Emi > Emi's Quotes

“Maybe love shouldn’t be built on a foundation of compromises, but maybe it can’t exist without them either. Not the kind that forces two people into shapes they don’t fit in, but the kind that loosens their grips, always leaves room to grow. Compromises that say, there will be a you-shaped space in my heart, and if your shape changes, I will adapt. No matter where we go, our love will stretch out to hold us, and that makes me feel like … like everything will be okay.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“The last-page ache. The deep breath in after you’ve set the book aside.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“Sometimes, even when you start with the last page and you think you know everything, a book finds a way to surprise you.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“If I had to pick one person to be in my corner, it’d be you. Every time.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“So if you’re the ‘wrong kind of woman,’ then I’m the wrong kind of man.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“Until you got here,” he rasps, “all this place had ever been was a reminder of the ways I was a disappointment, and now you’re here, and—I don’t know. I feel like I’m okay. So if you’re the ‘wrong kind of woman,’ then I’m the wrong kind of man.”

I can see all of the shades of him at once. Quiet, unfocused boy. Precocious, resentful preteen. Broody high schooler desperate to get out. Sharp-edged man trying to fit himself back into a place he never belonged to begin with.

That’s the thing about being an adult standing beside your childhood race car bed. Time collapses, and instead of the version of you you’ve built from scratch, you’re all the hackneyed drafts that came before, all at once.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“Nora Stephens,” he says, “I’ve racked my brain and this is the best I can come up with, so I really hope you like it.”
His gaze lifts, everything about it, about his face, about his posture, about him made up of sharp edges and jagged bits and shadows, all of it familiar, all of it perfect. Not for someone else, maybe, but for me.
“I move back to New York,” he says. “I get another editing job, or maybe take up agenting, or try writing again. You work your way up at Loggia, and we’re both busy all the time, and down in Sunshine Falls, Libby runs the local business she saved, and my parents spoil your nieces like the grandkids they so desperately want, and Brendan probably doesn’t get much better at fishing, but he gets to relax and even take paid vacations with your sister and their kids. And you and I—we go out to dinner.
“Wherever you want, whenever you want. We have a lot of fun being city people, and we’re happy. You let me love you as much as I know I can, for as long as I know I can, and you have it fucking all. That’s it. That’s the best I could come up with, and I really fucking hope you say—”
I kiss him then, like there isn’t someone reading one of the Bridgerton novels five feet away, like we’ve just found each other on a deserted island after months apart. My hands in his hair, my tongue catching on his teeth, his palms sliding around behind me and squeezing me to him in the most thoroughly public groping we’ve managed yet.
“I love you, Nora,” he says when we pull apart a few inches to breathe. “I think I love everything about you.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“I’ll take you home whenever you want,” he says. “But if you want to stay, and you wake up screaming, it’s okay. I’ll make sure you’re okay. And if you want to stay, and then change your mind, I don’t mind driving you back at four a.m.”

I read once that not everyone thinks in words. I was shocked, imagining these other people who don’t use language to make sense of everyone and everything, who don’t automatically organize the world into chapters, pages, sentences.

Looking into Charlie’s face, I understand it. The way a crush of feeling and feathery impressions can move through your body, bypassing your mind. How a person can know there’s something worth saying but have no concept of what exactly that is. I’m not thinking in words.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“Charlie threads his fingers through mine and lifts the back of my hand to his lips. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I doubt I will ever like anyone else in the world as much as I like you.”

I slip my arms around his neck and climb into his lap, kissing his temples, his jaw, his mouth. Love, I think, a tremor in my hands as they move into his hair, as he kisses me.

The last-page ache.

The deep breath in after you’ve set the book aside.

When he walks me to the door sometime later, he takes my face in his hands and says, “You, Nora Stephens, will always be okay.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“I love you, Nora,” he says when we pull apart a few inches to breathe. “I think I love everything about you.”

“Even my Peloton?” I ask.

“Great piece of equipment,” he says.

“The fact that I check my email after work hours?”

“Just makes it easier to share Bigfoot erotica without having to walk across the room,” he says.

“Sometimes I wear very impractical shoes,” I add.

“Nothing impractical about looking hot,” he says.

“And what about my bloodlust?”

His eyes go heavy as he smiles. “That,” he says, “might be my favorite thing. Be my shark, Stephens.”

“Already was,” I say. “Always have been.”

“I love you,” he says again.

“I love you too.” I don’t have to force it past a knot or through the vise of a tight throat. It’s simply the truth, and it breathes out of me, a wisp of smoke, a sigh, another floating blossom on a current carrying billions of them.

“I know,” he says. “I can read you like a book.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“You know what I think?”

