Mckenna Quotes

“He shook his head, staring at her like a condemned man who beheld the face of his executioner. "Aline," he whispered, "Do you know what hell is?"

"Yes." Her eyes overflowed. "Trying to exist with your heart living somewhere outside your body."

"No. It's knowing that you have so little faith in my love, you would have condemned me to a lifetime of agony." His face contorted suddenly. "To something worse than death.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“My faith is with technology and with psychedelics. Politics aren't going to take us much further. We're awakening as a planet to the very good news that all ideology is parochial and culturally defined, like painting yourself blue or scarifying your penis. A culture is a limited enterprise. How could someone be so naive as to imagine that an ideology, a thought system generated by the monkey mind, would be adequate to explain the universe? That's preposterous. It's like meeting a termite who tells you he's a philosopher. What could you do but smile at the very notion.”
― Terence McKenna

“McKenna was her counterpart, her compass, her sanctuary.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“Aline gripped the upholstered arms of the chair. “I must be a better actress than I thought, if I’ve managed to convince you that your social standing matters to me. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve never cared one whit about the circumstances of your birth…where you came from, or who you are…you could be a rag man, and it wouldn’t matter to me. I would do anything, go anywhere, to be with you.” Her nails dug deep crescents into the worn leather. She closed her eyes. “I love you, McKenna. I’ve always loved you.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“What letter?” she heard McKenna ask in a suffocated voice.
“The one you had sent to her…asking for money, because you needed to break your apprenticeship and flee from Mr. Ilbery. Mrs. Faircloth read the letter to me…and hearing the words you had written made me realize…that as long as there was a chance that you were in this world, I wanted to go on living in it.” Aline stopped suddenly as her eyes blurred, and she blinked furiously to clear them.
McKenna made a hoarse sound. He came to the chair and sank to his haunches before her, breathing as if someone had delivered a crushing blow to the center of his chest.
“I never thought you’d come back,” Aline said. “I never wanted you to find out about my accident. But when you returned to Stony Cross, I decided that being close to you—even for one night—was worth any risk. That is why I…” She hesitated, blushing wildly. “The night of the village fair…”
Breathing heavily, McKenna reached for the hem of her gown. Swiftly Aline bent to stop him, gripping his wrist in a convulsive movement. “Wait!”
McKenna went still, the muscles of his shoulders tightly bunched.
“Burn scars are so ugly,” Aline whispered. “They’re all over my legs. The right one is especially bad, where much of the skin was destroyed. The scars tighten and shrink until it’s difficult to straighten my knee sometimes.”
He absorbed that for a moment, and then proceeded to pry her fingers from his wrist and remove her slippers, one after the other.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“I wish I had known,” he murmured. “I should have been with you.”
That made Aline want to weep, but she set her jaw hard to keep it from quivering. “I wanted you,” she admitted stiffly. “I kept asking for you. Sometimes I thought you were there, holding me…but Mrs. Faircloth said they were fever dreams.”
The motion of his hands stopped. The words seemed to send a tremor across his wide shoulders, as if he had taken a chill. Eventually his palms resumed their progress along her thighs, pressing them apart, his thumbs skimming the insides. “So this is what has kept us apart,” he said unsteadily.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“McKenna rose on his knees, gripping the chair arms on either side of her, his face just inches from her own.
Aline had been prepared for sorrow, sympathy, repulsion…but she had never anticipated rage. She had not expected the gleam of primitive fury in his eyes, and the grimace of a man who had nearly been pushed beyond the limits of sanity. “What did you think I meant when I said that I loved you? Did you think I would give a damn about your scars?”
Stunned by his reaction, Aline responded with a single nod.
“My God.” The blood rose higher in his face. “What if the situation were reversed, and I was the one who had been hurt? Would you have left me?”
“No!”
“Then why did you expect anything less of me?”
The explosive outburst caused her to shrink back in the chair. McKenna leaned forward, following her, his fury now edged with anguish. “Damn you, Aline!” He took her face between his shaking hands, his long fingers cradling her cheeks, his eyes liquid and glittering. “You’re the other half of me,” he said hoarsely. “How could you think that I wouldn’t want you? You’ve put us both through hell for no reason!”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“Shut up,” McKenna said tenderly, continuing to kiss her legs, accepting her scars as she had never been able to do for herself. He touched her everywhere, his hands stroking and caressing her shrinking flesh. “It’s all right,” he murmured, reaching up to rub her taut stomach in soothing circles. “I love you. All of you.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“The moment was so tender, so sweet, that tears spilled from her eyes. “McKenna…I never dared to dream about this.”
His thick lashes swept downward, and he pressed his forehead against hers. “I did,” he said gruffly. “For thousands of nights I dreamed of making love to you. No man on earth has ever hated sunrise as much as I do.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“He saw McKenna propped up on his elbow, his tanned chest and shoulders contrasting with the gleaming white linens. Little was visible of Lady Aline, save for a few locks of dark brown hair that draped over the edge of the mattress. She was snuggled in the crook of his arm, sleeping soundly as McKenna drew the bedclothes protectively over her bare shoulder.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic