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Emily Henry Quotes

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Emily Henry Quotes

“It does.” I scrunch my eyes tight. “It fucking sucks.” I didn’t know the power of those words. They fix nothing, do nothing, but just saying them feels like planting a stake into the ground, pinning us together at least for this moment. It sucks, and I can’t change that, but I’m here, with my sister, and somehow we’ll get through it. You can take the city person out of the city, but the city will always be in them. I think it’s the same for sisters. Anywhere we go, we won’t leave each other. We couldn’t even if we wanted to. And we don’t. We never will.”

SistersBook LoversEmily Henry
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“He looked more at ease, more sure, like all this time I'd only ever come face-to-face with his shadow. Standing there in that moment, I felt like I'd stumbled upon something sacred, more intimate even than what had passed between us in the house. Like Gus had pulled back the curtains in the window of a house I'd been admiring, whose insides I'd been dreaming about but even so, underestimated. I liked seeing Gus like this, with the people he knew would always love him. We'd just had sex like the world was burning down around us, but if I ever got to kiss Gus again, I wanted it to be this version of him. The one who didn't feel so weighed down by the world around him that he had to lean just to stay upright.”

LoveRomanceSexRelationshipsEmily HenryBeach ReadGus EverettJanuary Andrews
Book:Beach Read
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“She means he's looking for something the New York Times has described as 'revelatory," Sabrina says. "Actually... " Parth walks up with a paper bag already in hand. “I picked this because the Wall Street Journal gave it such a cranky review I needed to read it myself. It's by this married couple who usually publish separately. One of them writes literary doorstop novels and the other writes romance.”

Emily HenryBeach Read
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“Well, I like her. Who the fuck cares whether anyone else does, as long as they want to read about her?" "People also slow down to gawk at car wrecks, Charlie. Are you calling me a car wreck?" "I'm not talking about you at all," he says " I'm talking about Nadine Winters. My fictional crush." "Big fan of jet-black hair and Krav Maga, huh?" Charlie leans forward, face serious, voice low. "It's more about the blood dripping from her fangs.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“Is it possible you don’t have any pain receptors?” he hisses. “Not only possible but probable,” I reply. “I’ve been told I feel nothing.” Charlie frowns. “Whoever said that clearly only met Professional Nora.” “Most people do.” “Poor assholes,” he says, almost affectionately. The same voice in which he said Of course you did when I told him I met my agenting goals eight months early.”

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“He’s a sweet guy,” Charlie says quietly. “Anyway, he let the car stuff go and started picking up paperbacks for me every time he stopped by a garage sale, or a new donation box came into Mom’s shop. He has no idea how much erotica he’s given me.” “And you actually read it.” Charlie turns his wineglass one hundred and eighty degrees, eyes boring into me. “I wanted to understand how things worked, remember?” I arch a brow. “How’d that turn out for you?” He sits forward. “I was slightly disappointed when my first serious girlfriend didn’t have three consecutive orgasms, but otherwise okay.” A torrent of laughter rips through me. “So I’ve found the key to Nora Stephens’s joy,” he says. “My sexual humiliation.” “It’s not the humiliation so much as the sheer optimism.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“He rolls his eyes. “You know this doesn’t count for number six, right? Maybe in Manhattan they consider this skinny-dipping, but in Sunshine Falls we’d call that getup ‘a glorified bathing suit.’ ” Another challenge. I’m a woman possessed. I sink beneath the water, unclasp my bra, and hurl it at him. It thwacks against his chest. “Closer,” he allows, lifting the dainty black lace strap to examine it in the moonlight. “All this,” he says seriously, “wasted on Blake Carlisle.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
Book:Book Lovers
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“Mrs. Struthers liked me because I fucking loved school,” he says. “I mean, once I figured out how to actually read. Didn’t exactly make me a hit with other kids, though. In high school, things weren’t as bad, and then eventually . . .” “You got hot,” I say somberly. His laugh grates over my skin. “I was going to say ‘I moved to New York.’ ” We’ve stopped moving. Heat corkscrews through my rib cage, coiling tighter with each spiral. I clear my throat enough to joke, “And then you got hot.” “Actually,” he says, “that only happened four or five weeks ago. There was this big meteor shower, and I made a wish and . . .” Charlie holds his arms out as he drifts closer.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“We have to talk about this first,” he says. “Things are complicated for me right now.” And yet we’re still clamoring for each other. Charlie’s hands raze over my thighs, squeezing so hard I might bruise. My nails are in his back, urging him close. His warm mouth skims over my shoulder, his tongue and teeth finding my pulse at the base of my throat. I nod. “Then talk.” Another sharp kiss, his teeth hard against my lip, his hands hard against my ass. “It’s hard to think in words right now, Nora.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“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.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“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.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“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.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“What's wrong with being in control anyway?" I demand, of the universe at large. "Beats me." "And what, just because I don't want kids, I would supposedly punish a pregnant woman for making a different decision than me? My favorite person's a pregnant woman! And I'm obsessed with my nieces. Not every decision a woman makes is some grand indictment on other women's lives." "Nora," Charlie says. "It's a novel. Fiction." "You don't get it because you're... you." I wave a hand at him. "Me?" he says. "You can afford to be all surly and sharp and people will admire you for it. The rules are different for women. You have to strike that perfect balance to be taken seriously but not seen as bitchy. It's a constant effort. People don't want to work with sharky women -" "I do," he says.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“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 . . .”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“When we finally do this, Nora,” he says, straightening away from me, his hands slipping my buttons back into buttonholes as easily as he undid them, “it’s not going to be on a library table, and it’s not going to be on a time crunch.” He smooths my hair, tucks my blouse back into my skirt, then takes my hips in his hands and guides me off the table, catching me against him. “We’re going to do this right. No shortcuts.”

