Harper Fox > Quotes

“There was life after Joe. There had to be, hadn't there? I just wished that instead of my constantly having to muster every scrap of my strength in order to feel normal, it would happen of its own accord. I didn't want happy. Normal would have done.”
― Harper Fox, Life after Joe

“Maybe we walked past each other in the crowd.” “No.” “Why not?” “Because I wouldn’t have walked past you.”
― Harper Fox, Scrap Metal

“You know how it is with ex-lovers—you like to look as if you’re doing okay. Just ordinary pride, not at all a desire to shove down their throats what they’re missing…”
― Harper Fox, Scrap Metal

“I’m not some kind of…hallowed ground, you know,” I whispered. “Not something special, or sacred, or—” “You are to me. Oh, God, Nichol, you are to me.”
― Harper Fox, Scrap Metal

“My brow found the hollow of his collarbone, the place where we fitted together.”
― Harper Fox, Winter Knights

“The mug was so warm, and my hands so cold, that it didn't feel as if we belonged in the same universe.”
― Harper Fox, Scrap Metal

“Maybe I was being stupid, but an old faith was stirring inside me, a willingness to lean on the tides of the universe instead of swimming desperately against them.”
― Harper Fox, Scrap Metal

“He was the heart of my world, my gravity, my sun. My life before him was a dream from which I’d joyously awoken. He turned this dusty cell into a prince’s chamber, hung it with satin and silks. I loved him.”
― Harper Fox, Scrap Metal

“Maybe that’s as good as it gets.” “Shit. I wish it had been better.” “Maybe it will be. We just live our lives, good ones. Pay that way.” He leaned into me and sobbed. “Nic, I love you. You saved my fucking soul.”
― Harper Fox, Scrap Metal

“I don't know if it's a forever deal, a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere. But I want to try, for Harry's sake. And I love it all when you're here. It's like you made it new for me. You--you are my forever deal."
There it was again, that dangerous, beautiful word. In Gaelic, wilder and lovelier still. "A-chaoidh."
"Yes, forever, Nic. A-chaoidh.”
― Harper Fox, Scrap Metal

“He folded into my arms. I buried my face in his hair, and I listened to the sounds of midsummer on my island. Gorse pods were crackling in the sun. When the wind shifted, I could hear the voice of the sea, woven through always with birdsong and mermaids.”
― Harper Fox, Scrap Metal

“But even when you weren't nice, you were so much less of a constipated rhino than I am.”
― Harper Fox, Don't Let Go

“Who could be like him? Who could ever be like you? Each of us has his path. They run close together sometimes—for life, if we are fortunate—but they never cross.”
― Harper Fox, Brothers of the Wild North Sea

“Winter passed, suns and moons, and in the heat of summer each tree leaned across the stream and enmeshed its young foliage with the crown of its brother. More summers, more winters, more suns and moons, and the two had grown together, their great trunks fused, the stream parting now to flow round them.”
― Harper Fox, Brothers of the Wild North Sea

“If we wait around to have peace in our hearts, love and goodwill to all men, we’ll never get anything done. The peace-on-Earth part will never happen. So I suggest that we do our best to mend breaches, forgive where we can, and beyond that—don’t wait.”
― Harper Fox, Seven Summer Nights

“An oil rigger? He would be. I found, to my surprise, I could still laugh. Somewhere a Village was missing one of its People.”
― Harper Fox, Life after Joe

“Ergot—the punishment of holy fire!” Cai released a breath of irritation. He wiped his hands on a cloth and stepped into the middle of the barn. “There’s nothing holy about it. And it’s a fungus, not a punishment.” “Holy fire!” Godric shouted again, making Cai wonder if he’d been at the infected grain already. “And milk that will not churn. And Friswide’s hens have stopped laying, and last night my hearth burned with a cold green flame. Perhaps there is a witch!”
― Harper Fox, Brothers of the Wild North Sea

“Are you all right?” he said. “You look like a ghost.” I felt like one, I wanted to tell him. My life had died, and since then I had haunted its old scenes and routines, bloodless and unreal.”
― Harper Fox, Life after Joe

“We were pleasure-seeking apes whose brains took a twist from their satisfactions and never straightened out again.”
― Harper Fox, Half Moon Chambers

“His family had been typical Anglicans, darkening church doorways only for baptisms, marriages, funerals and the occasional midnight Mass. Even alone here, he wasn’t quite sure how to behave. Was some gesture necessary, some acknowledgement of deity?”
― Harper Fox, Seven Summer Nights

“My mind was backpedalling from its confession. A stupid mistake, a blip. A secret I’d thought to take to my grave. He’d think I was a nutcase at best. At worst, a hysterical drama queen he was about to escort back to the lift and press the Down button. “Matthew,” he repeated fervently, and put out a gentle hand to my face. He brushed his thumb across my lips. “Thank God it didn’t work. Thank God.”
― Harper Fox, Life after Joe

“He could feel the revolutions of the Earth. He wasn’t meant to, he was sure. The vastness of the rock, and the great invisible force that pinned him to it, meant he could spend his days in blissful unawareness of moving at all. Such an illusion was every man’s right, Theo had taught. Learning could be taken or rejected. But the choice had to be there.”
― Harper Fox, Brothers of the Wild North Sea

“His hand was on my shoulder, then my chest. In any other circumstances, being gently forced down onto the bed by him would have overwhelmed me with desire. As it was, all I could feel was the shattering relief of being horizontal, of not having to fight anymore.”
― Harper Fox, Life after Joe

“Come on, Rufus. Join us. I have a kid, a dog, a warrior housekeeper and a part-time madwoman. I just need an archaeologist to complete my collection.”
― Harper Fox, Seven Summer Nights

“If we wait around to have peace in our hearts, love and goodwill to all men, we’ll never get anything done. The peace-on-Earth part will never happen. So I suggest that we do our best to mend breaches, forgive where we can, and beyond that—don’t wait. Labour at it like any other task. Because it is a task, and it’s hard.”
― Harper Fox, Seven Summer Nights

“Rufus stopped in the patch of sunlight in front of the altar. His own earthly fate kept leading him to this place. A stray vision touched him—the life of a normal man, who one day might hope—assume the right, almost—to stand here with a chosen companion.”
― Harper Fox, Seven Summer Nights

“He liked to stay a long way away from his body if he could, its various needs and treacheries exhausting him.”
― Harper Fox, Seven Summer Nights

“I couldn’t have known. I’d struggled in holes and corners with my few men. Not one of them had done this. I’d never done it to them; all that had ever mattered was getting off and getting out unscathed. I couldn’t have guessed it would feel like hot liquid light, that it would be more intense than fucking, this desperate trust, another man’s tongue and teeth so close to mine.”
― Harper Fox, A Gentleman Tutor

“I want to take you home, and I have to know yes means yes.”
― Harper Fox, Life after Joe

“Okay,” I said, the truth on my lips before I had time to censor or pull up. “I…think I tried to kill myself last night.” It sounded absurd. I couldn’t take it seriously. “It’s all right. Nobody noticed.”
― Harper Fox, Life after Joe