A.R. Tapiero > Quotes

“Then hate me,” he says. “Hate me right when you wake up and as soon as you lay to rest. Hate me harder than you love anything else.” He rubs a palm up and down her spine, kissing the crown of her head. “One day you’ll realize, Valithia, that I will accept anything you offer me, even if it’s your hatred. For your hatred is better than never experiencing you at all.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Devil’s Opera

“Because,” he said. “You look like a woman acquainted with grief. And I’m the only one who can offer you a remedy.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Mother Who Drowns

“You’ll see, should you live long enough, that pretending to be something you’re not was wasted on your youth.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Devil’s Opera

“What kind of woman is she to find a small comfort in her own tormentor? What is it, to take any crumb of affection you’re offered and tell yourself it’s a feast? Because even if it felt to be, love did not exist between their sheets. Only survival.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Devil's Opera

“Kindness often belonged to a deceitful hand stitching a design for its own intentions.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Mother Who Drowns: A Gothic Novel

“And when their mouths met, it wasn’t wild or even lustful. It was grief recognizing itself, and finding a soft place to land.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Mother Who Drowns

“And as Damian moved in and out of her—seeming to find rapt delight in her body, given the sounds and praise he was vocalizing—she recalled what he said earlier: you are like the petals of a flower, opening to the dawn. But what is a flower to the Sun? Powerless. It doesn’t choose to bloom. It doesn’t choose its nature. It just responds—opens, because it must.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Devil’s Opera

“Because he loves her. Because if love were measured in honeysuckles, in gestures and words, in the way he watches her, she would never leave. But love is also measured in freedom. In choice. In the ability to sing without permission. And Damian Mencini does not know how to love without possessing.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Devil’s Opera

“Have you ever been held by a man who didn’t want something from you? Who wasn’t trying to own you?”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Devil’s Opera

“A demon.” The man scoffs. “I am the Prince of Darkness. Death Incarnate. The Devil.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Devil’s Opera

“How convenient that God only speaks when you are afraid.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Mother Who Drowns

“Men don’t know what to do with women they can’t control. So they frighten them in hopes of obedience.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Mother Who Drowns

“And that’s the problem. Sometimes, she wishes he would just hit her. For a hand that lands is still proof of a hand. But it’s his quiet displeasure that strikes harder.”
― A.R. Tapiero, The Devil’s Opera