him. “You are very tall.”

“And you,” he said in a low voice, “you, my most maddeningly beautiful, brilliant, Free. You are perfectly sized. If you Mr. Clark me once more, I shall be forced to do something dreadful, something like kiss you in public.”

Even her wildest fantasies had not had him saying something like that on arrival. She squeezed his hands and then looked up into his dark eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Clark,” she said. “What did you say, Mr. Clark? Mr. Clark, I fear that I have become rather hard of hearing. The noise of the press is terribly distracting. What was that you said you’d do if I called you Mr. Clark?”
― Courtney Milan, The Suffragette Scandal

“He knew he tended toward gloom. It made him consider blood poisoning and heart attacks when someone else might see a touch of indigestion. Those carefully considered worst-case scenarios made him a good doctor, but they also made him feel like a dark little raincloud.

When Lydia Charingford was around, though, he felt like a smiling dark little raincloud.”
― Courtney Milan, A Kiss for Midwinter