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“What hap­pens to me if this slip­per fits?"
"I turn you into a hand­some frog.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“How am I doing so far?" she asked, forcing a cheerful lightness into her voice.
"You're doing very well," Nick's lazy voice mocked. "I'm half convinced that I'm invisible.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“Lauren's eyes widened.An entire page had been devoted to the Children's Hospital Benefit Ball.In the center was a color picture of her-with Nick. They were dancing, and he was grinning down at her. Lauren's face was in profile, tilted up to his. The caption read, "Detroit industrialist J. Nicholas Sinclair and companion."
"It does look like me, doesn't it?" she hedged, glancing at the excited, avidly curious faces surrounding her desk. "Isn't that an amazing coincidence?" She didn't want her relationship with Nick to be public knowledge until the time was right, and she certainly didn't want her co-workers to treat her any differently.
"You mean it isn't you?" one of the women said disappointedly. None of them noticed the sudden lull, the silence sweeping over the office as people stopped talking and typewriters went perfectly still...
"Good morning, ladies," Nick's deep voice said behind Lauren. Six stunned women snapped to attention, staring in fascinated awe as Nick leaned over Lauren from behind and braced his hands on her desk. "Hi," he said, his lips so near her ear that Lauren was afraid to turn her head for fear he would kiss her in front of everyone. He glanced at the newspaper spread out on her desk. "You look beautiful, but who's that ugly guy you're dancing with?" Without waiting for an answer, he straightened, affectionately rumpled the hair on the top of her head and strolled into Jim's office, closing the door behind him.
Lauren felt like sinking throught the floor in embarrassment. Susan Brook raised her brows. "What an amazing coincidence," she teased.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“Consider what an amoral, unprincipled cynicI am-think of all the improvements you could make to my character.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“Have you missed me?" he asked.
"What do you think?" she evaded smoothly-but not smoothly enough, because he chuckled.
"Good.How much?"
"Is your ego in need of bolstering today?" she countered lightly.
"Yep."
"Really,why?"
"Because I got shot down by a beautiful twenty-three-year-old, and I can't seem to get her out of my mind."
"That's too bad," Lauren said, trying unsuccessfully to hide the joy in her voice.
"Isn't it," he mocked. "She's like a thorn in my side,a blister on my heel. She has the eyes of an angel, a body that drugs my mind, the vocabulary of an English professor and a tongue like a scalpel."
"Thanks,I think."
His hands glided up her arms, then curved around her shoulders, tightening as he drew her to within a few inches of his chest. "And," he added. "I like her.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“Leave the star on top," said an achingly gen­tle, deep voice. "There's al­ready one angel in the room.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“What possessed you?" Lauren demanded of Jim the next morning.
He grinned. "Call it an uncontrollable impulse."
"I call it insanity!" she burst out. "You can't imagine how furious he was.He called me names! I-I think he's insane."
"He is," Jim agreed with complacent satisfaction. "He's insane about you. Mary thinks so too."
Lauren rolled her eyes. "You're all insane. I have to work up there with him. How am I going to do that?"
Jim chuckled. "Very,very cautiously," he advised.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“Grow up!"
Lauren felt as if he had slapped her. Infuriated past reason, she struck back at his ego. "You're absolutely right!" she blazed. "That's what I should do.Beginning today I'm going to grow up and start practicing what you preach! I'm going to sleep with any man who appeals to me. But not with you. You're much too old and too cynical for my taste.Now get out of here!”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“Let's get it over with, so I can stop wondering. How many have there been?"
Lauren stared at him."How many what?"
"Lovers," he clarified bitterly.
She could hardly believe her ears. After treating her as if her standards of morality were childish, after acting as if promiscuity was a virtue, after telling her how man preferred experienced women, he was jealous. Because now he cared.
Lauren didn't know whether to hit him, burst out laughing or hug him. Instead she decided to exact just a tiny bit of revenge for all the misery and uncertainty he had put her through. Turning,she walked over to the bar and reached for a bottle of white wine. "Why should the number make any difference?" she asked innocently. "You told me in Harbor Springs that men don't prize virginity anymore, that they don't expect or want a woman to be inexperienced.Right?"
"Right," he said grimly, glowering at the ice cubes in his glass.
"You also said," she continued, biting back a smile, "that women have the same physical desires men have,and that we have the right to satisfy them with whomever we wish.You were very emphatic about that-"
"Lauren," he warned in a low voice, "I asked you a simple question. I don't care what the answer is, I just want an answer so I can stop wondering. Tell me how many there were. Tell me if you liked the, if you didn't give a damn abou them,or if you did it to get even with me.Just tell me.I won't hold it against you."
Like hell you wouldn't! Lauren thought happily as she struggled to uncork the bottle of wine. "Of course you won't hold it against me," she said lightly. "You specifically said-"
"I know what I said," he snapped tersely. "Now,how many?"
She flicked a glance in his direction, implying that she was bewildered by his tone. "Only one."
Angry regret flared in his eyes,and his body tensed as if he had just felt a physical blow. "Did you...care about him?"
"I thought I loved him at the time," Lauren said brightly, twisting the corkscrew deeper into the cork.
"All right.Let's forget him," Nick said curtly. He finally noticed her efforts with the wine bottle and walked over to help her.
"Are you going to be able to forget him?" Lauren asked, admiring the ease with which he managed the stubborn cork.
"I will...after a while."
"What do you mean,after a while? You said there was nothing promiscuous about a woman satisfying her biological-"
"I know what I said,dammit!"
"Then why do you look so angry? You didn't lie to me,did you?"
"I didn't lie," he said, slamming the bottle onto the bar and reaching for a glass from the cabinet. "I believed it at the time."
