Contemporary Fiction Quotes

“I screamed at them all to leave me alone, begged for their mercy, but they feasted until I was picked clean like a carrion would.”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, Stalker Stalked

“Do you think she’s crossed over? I mean, I’ve always wanted her to figure things out, but I never expected her to cross over the very instant she remembered. What if she’s gone?”
“We’ll celebrate.”
Still, she kept quiet. “I know it’s difficult to believe, but something is going on. Sara is not like this. She would never do anything to hurt me. I didn’t even say good-bye.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Crossover

“I hoofed it out of the alley, returned aboveground. Collided with people as I tore down the street, running fast as I could, chasing demons I would never catch.”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, Stalker Stalked

“If that was the last time we met, I was satisfied with my parting words. But if that was the case, why was I crying on the way back to the train as if I'd experienced a death?”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, Stalker Stalked

“More people’s lives have been shaped by violence than we like to think. And more people’s lives have been shaped by silence than we think.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“I brought a few old photos of Villageport. I didn’t know you were blind. I hoped you could put some names to the pictures.”
“Eyes aren’t the only way to see, young lady.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Crossover

“They all looked at Holly. She turned to face the cheerleader and said, “You need to learn that some things are more valuable than good looks. Data manipulation is more important than big boobs. Analytics is more useful than lip gloss.”
Wow, she said that? Everyone laughed a bit, surprised, shocked. Holly turned and headed toward the concert hall. Grinning.”
― Michael Grigsby, Segment of One

“My life isn’t someone else’s fault. It’s just life.”
― Erin Bartels, The Words Between Us

“you are dark and always been beautiful: like the night, like a star after it bursts, like obsidian & onyx & jet precious.
But I know I am beautiful like all & none of those things: far in the sky and deep in the earth
I am beautiful like a dark skinned girl that is right here.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, Clap When You Land

“I asked why her Jeffrey was seeing a man in a dress shop. Perhaps he thought it was time his mother wore a dress was my first thought, Lil. Gertie said that was the job he did. Then the penny dropped. I asked her if Jeffrey was homosexual. I only whispered the word, Lil, I didn't shout it out loud. She said he was gay. She wants to take a closer look at her Jeffrey. He may, or may not, be homosexual, but there's nothing gay about him. He's as miserable as sin.”
― Ann Perry, The Gin Queens

“Unfortunately, I was realizing more and more that to understand my own privilege was to know the misfortune of others.”
― Emilia Ares, Love and Other Sins

“I felt a powerful compulsion to reach out and touch her, as though her body was a familiar place—as though she’s someone I’d known all my life, someone I was relieved to see again.”
― Emilia Ares, Love and Other Sins

“Half the chocolate bar was stuffed in my mouth when it dawned on me: I was totally going to break out from crushing that hard.”
― Emilia Ares, Love and Other Sins

“It was a dangerous thing for me to know what I wanted.”
― Emilia Ares, Love and Other Sins

“He’s so nice, with his waistcoats and French cinema blog—one of those men who women adore, while never actually picturing them naked.”
― Cate Ray, Good Husbands

“I let it go, for all the many reasons that we let a lot of things go as women. You can’t fight everything, everyone. You pick your battles because it’s a long life.”
― Cate Ray, Good Husbands

“And there was fear in the writing. Fear that they would be misinterpreted, yes, but greater than that was the fear that they’d never be interpreted at all. That no one would read them and find me there.”
― Erin Bartels, The Words Between Us

“I didn’t know where to start. I got a job where I could travel. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I thought maybe I’d run into you somewhere or at least come across some sort of sign you’d been somewhere—something so that I could at least be sure you existed, that you weren’t some figment of my imagination. But everywhere I went, I could tell right away you weren’t there.”
― Erin Bartels, The Words Between Us

“Someway, somehow this is destined, Becky. You were meant to come to Lunenburg and move next to me. You. Not just any ordinary girl. The gifted-ghost-seeing girl.”
― Holly Ducarte, The Light Over Broken Tide

“We burst into a love affair so forceful it scares me. I’m married again, to another man and have a child with him – should I be allowed such indulgent feelings for someone I thought I no longer loved?”
― Maria P Frino, Two Men in a Shed

“In a world where violence was perhaps gone, and the hearts of men and women were at peace. Then, maybe then, I would have been a good man.”
― W.M Angel, Atlas Loved

“I have an idea. Next time, when you’re randomly freaking out about, you know, the world rotating and stuff, what we do is we come here, and we climb on this pendulum thing. And problem solved . . . we’ll be the only two people on the planet who are standing still while everyone else is turning.”
― Emilia Ares, Love and Other Sins

“It was a strange sensation, the thawing of a frozen heart.”
― Emilia Ares, Love and Other Sins

“What do I feel? Like a large winged creature dropped you into my life but forgot to leave the operating manual.”
― Emilia Ares, Love and Other Sins

“It was intimate . . . a strange and beautiful feeling. We were breathing life into each other.”
― Emilia Ares, Love and Other Sins

“But you have to push back against the fear and the only way to do that is by arming yourself with knowledge and practice. Why? Because when it’s all over, even if you die and are rotting in the ground, at least you’ll know you didn’t leave quietly.”
― Emilia Ares, Love and Other Sins

“Woman— the reason God painted the sky a ray of blues. Did you notice the stars I asked the Lord to hang for you in the night? Well, you’ll have to forgive me—I felt a need to express myself for you, so I used the heavens as a palette to write. A love letter, woman, that would never ever die. The heavens bow down to you, the earth gives way to who you are, woman: the celebration of my heart.”
― Theresa A Ward, She Wore The Name

“Sarai could sense who was on the line. Cigarette smoke stifles and chokes the voice communicating over miles of copper cable linking the call, but no amount of distance could erase the familiar spirit that has clawed its way back.”
― Theresa A Ward, She Wore The Name

“This time she will not be foolish by closing her ears to the harkening of its warning. This time she shall listen.”
― Theresa A Ward, She Wore The Name

“Were all bad people once beautiful children?”
― Erin Bartels, The Words Between Us