Laura Steven Quotes

“We were bright and young and brilliant, alive with glittering promise, and yet we went to such extreme lengths to keep ourselves small. No matter the cost.”
― Laura Steven, Every Exquisite Thing

“Forgive the stack of books. They are in all seriousness my best friends.”
― Laura Steven, Every Exquisite Thing

“I think I was just born hungry.”
― Laura Steven, Every Exquisite Thing

“My own company was the only company I could honestly say I enjoyed. It was the great paradox of my existence.”
― Laura Steven, Every Exquisite Thing

“It was late September, and the heat of the summer had faded to an orange ember. The wych elms clustered in the quad had been kissed yellow at the tips, and the air was tinged with woodsmoke and clove.”
― Laura Steven, Every Exquisite Thing

“It was different for me, as the only daughter. If I ever tried to join in, Mum or Dad would pull me away, tell me girls didn’t fight. It was just boys being boys. Boys were stronger than girls, and they didn’t want me to get hurt. I was encouraged to sit quietly in a corner, painting pretty pictures, reading books about unicorns, watching my brothers tussle with a secret, shameful envy, a feeling of that same primal desire left buried.

So was it any wonder that by the time I was in Chris’s starkly lit living room, or the dark, pulsing Refectory, I didn’t know how to wrest my own wrist free? I didn’t have the strength or the experience from years of harmless adolescent practice. I didn’t have the muscle memory to fight back.”
― Laura Steven