"Why?" she goaded.
"Because it was convenient to believe it," he bit out. "I was not in love with you then."
Lauren loved him more at that moment than ever. "Would you like me to tell you about him?"
"No," he said coldly.
Her eyes twinkled, but she backed a cautious step out of his reach. "You would have approved of him. He was tall, dark, and handsome, like you. Very elegant,sophisticated and experienced. He wore down my resistence in two days,and-"
"Dammit, stop it!" Nick grated in genuine fury.
"His name is John."
Nick braced both hands on the liguor cabinet,his back to her. "I do not want to hear this!"
"John Nicholas Sinclair," Lauren clarified.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“Well,all she had to do was ask," one offended male replied.
"I hope you're satisfied!" Lauren whispered furiously.
"I'm not," Nick chuckled in her ear. "But I'm going to be."
Fully intending to leave him to take his own notes, Lauren slammed her notebook closed and tried to shove her chair back. Nick's body blocked the chair. She twisted her head around to say something scathing, and his lips captured hers in a kiss that forced her head against the back of the chair, tripled her pulse rate and robbed her of thought. When he took his mouth away, she was too shaken to do anything except stare at him.
"What do you think,Nick?" a voice asked over the speaker.
"I think it gets better every time," he answered huskily.
When the call was finally over, Nick pressed a button on the desk, and Lauren saw the door leading into Mary's office swing shut electronically. He grasped her arms and drew her out of the chair, turning her toward him. His mouth came closer to hers,and Lauren felt herself being helplessly drawn into his magnetic spell. "Don't!" she pleaded. "Please don't do this to me."
His hands tightened on her arms. "Why can't you just admit you want me and enjoy the consequences?"
"All right," she said wretchedly, "You win. I want you...I admit it." She saw the gleam of triumph in his eyes, and her chin lifted. "When I was eight years old, I also wanted a monkey I saw in a pet store."
The triumph faded. "And?" he sighed irritably,letting go of her.
"And unfortunately I got him," Lauren said. "Daisy bit me,and I had to have twelve stitches in my leg."
Nick looked as if he was torn between laughter and anger. "I imagine he bit you for naming him Daisy."
Lauren ignored his mockery. "And when I was thirteen, I wanted sisters and brothers. My father obliged me by remarrying, and I got a stepsister who stole my clothes and my boyfriends, and a stepbrother who stole my allowances."
"What the hell does that have to do with us?"
"Everything!”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“Lau­ren," he began gravely, "I would like four daugh­ters with wob­bly blue eyes and stu­dious horn-rimmed glasses on their lit­tle noses. Also, I've be­come very par­tial to your honey-col­ored hair, so if you could man­age…”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“You have to marry me. I think I've just been voted off the committee on international trade-they think I'm unstable. And Tony took me off his lift. Mary says she'll quit if I don't bring you back. Ericka found your earrings, and she gave them to Jim. He said to tell you that you can't have them unless you come back for them...”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“I also suspect that he loves you."
Trying to suppress the anguished hope that flared in her heart, Lauren turned her face to the stained-glass window near their table. "What makes you think so?"
"To begin with, he isn't treating you the way he normally treats the women in his life."
"I know that. He's nice to the others," Lauren said bitterly.
"Exactly!" Mary agreed. "He's always treated his women with an attitude of amused indulgence...of tolerant indifference. While an affair lasts he's attentive and charming. When a woman begins to bore him he courteously but firmly dismisses her from his life. Not once to my knowledge has any woman touched an emotion in him deeper than affection or desire. I've seen them try in the most inventive ways to make him jealous,yet he has reacted with nothing stronger than amusement, or occasionally exasperation. Which brings us to you."
Lauren blushed at being correctly categorized with the other woen Nick had taken to bed,but she knew it was useless to deny it.
"You," Mary continued quietly, "have evoked genuine anger in him.He is furious with you and with himself. Yet he doesn't dismiss you fro his life; he doesn't even send you downstairs. Doesn't it seem odd to you that he won't let you work for Jim,and simply have you come upstairs to act as translator when Rossi's call finally comes through?"
"I think he's keeping me up there for revenge," Lauren said grimly.
"i think he is too.Perhaps he's trying to get back at you for what you're making him feel.Or possibly he's trying to find fault with you,so that he won't feel the way he does any longer. I don't know. Nick is a complex man. Jim, Ericka and I are all very close to him, and yet he keeps each one of us at a slight distance. There's a part of himself that he will not share with others, not even us.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“So I'm tellin' you now-" Tony drew himself up to his most impressive height and slapped his hat on his head "-from now on you're off my list, Nick.If you wanna eat in my restaurant, you better bring Laurie with you!”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“He remembered the sheer perfection of her creamy breasts; the incredible silkiness of her skin; the exquisite taste of her lips; the way she had kissed him and held him to her...
"Nick," the chairman said sharply, "I assume you are in favor of this proposal?"
Nick dragged his gaze from the windows. He had no idea what proposal was being discussed. "I'd like to hear more about it before I decide," he prevaricated.
Seven surprised faces turned toward him. "It's your proposal,Nick," the chairman scowled. "You wrote it."
"Then naturally I'm in favor of it," he informed them coolly.”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“Good secretaries are always in demand. Sinco's personnel office will probably call you eventually and offer you a job."
"I doubt it," Lauren said with an irrepressible smile. "I'm afraid Mr. Weatherby, the personnel manager, doesn't think I'm very bright," she explained.
Nick's head jerked up, his gaze moving with frank, masculine appreciation over her vivid features. "Lauren, I think you're as bright as a shiny new penny. Weatherby must be blind."
"Of course he is!" she teased. "Or else he'd never wear a houndstooth jacket with a paisley tie."
Nick grinned. "Does he really?”
― Judith McNaught, Double Standards