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“I hated being a kid.” He folds his arm beneath his head and looks almost furtively in my direction. “I’d have no idea how to get someone else through it, and I definitely wouldn’t enjoy it. I like them, but I don’t want to be responsible for any.” “Agreed,” I say. “I love my nieces more than anything on the planet, but every time Tala falls asleep in my lap, her dad gets all teary-eyed and is like, Doesn’t it just make you want to have some of your own, Nora? But when you have kids, they count on you. Forever. Any mistake you make, any failure—and if something happens to you . . .” My throat twists. “People like to remember childhood as all magic and no responsibilities, but that’s not really how it is. You have absolutely no control over your environment. It all comes down to the adults in your life, and . . . I don’t know. Every time Libby has a new kid, it’s like there’s this magic house in my heart that rearranges to make a new room for the baby. “And it always hurts. It’s terrifying. One more person who needs you.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“The ragged edge of his voice knocks the wind out of me. I fight the impulse to rein in my shock, and then it all clicks, the bits of Charlie I’ve been collecting like puzzle pieces becoming a full picture. Not the Darcy trope. Not the self-important, dour academic I met for one very unpleasant lunch. A man who craves complete honesty, the realist who doesn’t always understand when he’s not seeing realism. Charlie, who wants to understand the world but has learned not to trust it.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“Tonight,” I say, “can I just have you, Charlie? Even if it can’t last. Even if we already know how it ends.” He holds my jaw so gingerly. Like I’m something delicate. Or maybe like he is. Like with one wrong move we could crack each other open. My chest squeezes with that heart-crushing final-chapter feeling, only now I know the word for it. I know it even if I can’t bring myself to think it. “You do have me, Nora. I never stood a chance.” For the first time in my life, I know what the hell Cathy was talking about when she said I am Heathcliff. Not just because Charlie and I are so similar, but because he’s right: we belong. In a way I don’t understand, he’s mine, and I’m his. It doesn’t matter what the last page says. That’s the truth. Here, now. His lips brush mine, light, careful, warm. I open to him, knowing how it will feel when I turn the page but unwilling not to turn it at all.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“He stares at me, his eyes focused and brow furrowed as he absorbs what I said, his lips pouting. It’s his Editing Expression, and when it clears, he shakes his head and says, “No.” I laugh, surprised. “What?” He straightens, steps in close. “I said, no.” “Charlie. What’s that even mean?” “It means,” he says, eyes glinting, “you’ll have to do better than that.” I smile despite myself, hope thrashing around in my belly like a very determined baby bird with a broken wing. “I’ll expect notes by Friday,” he says.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“We are either too good or too bad at fighting. We are viciously trading support for each other’s romantic lives. He one-ups me with, “Shepherd’s a great guy. Most eligible bachelor in town. He’s perfect for your list, checks all your boxes.” “What about Amaya?” I throw back. “How’s she measure up to yours?” “Doesn’t make the cut,” he says. “Must be a pretty long list.” “One item,” he replies. “Very specific.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“My point is, being that ‘magic free spirit’ you think is this mythical perfect woman? It comes with its own problems. Just because not everyone gets you doesn’t mean you’re wrong. You’re someone people can count on. Really count on. And that doesn’t make you cold or boring. It makes you the most . . .” He trails off, shakes his head. “You and your sister might have your differences, and she might not totally understand you, but you’re never going to lose her, Nora. You don’t have to worry about that.” “How can you be so sure?” I ask. Now his eyes are all liquid caramel, his hands tender, moving back and forth over my hips, a tide that draws us together, apart, together, each brush more intense than the last. “Because,” he says quietly, “Libby’s smart enough to know what she has.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“You’re . . .” I search for the right word. It’s rare that my vocabulary fails me like this. “Organized.” His eyes crackle with light as he laughs. “Organized?” “Extremely,” I deadpan. “Not to mention thorough.” “You make me sound like a contract,” he says, amused. “And you know how I feel about a good contract,” I say. His smirk pulls higher. “Actually, I only know how you feel about a bad one, written on a damp napkin.” He lies back fully on the mattress, and I do too, leaving a healthy gap between us. “A good contract is . . .” I think for a moment. “Adorable?” Charlie supplies, teasing. “No.” “Comely?” “At bare minimum,” I say. “Charming?” “Sexy as hell,” I reply. “Irresistible. It’s a list of great traits and working compromises that watch out for all parties involved. It’s . . . satisfying, even when it’s not what you expected, because you work for it. You go back and forth until every detail is just how it needs to be.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“A minute later, he adds, you okay? Like even from separate rooms, with multiple screens between us, he is reading my mood. The thought sends a strange hollow ache out through my limbs. Something like loneliness. Something like Ebenezer Scrooge watching his nephew Fred’s Christmas party through the frosty window. An outsideness made all the more stark by the revelation of insideness. All I really want is to go perch on the edge of Charlie’s desk and tell him everything, make him laugh, let him make me laugh until nothing feels quite so pressing.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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