Mary Ann Rivers Quotes

#1. He keeps his arms away from me, but eventually, holding him, I feel him tuck his chin over my head. Then he whispers, "You're the sweetest girl, the best girl, I ever kissed, Carrie West," and rubs his face into my hair like a child, breathing deep.

Mary Ann Rivers

#2. I will meet you on Wednesdays at noon in Celebration Park. Kissing only. I won't touch you below the shoulders. You can touch me anywhere. No dating, no hookups. I will meet with you for as long as you meet me, so if you miss a Wednesday we part as strangers ...

Mary Ann Rivers

#3. I would need ... daisy love, you know, pretty love, sweet love that nonetheless was ubiquitous in roadside ditches in the summertime, and instead I would get orchid love. Love that needed misting and replanting and pruning and fertilizing and died anyway.

Mary Ann Rivers

#4. No. I'm waiting because it's not enough. What's on the other side of the waiting is enough.

Mary Ann Rivers

#5. This is, of course, the privilege of love, to bear witness to a strong man's grief over the little sister he could never save, as much as he has tried to, with every moment of life.

Mary Ann Rivers

#6. I think if you love somebody, and know you want to be with them forever, it doesn't matter how it starts, just so long as it doesn't end.

Mary Ann Rivers

#7. If I'm broken, the break will be clean and easily mended. If he breaks, I'm not sure if there will be enough pieces to approximate. I can afford to go along with what he thinks will protect him. I can have this, and I can give him what he thinks he needs, even if he may deserve better.

Mary Ann Rivers

#8. That's just it, Carrie. I'm not going to burden you. You would take it all, I can tell. God, it's tempting. You're tempting, and more so than just this," he says, gesturing his hand around the pergola. "You and your big, clear eyes that make me just want to lie down with you and rest.

Mary Ann Rivers

#9. To have the love of this man, who knows what it is to sacrifice his life for love, I would have waited longer.

Mary Ann Rivers

#10. Story guys are like life highlighters. Your life is all these big blocks of gray text, and then a story guy comes in with a big ol' paragraph of neon pink so that when you flip back through your life, you can stop and remember all the important and interesting places.

Mary Ann Rivers

#11. Let's go to that Jamaican place around the corner from you."
"Cluck You Chicken? Are you serious? The health department probably uses that restaurant for training exercises.

Mary Ann Rivers

#12. If I were there, Carrie, I would need to feel how soft the skin on the inside of your thighs is, first, how hot it is at that place where your thigh curves into your pussy. I love that place. I would kiss it first, but then lick it, inhale you.

Mary Ann Rivers

#13. It's very sad. There are no bike-riding federal contract attorneys in my apartment." If my phone had a cord, I would be twirling it around my finger right now.
"That is sad. Did you look everywhere? Sometimes they hide.

Mary Ann Rivers

#14. It's just that she's mine, you know? I get her, I know how to listen to her. Who will know her here? What if she's scared? I won't be here to know if she's scared.

Mary Ann Rivers

#15. You were the first thing I had asked for, just for me, in a long, long time.

Mary Ann Rivers

#16. But I think, maybe, I won't look back at what you highlighted, because I won't need to. I want to read all the way to the end with you.

Mary Ann Rivers

#17. If I wanted, I could choose to make my life a place that Brian could step into. He didn't have any room to move, but ...

Mary Ann Rivers

#18. No picture necessary. I'd recognize you, see you, anywhere. I could fill my life with you.

Mary Ann Rivers

#19. And yet, every day, Brian gathers his sister's long hair into a beautiful plait, and just the sound of his voice is enough to calm her when she is uncomfortable and frightened. I think that tells me his real story.

Mary Ann Rivers

#20. I don't mind the dark, and because it's Christmas, we've been busy putting lights up everywhere. High, so everyone knows we're okay.

Mary Ann Rivers

#21. Did you know that your mouth, your skin, is so soft? All week, every time I've thought about it, my hands feel like they're buzzing. I love your hair. I love that it's short and so when I put my fingers through it, I can feel your whole nape bust out in goose pimples.

Mary Ann Rivers

#22. My life is cozy, but I'm starting to let myself think I want something wet and aching stabbed through it. I want something substantial. I want to gorge myself. Excess.

Mary Ann Rivers

#23. I should take his kisses with me and go. But with a seeping, resolute calm, I decide to keep him. I am not losing these Wednesdays, even if I can't have anything else.

Mary Ann Rivers

#24. You dole out these stolen little pieces for yourself. You've been doing it for so long that you not only have no idea what you need, you have no idea what anyone else might need, either. No one is all or nothing. Grown-ups don't need someone to be all or nothing.

Mary Ann Rivers