Book Quotes: Emotion

These quotes are ones that explain some nebulous emotional state. When I read them, I understood them profoundly, but I'd never been able to put the feeling into words.

I'll read anything Rainbow Rowell writes. I bet even her grocery list is fantastic.

He sat back in the seat and looked over at her. “I wish you’d go away,” he whispered, “so that we could finally talk.”

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell 

They’d even gone to therapy together after their mom left. Which seemed weird, now that Cath thought about it. Especially considering how differently they’d reacted—Wren acting out, Cath acting in. (Violently, desperately in. Journey to the Center of the Earth in.)

and

Cath couldn’t control whether she saw Levi on campus. But she could worry about it, and as long as she was worrying about it, it probably wasn’t going to happen. Like some sort of anxiety vaccine. Like watching a pot to make sure it never boiled.

and

Cath had tried to call Levi first—not because she thought he could help, he was four hours away—but she wanted to touch base. (The “tag” kind of base. The kind that means safe.) 

Fangirl: A Novel by Rainbow Rowell 

These are ones I've collected from various books:

So I guess you could say Neel owes me a few favors, except that so many favors have passed between us now that they are no longer distinguishable as individual acts, just a bright haze of loyalty. Our friendship is a nebula.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan 

Decent people who were curious, interested, and even sad about Angie’s death, but felt it in a removed way. A protective empathy. If I feel bad for Josie Archer, then it won’t happen to my family.

Death by Cashmere by Sally Goldenbaum

It was like being rolled over by a steamroller made of flowers, Abigail thought. It didn’t really hurt, it was all very pretty and sweet-smelling. But you were still flattened.

The Witness by Nora Roberts 

And I knew the point of love right then. The point of love was to help you survive. The point was also to forget meaning. To stop looking and start living. The meaning was to hold the hand of someone you cared about and to live inside the present. Past and future were myths. The past was just the present that had died and the future would never exist anyway, because by the time we got to it, the future would have turned into the present. The present was all there was. The ever-moving, ever-changing present. And the present was fickle. It could only be caught by letting go. So I let go. I let go of everything in the universe. Everything, except her hand.

and

Kissing is what humans do when words have reached a place they can’t escape from. 

The Human by Matt Haig 

Seth’s voice stayed quiet, but his eyes—full of noise—stayed on Susan’s face.

The Obsession by Nora Roberts 

"I love it. I just… If you had scanned it in—I feel bad you had to ruin the actual photo.” 

“I didn’t ruin anything,” she insists. “I cut out the only two people I cared about in that class.”

The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer 

I hardly ever spoke to live people. It wasn’t that I was stupid (although a lot of teachers thought so when I first entered their classes), or that I didn’t like people. It was just that there didn’t seem to be a lot to say that someone wasn’t already saying.

Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech and Marc Burckhardt 

I squirmed in my chair. I didn’t know what to do. My mental hands were tied. I had been flung into a part of life that was over my head and I was in danger of drowning in ignorance.

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd by Alan Bradley

Dan and Dad’s relationship always had an edge to it, as if the two men couldn’t quite embrace each other’s ways and personalities. They were like two jigsaw pieces with the same bit of sky on, but which didn’t fit together.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick 

“I should enjoy that,” she said, stretching the truth so thin that really there was nothing of it left.

First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh 

All people are children when they sleep. There’s no war in them then . . . They . . . open their hands halfway, soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters. . . . If only we could speak to one another then when our hearts are half-open flowers Words like golden bees would drift in.

To Be Where You Are by Jan Karon 

Addison felt a deep-down, strangely detached sort of devastation.

A Darling Bay Christmas: Three Heartwarming Holiday Short Stories

--This one by Juliet Blackwell