Touching him feels so good, so strangely uncomplicated, like he’s the exception to every rule. “What?”

“I think you love your job,” he says softly. “I think you work that hard because you care ten times more than the average person.”

“About work,” I say.

“About everything.” His arms tighten around me. “Your sister. Your clients. Their books. You don’t do anything you’re not going to do one hundred percent. You don’t start anything you can’t finish.

“You’re not the person who buys the stationary bike as part of a New Year’s resolution, then uses it as a coatrack for three years. You’re not the kind of woman who only works hard when it feels good, or only shows up when it’s convenient. If someone insults one of your clients, those fancy kid gloves of yours come off, and you carry your own pen at all times, because if you’re going to have to write anything, it might as well look good. You read the last page of books first—don’t make that face, Stephens.” He cracks a smile in one corner of his mouth. “I’ve seen you—even when you’re shelving, you sometimes check the last page, like you’re constantly looking for all the information, trying to make the absolute best decisions.”

“And by you’ve seen me,” I say, “you mean you’ve watched me.”

“Of course I fucking do,” he says in a low, rough voice. “I can’t stop. I’m always aware of where you are, even if I don’t look, but it’s impossible not to. I want to see your face get stern when you’re emailing a client’s editor, being a hard-ass, and I want to see your legs when you’re so excited about something you just read that you can’t stop crossing and uncrossing them. And when someone pisses you off, you get these red splotches.” His fingers brush my throat. “Right here.”

“You’re a fighter,” he says. “When you care about something, you won’t let anything fucking touch it. I’ve never met anyone who cares as much as you do. Do you know what most people would give to have someone like that in their life?” His eyes are dark, probing, his heartbeat fast. “Do you know how fucking lucky anyone you care about is? You know . . .”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“Charlie threads his fingers through mine and lifts the back of my hand to his lips. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I doubt I will ever like anyone else in the world as much as I like you.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“No matter where we go, our love will stretch out to hold us, and that makes me feel like . . . like everything will be okay.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“It's okay,' he whispers, rocking me back and forth. 'You're not alone,' he promises, and beneath it I hear the unsaid rest: I'm here.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“Are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“Just don’t like hospitals,” he says. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

He takes my hands, holds them between our chests. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“I can handle it.”

His mouth shrinks, the crease beneath it deepening. “I know. I want to be here.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“I know you’re working.” My voice comes out throttled. “I just wanted to be somewhere . . .”

Safe?

Familiar?

Comfortable?

“Near you.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“I’d take a bullet between the eyes before I raised a hand to you, Taylor. The fact that you have to spend a second in pain makes me want to die. Are those the kind of words you’re talking about? Because they’re the only ones I’ve got.”
― Tessa Bailey, My Killer Vacation

“I don't know if it's possible to fall in love with a man in four days. But if it is, I think I've just soundly accomplished that feat with Myles Sumner.”
― Tessa Bailey, My Killer Vacation

“Come back here.” “I don’t think I will.” “Half pint.” “I have a name.” “Come back here and tell it to me, then.”
― Tessa Bailey, My Killer Vacation

“I lost my heart to you. And, Bree, in case you're wondering, I don't ever want it back.”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“I'm afraid to love you. I'm afraid that you'll leave and that I'll go back to being alone again. Only it will be a hundred times worse because I'll know what I'm missing. I can't…” He sucked in a shaky breath. “I want to be able to love you more than I fear losing you, and I don't know how. Teach me, Bree. Please teach me. Don't let me destroy this.”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“Someday … when we're old and gray, I'm going to look at you lying in bed beside me, just like this, and I'm going to look into your eyes and know that it's only ever been you. And that is going to be the great joy of my life.”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“Try to believe that maybe more light shines out of those who have the most cracks.”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“Each night before I fall asleep, I make it a point to turn to my wife and silently say "Only you, only ever you". And her love slips quietly around me, holding me, anchoring me, reminding me that the loudest words are the ones we live.”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“I stand by my logic though. I think love is a concept, and each person has an individual word for what sums it up for them. My word for love is Bree.”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“I didn’t know enough to dream you, Bree, but somehow you came true anyway. How did that happen?” He rubbed his nose along mine, pausing and then pulling back again. “Who read my mind and knew exactly what I wanted, even when I didn’t?”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“I knew I loved her – fiercely and with every part of my heart, even the broken parts, even the parts that felt unworthy and without value. And maybe those parts most of all.”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“You brought the silence,
The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“I know I'm probably the last person you want to see right now, but I thought if I sat on your porch, you wouldn't be scared. You wouldn't be alone.”
― Mia Sheridan, Archer's Voice

“Favorite word?” he whispers.
I don’t even hesitate: “You.”
― Christina Lauren, Love and Other Words