“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“Tomorrow will be better.”
“But what if it’s not?” I asked.
“Then you say it again tomorrow. Because it might be. You never know, right? At some point, tomorrow will be better.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“The best discoveries always happened to the people who weren't looking for them.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“Roger: "God, I've been wanting to do that for a long time."

Amy: "Really"

Roger: "Oh yes. Since Kansas. At least.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“It was like there was an elephant in the room. An elephant that expected us to have sex.”
― Morgan Matson , Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“I think there are lots of things still to be discovered. You just have to be paying attention.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“You + Me
saw this...

AMERICA

Thank you for finding America with me”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“The best discoveries always happened to the people who weren't looking for them. Columbus and America. Pinzón who stumbled on Brazil while looking for the West Indies. Stanley happening on Victoria Falls. And you. Amy Curry when I was least expecting her."
I smiled back at him while feeling sharply just how much I was going to miss him. It was almost a physical pain. "I'm on that list?"
"You're at the top of that list." He leaned over and kissed me and I kissed back.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“He told me that if you yelled out "JAMBA!" at full volume, all the employees would yell back "JUICE!" He lied.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“And we were kissing like drowning people breathe-- like suddenly we'd discovered something that has never been so sweet before that moment.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“There weren‘t enough tears to cry.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“She's cinematic and I'm a fucking sitcom.”
― David Levithan, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“There’s no such thing as ready,” she says. “There’s only willing.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“Singing in the rain. I'm singing in the rain. And it's such a fucking glorious feeling.”
― David Levithan, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist