“
No, I’m not choosing him or you. I’m choosing me.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
The picture of me just after I’d found out Aspen was saving up to marry me. I looked radiant, hopeful, beautiful. I looked like I was in love. And some idiot thought that love was for Prince Maxon.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
Castes never meant that much to me.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
It's just the way it is. The sky is blue, the sun is bright, and Aspen endlessly loves America. It's how the world was designed to be.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Elite (The Selection, #2))
“
He wasn’t allowed to come with me there—my own rule for this
little adventure.
No more.
Good-bye, Aspen.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
I knew that, in my whole life, if I married Aspen or someone else, no one would ever make me feel this way. It wasn’t like I made his world better. It was like I was his world. It wasn’t some explosion; it wasn’t fireworks. It was a fire, burning slowly from the inside out.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Elite (The Selection, #2))
“
I let myself be sad. I let myself think of him.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
I remembered suddenly that Aspen had always been this way. He sacrificed sleep for me, he risked getting caught out after curfew for me, he scrounged together pennies for me. Aspen's generosity was harder to see because it wasn't as grand as Maxon's, but the heart behind what he gave was so much bigger.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Elite (The Selection, #2))
“
Willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver, thro' the wave that runs forever by the island in the river, flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls and four gray towers, overlook a space of flowers, and the silent isle imbowers, the Lady of Shalott.
”
”
Alfred Tennyson (Selected Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson)
“
I wonder how long it would take him to realize I'm right as sin - it's the rest of the world that's wrong. I'm not even sure how I qualify for admission to Aspen Springs. Does wanting to die equal losing your mind?
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Impulse (Impulse, #1))
“
I love you, America Singer. As long as I live, I'll love you." There was some deep emotion in his voice, and it caught me off guard.
"I love you, Aspen. You'll always be my prince.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
He wasn't my boyfriend, he wasn't me husband, and he wasn't my friend. He was family.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
You were the one who changed us when you left me in the tree house; and you keep thinking that if you push hard enough, you can make everything go back to before that moment. It doesn't work that way. Give me a chance to choose you.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Elite (The Selection, #2))
“
And I know it's over, but it's the same way I felt when you broke up with me.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Elite (The Selection, #2))
“
I always wondered if they’d change you.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
I'm working from the assumption it's going to go horribly wrong. If we get out of here with limbs intact and no aspen slivers in uncomfortable places, we're calling it a win."
Merit/Jonah
”
”
Chloe Neill (Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires, #5))
“
That was my great ambition. Not to be Illea's princess. To be Aspen's.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
I opened the door to Maxon. He stood there wordlessly.
And all my anger made sense. I wanted everything from him and everything for him, because I wanted every piece of him. It was infuriating that everyone had to have their hands on this—the girls, his parents, even Aspen. So many conditions and opinions and obligations surrounded us, and I hated Maxon because they came with him.
And I loved him even so.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
Not that I am cheering for him or anything, but if he can't see how amazing you are, he's an idiot."
-Aspen
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Elite (The Selection, #2))
“
It hurt me to be away from him. Some days I went crazy wondering what he was doing. And when I couldn't handle it, I practiced music. I really had Aspen to thank for me being the musician that I was. He drove me to distraction.
And that was bad.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
What about you, America?” Kriss asked.
The only one who really caught my eye was Aspen, and after feeling that ache for him, this felt kind of stupid. I dodged the question.
“I don’t know. They’re all kind of nice.”
“Kind of nice?” Celeste echoed. “You have to be kidding! These are some of the best-looking guys I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s only a bunch of boys without their shirts on,” I countered. “Yeah, why don’t you enjoy it for a minute before it’s just the three of us you have to look at,” she said snippily.
“Whatever. Maxon looks just as good without his shirt on as any of those guys.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
The trees were friendly, they gave me rest and shadowed refuge. Slipping through them, I felt safe and competent. My whole body was occupied. I had little energy to think or worry.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
Above me, wind does its best
to blow leaves off
the aspen tree a month too soon.
No use wind. All you succeed
in doing is making music, the noise
of failure growing beautiful.
”
”
Bill Holm
“
Everyone feels, Aspen. Some are just better at covering it up.
”
”
Linda Kage (To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men, #2))
“
What do you think, Samantha?” Fosco asks me. That it’s a piece of pretentious shit. That it says nothing, gives nothing. That I don’t understand it, that probably no one does and no one ever will. That not being understood is a privilege I can’t afford. That I can’t believe this woman got paid to come here. That I think she should apologize to trees. Spend a whole day on her knees in the forest, looking up at the trembling aspens and oaks and whatever other trees paper is made of with tears in her languid eyes and say, I’m fucking sorry. I’m sorry that I think I’m so goddamned interesting when it is clear that I am not interesting. Here’s what I am: I’m a boring tree murderess. But I look at Vignette, at Creepy Doll, at Cupcake, the Duchess. All of them staring at me now with shy smiles. “I think I’d like to see more of the soup too,” I hear myself say.
”
”
Mona Awad (Bunny (Bunny, #1))
“
For Jenn
At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon
and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts.
I fought with my knuckles white as stars,
and left bruises the shape of Salem.
There are things we know by heart,
and things we don't.
At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke.
I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos,
but I could never make dying beautiful.
The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself
veins are kite strings you can only cut free.
I suppose I love this life,
in spite of my clenched fist.
I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree,
and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers,
and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath
the first time his fingers touched the keys
the same way a soldier holds his breath
the first time his finger clicks the trigger.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.
But my lungs remember
the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly
and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat.
And I knew life would tremble
like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek,
like a prayer on a dying man's lips,
like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone…
just take me just take me
Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much,
the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood.
We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways,
but you still have to call it a birthday.
You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess
and hope she knows you can hit a baseball
further than any boy in the whole third grade
and I've been running for home
through the windpipe of a man who sings
while his hands playing washboard with a spoon
on a street corner in New Orleans
where every boarded up window is still painted with the words
We're Coming Back
like a promise to the ocean
that we will always keep moving towards the music,
the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain.
Beauty, catch me on your tongue.
Thunder, clap us open.
The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks.
Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert,
then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women
who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun.
I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun.
I know the heartbeat of his mother.
Don't cover your ears, Love.
Don't cover your ears, Life.
There is a boy writing poems in Central Park
and as he writes he moves
and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart,
and there are men playing chess in the December cold
who can't tell if the breath rising from the board
is their opponents or their own,
and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway
swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn,
and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun
with strip malls and traffic and vendors
and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it.
Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect.
I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon.
I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic.
But every ocean has a shoreline
and every shoreline has a tide
that is constantly returning
to wake the songbirds in our hands,
to wake the music in our bones,
to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river
that has to run through the center of our hearts
to find its way home.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
That's why you can't give up. Heroes don't give up.
”
”
Kiera Cass (Happily Ever After (The Selection, #0.4, 0.5, 2.5, 2.6, 3.3))
“
Instead of seeing how much pain I can dish out towards those I disagree with, or who I believe have done me wrong, I seek to follow the golden rule and use my words and behavior to create more of what the world needs – love, compassion, and connection.
”
”
Aspen Baker
“
What would I fight for in this world if I wasn’t fighting for her?
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Guard (The Selection, #2.5))
“
Do you feel that? Do you feel what we do together? This isn’t normal, Aspen. We are a force of fucking nature.
”
”
Linda Kage (To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men, #2))
“
...the divided world of Aspen, where locals with a sense of entitlement were pitted against developers with a sense of condominiums.
”
”
Steve Martin
“
Late in August the lure of the mountains becomes irresistible. Seared by the everlasting sunfire, I want to see running water again, embrace a pine tree, cut my initials in the bark of an aspen, get bit by a mosquito, see a mountain bluebird, find a big blue columbine, get lost in the firs, hike above timberline, sunbathe on snow and eat some ice, climb the rocks and stand in the wind at the top of the world on the peak of Tukuhnikivats.
”
”
Edward Abbey (Desert Solitaire)
“
Every day you say something or do something that challenges me, changes me.
”
”
Kiera Cass (Happily Ever After (The Selection, #0.4, 0.5, 2.5, 2.6, 3.3))
“
You've been quiet for awhile. What are you thinking about?" he asked, grinning at her.
"I was wondering if maybe you're a serial killer.
”
”
Marcia Lynn McClure (The Time of Aspen Falls)
“
The only comfort I found was in planning to disappear.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir)
“
Oh!” Aspen said, surprised to see me, too. “I think it makes me the worst guard ever that I assumed you were in your room this whole time.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Elite (The Selection #2))
“
It must be nice to have someone to write to. I’ve never had the luxury of love letters,” Maxon said, a sad smile on his face. “Has she kept her word?”
Aspen was moving pillows from the other bed to prop under my head, avoiding eye contact with either Maxon or myself.
“Writing is difficult,” he said. “But I do know she’s with me, no matter what. I don’t doubt it.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
You think you walk, Lucy? I think you fly. You see yourself in a uniform? I see you in a cape. You're a hero, of the quietest but most genuine nature.
”
”
Kiera Cass (Happily Ever After (The Selection, #0.4, 0.5, 2.5, 2.6, 3.3))
“
We might not stand a chance, but I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop craving that connection we share. It’s so fucking strong, I’ve been willing to… God, I would do anything for little stolen pieces of you, Aspen.
”
”
Linda Kage (To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men, #2))
“
If you're about to tell me that I need to stop fighting for you, that's not a conversation I want to have" ~Aspen
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Elite (The Selection, #2))
“
Silence and twilight fell over the garden. Far away the sea was lapping gently and monotonously on the bar. The wind of evening in the poplars sounded like some sad, weird old rune-some broken dream of old memories. A slender, shapely young aspen rose up before them against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky, which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin loveliness.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne's House of Dreams (Anne of Green Gables, #5))
“
Steam rising underneath a canopy of whispering, changing aspens; starlight in the clear, dark night, and wondrous beauty in every direction. If only all could feel this way, to be so captured and enthralled with autumn.
”
”
Donna Lynn Hope
“
Can you take me back into town?" I say. "I can't get my voicemails."
"Why don't you calm down, D-Dub. I know you're menstruating, but everything's going to be fine. Once we get inside, I'll explain all about maxi pads, personal hygiene and the feel of a man's penis.
”
”
Victoria Scott (The Liberator (Dante Walker, #2))
“
Elite networking forums like the Aspen Institute and the Clinton Global Initiative groom the rich to be self-appointed leaders of social change, taking on the problems people like them have been instrumental in creating or sustaining.
”
”
Anand Giridharadas (Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World)
“
I'm twenty-nine, yes really, I'm from Aspen, Colorado, I'm six feet one, yes really, I've been at Quantico two years, yes I date guys, no I dress like this just because I like it, no I'm not married, no I don't currently have a boyfriend, and no I don't want to have dinner with you tonight.
”
”
Lee Child (Running Blind (Jack Reacher, #4))
“
I leave the lip gloss on. Bright things in nature are often poisonous. Let that be my defense, then. Let Aspen watch, and predators prowl, and all the waiting jaws yawn wider. I will be a ruin to consume.
”
”
Ryan La Sala (The Honeys)
“
I didn’t know if I was brave or reckless.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
Water was liquid silver, water was gold. It was clarity—a sacred thing. Drinking was no longer something to take for granted. I’d never needed to consider water before.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
I was no longer following a trail.
I was learning to follow myself.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
Go spend time with the aspen trees. They'll tell you how it works. They'll tell you to look to your roots for energy. They'll tell you there's warmth below the surface.
”
”
Kaya McLaren (How I Came to Sparkle Again)
“
That I think she should apologize to trees. Spend a whole day on her knees in the forest, looking up at the trembling aspens and oaks and whatever other trees paper is made of with tears in her languid eyes and say, I’m fucking sorry. I’m sorry that I think I’m so goddamned interesting when it is clear that I am not interesting. Here’s what I am: I’m a boring tree murderess.
”
”
Mona Awad (Bunny (Bunny, #1))
“
I needed to stop hiding: I was raped. It was time to honestly be exactly who I was. I saw—the shame wasn't mine, it was his, and I could stop misrepresenting myself, and I could accept myself.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
But as I get older I think – can it really be love if we don’t talk that much, don’t see each other? Isn’t love something that happens between people who spend time together and know each other’s faults and take care of each other? In the end I decide that the mark we’ve left on each other is the color and shape of love. That’s the unfinished business between us. Because love is never finished. It circles and circles the memories always out of order and not always complete. There’s one I always come back to: me and Cameron Quick, laying on the ground in an aspen grove on a golden fall day, the aspen leaves clattering and quaking the way they do. Cameron turning to me, reaching out a small and dirty hand, which I take and do not let go.
”
”
Sara Zarr (Sweethearts)
“
She told me that my rape was not my fault, that I should feel no shame, that – simple as it may sound – I hadn’t caused it. No one causes rape but rapists. No one causes rape but rapists. No one causes rape but rapists. It was true. And it had not been obvious to me. And hearing it from someone else, a professional, someone who should know, helped me believe that soon I would believe it.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
Aspen would not have the satisfaction of breaking my heart anymore. He’d put me here, and I would just have to take advantage of it.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
The polite applause of aspens.
”
”
Richard Powers (The Overstory)
“
There are far worse things in the world than falling in love, Aspen. No matter who it’s with.
”
”
C.E. Ricci (Don't You Dare)
“
What we’re doing is wrong. Making it a one-time deal is wrong. Trying to convince ourselves it was dirty and tawdry and something to be ashamed of is wrong. It was the best damn sex of my life, Aspen. I felt connected to you, like hell, I don’t know. I wasn’t just getting off in some random girl; I was sharing something deep and meaningful…with you. I don’t care how many school policies tell us no. I’m saying yes.
”
”
Linda Kage (To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men, #2))
“
How many happy, satisfied people there are, after all, I said to myself. What an overwhelming force! Just consider this life--the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak, all around intolerable poverty, cramped dwellings, degeneracy, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying...and yet peace and order apparently prevail in all those homes and in the streets. Of the fifty thousand inhabitants of a town, not one will be found to cry out, to proclaim his indignation aloud. We see those who go to the market to buy food, who eat in the daytime and sleep at night, who prattle away, marry, grow old, carry their dead to the cemeteries. But we neither hear nor see those who suffer, and the terrible things in life are played out behind the scenes. All is calm and quiet, and statistics, which are dumb, protest: so many have gone mad, so many barrels of drink have been consumed, so many children died of malnutrition...and apparently this is as it should be. Apparently those who are happy can only enjoy themselves because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and but for this silence happiness would be impossible. It is a kind of universal hypnosis. There ought to be a man with a hammer behind the door of every happy man, to remind him by his constant knocks that there are unhappy people, and that happy as he himself may be, life will sooner or later show him its claws, catastrophe will overtake him--sickness, poverty, loss--and nobody will see it, just as he now neither sees nor hears the misfortunes of others. But there is no man with a hammer, the happy man goes on living and the petty vicissitudes of life touch him lightly, like the wind in an aspen-tree, and all is well.
”
”
Anton Chekhov
“
If ever there was a bloke at the very mention of whose name it would be excusable for people to tremble like aspens, that bloke is Sir Roderick Glossop. He has an enormous bald head, all the hair which ought to be on it seeming to have run into his eyebrows, and his eyes go through you like a couple of Death Rays.
"How are you, how are you, how are you?" I said, overcoming a slight desire to leap backwards out of the window.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (Carry On, Jeeves (Jeeves, #3))
“
Just because I loves you–
That's de reason why
Ma soul is full of color
Like de wings of a butterfly.
Just because I loves you
That's de reason why
Ma heart's a fluttering aspen leaf
When you pass by.
”
”
Langston Hughes
“
Every happy man should have some one with a little hammer at his door to knock and remind him that there are unhappy people, and that, however happy he may be, life will sooner or later show its claws, and some misfortune will befall him -- illness, poverty, loss, and then no one will see or hear him, just as he now neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer, and the happy go on living, just a little fluttered with the petty cares of every day, like an aspen-tree in the wind -- and everything is all right.
”
”
Anton Chekhov (Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov)
“
I was safe in this world. This was a place for creatures—I felt I had become more of a creature than a girl. I could handle myself in the wild.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
The bravest thing I ever did was leave there. The next bravest thing I did was come back, to make myself heard.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
Walking in solitude fixes nothing, but it leads you to the place where you can identify the malady—see the wound's true form and nature—and then discern the proper medicine.
My malady was submission.
The symptom: my compliance.
The antidote was loud clear boundaries.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
Here, I can hear things, the world throbs differently, silence thrums like a chord strummed eons ago, music in the aspen trees and in the firs and burr oaks and even in the fields of drying corn.
”
”
Nickolas Butler (Shotgun Lovesongs)
“
That not being understood is a privilege I can’t afford. That I can’t believe this woman got paid to come here. That I think she should apologize to trees. Spend a whole day on her knees in the forest, looking up at the trembling aspens and oaks and whatever other trees paper is made of with tears in her languid eyes and say, I’m fucking sorry. I’m sorry that I think I’m so goddamned interesting when it is clear that I am not interesting. Here’s what I am: I’m a boring tree murderess.
”
”
Mona Awad (Bunny (Bunny, #1))
“
At the lip of a cliff, I look out over Lake Superior, through the bare branches of birches and the snow-covered branches of aspens and pines. A hard wind blows snow up out of a cavern and over my face. I know this place, I know its seasons - I have hiked these mountains in the summer and walked these winding pathways in the explosion of colour that is a northern fall. And now, the temperature drops well below zero and the deadly cold lake rages below, I feel the stirrings of faith that here, in this place, in my heart, spring will come again.
But first the winter must be waited out. And that waiting has worth.
”
”
Marya Hornbacher (Waiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Power)
“
Loss is the shocking catalyst of transformation.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
When People Ask
How he’s doing now, I have
no idea what to say except for,
“Better.” I don’t know if that’s
true, or what goes on in a place
like Aspen Springs, not that any-
one knows he’s there, thank God.
He has dropped off most people’s
radar, although that’s kind of odd.
Before he took this unbelievable
turn, Conner was top rung on our
social ladder. But with his crash
and burn no longer news of the day,
all but a gossipy few have quit
trying to fill in the blanks.
One exception is Kendra, who
for some idiotic reason still
loves him and keeps asking about
him, despite the horrible way he
dumped her. Kendra may be pretty,
but she’s not especially bright.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Perfect (Impulse, #2))
“
I love you, Lucy. You take care of me, I take care of you"? -Aspen
"It wasn't a promise, but an invitation. And I nodded my head, accepting it, and stepping into a future bigger than either of us could have hoped for" -Lucy
”
”
Kiera Cass (Happily Ever After (The Selection, #0.4, 0.5, 2.5, 2.6, 3.3))
“
Just look at this life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, impossible poverty all around us, overcrowding, degeneracy, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lies...Yet in all the houses and streets it's quiet, peaceful; of the fifty thousand people who live in town there is not one who would cry out or become loudly indignant. We see those who go to the market to buy food, eat during the day, sleep during the night, who talk their nonsense, get married, grow old, complacently drag their dead to the cemetery; but we don't see or hear those who suffer, and the horrors of life go on somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is quiet, peaceful, and only mute statistics protest: so many gone mad, so many buckets drunk, so many children dead of malnutrition... And this order is obviously necessary; obviously the happy man feels good only because the unhappy bear their burden silently, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It's a general hypnosis. At the door of every happy, contented man somebody should stand with a little hammer, constantly tapping, to remind him that unhappy people exist, that however happy he may be, sooner or later life will show him its claws, some calamity will befall him--illness, poverty, loss--and nobody will hear or see, just as he doesn't hear or see others now. But there is nobody with a little hammer, the happy man lives on, and the petty cares of life stir him only slightly, as wind stirs an aspen--and everything is fine.
”
”
Anton Chekhov (Five Great Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions: Short Stories))
“
Childhood is a wilderness.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
That evening after dinner, I picked lemons from the tree in the backyard, the fruits golden bulbs under the rising moon.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir)
“
I think the closest thing I've ever felt to religion is when I'm with you.
”
”
HeartOfAspen (The Eagle´s Nest)
“
Carolina'dan America Singer, Beş."
Kafamı geriye çevirdim ve ışte oradaydı. Bu, Aspen'in benimle evlenmek için birikim yaptığını öğrendiğimde çekilen fotoğrafımdı. Fotoğraftaki kız ışıldıyordu, umutlu ve güzeldi. Âşık gibiydi. Ve ahmaklardan biri bu aşkin Prens Maxon'a duyulan aşk olduğunu düşünmüştü.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
I was so much more powerful than anyone knew. I was an animal learning to fight back, instinctively, fiercely. I was a brave girl. I was a fit fox.
I realized that the most empowering important thing was actually simply taking care of myself.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
You deserve better." Mercifully, he kept eating as he spoke.
"You've got to stop thinking of me that way. When it's just you and me, I'm not a Five and you're not a Six. We're just Aspen and American. And I don't want anything in the world but you."
"But I can't stop thinking that way." He looked at me. "That's how I was raised. Since I was little, it was 'Sixes are born to serve' and 'Sixes aren't meant to be seen.' My whole life, I've been taught to be invisible." He grabbed my hand in a viselike grip. "If we're together, Mer, you're going to be invisible, too. And I don't want that for you."
"Aspen, we've talked about this. I know that things will be different, and I'm prepared. I don't know how to make it any clearer." I put my hand on his heart. "The moment you're ready to ask, I'm ready to say yes."
It was terrifying to put myself out there like that, to make it absolutely clear how deep my affection ran. He knew what I was saying, But if making myself vulnerable meant he'd be brave, I'd endure it. His eyes searched mine. If he was looking for doubt, he was wasting his time. Aspen was the one thing I was sure of.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
Along the field as we came by
A year ago, my love and I,
The aspen over stile and stone
Was talking to itself alone.
'Oh who are these that kiss and pass?
A country lover and his lass;
Two lovers looking to be wed;
And time shall put them both to bed,
But she shall lie with earth above,
And he beside another love.'
And sure enough beneath the tree
There walks another love with me,
And overhead the aspen heaves
Its rainy-sounding silver leaves;
And I spell nothing in their stir,
But now perhaps they speak to her,
And plain for her to understand
They talk about a time at hand
When I shall sleep with clover clad,
And she beside another lad.
”
”
A.E. Housman (A Shropshire Lad)
“
Babamdan gelen mektubu ellerimde tuttum.
Aspen'in prenses olamayacağımdan emin oluşu aklıma geldi.
Halk oylamasında en sonuncu olduğumu hatırladım.
Maxon'ın haftanın ilk günlerinde verdiği şifreli sözü düşündüm...
Gözlerimi yumdum ve kendimi yokladım.
Bunu gerçekten yapabilir miydim?
Illéa'nın yeni prensesi olabilir miydim?
”
”
Derya İmer Aydınlık (The Elite (The Selection, #2))
“
On this walk I'd had so much time and space to actually figure out who I was without my mother's influence. I understood now: the things that my mother had found made her happy were not the same as the things that made me happy. And I understood: that was okay.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
What are you doing here?" I whispered, smiling in the dark.
"I had to see you," he breathed into my cheek as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me down until we were lying side by side on the bed.
"I have so much to tell you, Aspen."
"Shhh, don't say a word. If anyone hears, there'll be hell to pay. Just let me look at you."
And so I obeyed. I stayed there, quiet and still, while Aspen stared into my eyes. When he had his fill of that, he went to nuzzling his nose into my neck and hair. And then his hands were moving up and down the curve of my waist to my hip over and over and over. I heard his breathing get heavy, and something about that drew me in.
His lips, hidden in my neck, started kissing me. I drew in sharp breaths. I couldn't help it. Aspen's lips traveled up my chin and covered my mouth, effectively silencing my gasps. I wrapped myself around him, our rushed grabbing and the humidity of the night covering us both in sweat.
It was a stolen moment.
Aspen's lips finally slowed, though I was nowhere near ready to stop. But we had to be smart. If we went any further, and there was ever evidence of it, we'd both be thrown in jail.
Another reason everyone married young: Waiting is torture.
"I should go," he whispered.
"But I want you to stay." My lips were by his ears. I could smell his soap again.
"America Singer, one day you will fall asleep in my arms every night. And you'll wake up to my kisses every morning. And them some." I bit my lip at the thought. "But now I have to go. We're pushing our luck."
I sighed and loosened my grip. He was right.
"I love you, America."
"I love you, Aspen."
These secret moments would be enough to get me through everything coming: Mom's disappointment when I wasn't chosen, the work I'd have to do to help Aspen save, the eruption that was coming when he asked Dad for my hand, and whatever struggles we'd go through once we were married. None of it mattered. Not if I had Aspen.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
And the other woman's breasts didn't look nearly as swollen as hers," Aspen went on.
Pick snorted. "I'd say."
The blonde shot him a glare. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"
He grinned at her. "Pick."
She blinked. "Pick what? I'm not picking out your name."
"No, that's my name, Tinker Bell. Pick, short for Patrick Jacob Ryan. You like?
”
”
Linda Kage (To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men, #2))
“
Smiling at an echo of his voice on my mind’s stage, I felt the void of all I hadn’t said.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir)
“
Nights alone in my yellow kitchen, I made myself hot chocolate. I missed my mother. In my window, maple leaves rusted, young fall blooming.
”
”
Aspen Matis
“
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
”
”
Alfred Tennyson
“
I'm bound to say I was not feeling entirely at my ease. There is something about the man that is calculated to strike terror into the stoutest heart. If ever there was a bloke at the very mention of whose name it would be excusable for people to tremble like aspens, that bloke is Sir Roderick Glossop. He has an enormous bald head, all the hair which ought to be on it seeming to have run into his eyebrows, and his eyes go through you like a couple of Death Rays.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (Carry On, Jeeves (Jeeves, #3))
“
How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky, how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you, even your eyes, even your imagination. The Soul at Last The Lord’s terrifying kindness has come to me. It was only a small silvery thing—say a piece of silver cloth, or a thousand spider webs woven together, or a small handful of aspen leaves, with their silver backs shimmering. And
”
”
Mary Oliver (Why I Wake Early)
“
Those late August mornings smelt of autumn from day-break till the hour when the sun-baked earth allowed the cool sea breezes to drive back the then less heavy aroma of threshed wheat, open furrows, and reeking manure. A persistent dew clung sparkling to the skirts of the hedgerows, and if, about noon, Vinca came upon a fallen aspen leaf, the white underside of its still green surface would be damp and glistening. Moist mushrooms poked up through the earth and, now that the nights were chillier, garden spiders retired in the evenings to the shed where the playthings were kept, and there wisely took up their abode on the ceiling.
”
”
Colette Gauthier-Villars (Ripening Seed (English and French Edition))
“
If your mind and spirit are seduced by images of windswept ridge tops, flutters of aspen leaves caressed by a canyon breeze and the crimson tendrils of dying sun…if your fingers feel the silken pulse of a lover and your lips taste the deep kisses of building passion…if nostrils flare with the conjured scents of gunpowder and perfume, sage brush and pine, and your ears delight in the murmur of river current…if your heart pounds at the clash of good and evil and with each twist and turn of interwoven lives you feel a primal throb, then I have accomplished my mission.
”
”
Reid Lance Rosenthal (Threads West: An American Saga (Threads West, #1))
“
Me quedé despierta un rato más, pensando en él y en lo mucho que le quería, y en la sensación que me producía su amor. Me sentía especial, incomparable, única. Ninguna reina, en ningún trono, podía sentirse más importante que yo.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
In the aftermath of destruction, a silence settles – the stillness of fresh loss. People’s cheerful chatter is fainter, the blue color of sky dimmer; now that horror is undeniable and feels inescapable, the value of life seems lessened.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
Hey, honey!” I called brightly. “You’re home early. And here I didn’t even get to put a bow on the gift I have for you.”
Scotini glanced from Noel to me and then sent Caroline a scandalized glance. “Oh my God. Your brother’s gay?”
Really? I turned to her too, and with the same tone, I said, “Oh my God. Is he fucking stupid?”
She just sighed, looking a little ashamed, as if embarrassed she’d ever had anything to do with such a brainless douche.
“Ten?” Noel strode over, scowling hard. “What the hell are you doing? Aspen called at work, saying you were beating the shit out of some stranger in our backyard. So, I come home to find this. Who is this guy?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Well, why don’t I introduce you, buddy. This here is Sander Scotini.”
Noel pulled back in shock and stared at Scotini before a small smile lit his face. “Is he really?”
I nodded. “And Sandy,” I said, picking the little shit up off the ground, by his hair. “Meet Caroline’s overprotective, homicidal big brother, Noel Gamble.
”
”
Linda Kage (A Perfect Ten (Forbidden Men, #5))
“
I reached for her, pushing back the fall of hair-it was heavy and thick and smooth to the touch-and tilted her chin so that the moonlight shone on her wet face.
We married each other that night, there on a bed of fallen pine needles-even today, the scent of pitch-pine stirs me-with Henry's distant flute for a wedding march and the arching white birch boughs for our basilica. At first, she quivered like an aspen, and I was ashamed at my lack of continence, yet I could not let go of her. I felt like Peleus on the beach, clinging to Thetis, only to find that, suddenly, it was she who held me; that same furnace in her nature that had flared up in anger blazed again, in passion.
”
”
Geraldine Brooks (March)
“
I turn and walk back to the home shore whose tall yellow bluffs still bare of snow I can see nearly half a mile to the north. I find my way as I came, over dusty sandbars and by old channels, through shrubby stands of willows. The cold, late afternoon sun breaks through its cloud cover and streaks the grey sand mixed with snow.
As it has fallen steadily in the past weeks, the river has left behind many shallow pools, and these are now roofed with ice. When I am close to the main shore I come upon one of them, not far from the wooded bank. The light snow that fell a few days ago has blown away; the ice is polished and is thick enough to stand on. I can see to the bottom without difficulty, as through heavy dark glass.
I bend over, looking at the debris caught there in the clear, black depth of the ice: I see a few small sticks, and many leaves. There are alder leaves, roughly toothed and still half green; the more delicate birch leaves and aspen leaves, the big, smooth poplar leaves, and narrow leaves from the willows. They are massed or scattered, as they fell quietly or as the wind blew them into the freezing water. Some of them are still fresh in color, glowing yellow and orange; others are mottled with grey and brown. A few older leaves lie sunken and black on the silty bottom. Here and there a pebble of quartz is gleaming. But nothing moves there. It is a still, cold world, something like night, with its own fixed planets and stars.
”
”
John Meade Haines (The Stars, the Snow, the Fire: Twenty-Five Years in the Alaska Wilderness)
“
If I could mark clearly, convincingly and consistently what was good for me and also what was bad — if I could say yes and also no, as if it were the law — it would become my law.
It finally had to.
I understood that it wouldn’t be easy, it would be very hard; I’d need to resist the habit I had developed long ago – with conviction. I’d have to be impolite, an inconvenience, and sometimes awkward. But if I could commit, all that discomfort would add up to zap predatory threats like a Taser gun. I’d stun them. They’d bow to me. I’d let my no echo against the mountains.
And better to feel bad for a moment saying no – and stop it – than to get harmed.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Girl in the Woods: A Memoir)
“
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.
Sudden and magnificent, the sun's broad golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.
As they stared blankly, in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realized all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses, and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces, and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demigod is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and light-hearted as before.
”
”
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
“
And I thought how many satisfied, happy people really do exist in this world! And what a powerful force they are! Just take a look at this life of ours and you will see the arrogance and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak. Everywhere there's unspeakable poverty, overcrowding, degeneracy, drunkenness, hypocrisy and stupid lies... And yet peace and quiet reign in every house and street. Out of fifty thousand people you won't find one who is prepared to shout out loud and make a strong protest. We see people buying food in the market, eating during the day, sleeping at night-time, talking nonsense, marrying, growing old and then contentedly carting their dead off to the cemetery. But we don't hear or see those who suffer: the real tragedies of life are enacted somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is calm and peaceful and the only protest comes from statistics - and they can't talk. Figures show that so many went mad, so many bottles of vodka were emptied, so many children died from malnutrition. And clearly this kind of system is what people need. It,s obvious that the happy man feels contented only because the unhappy ones bear their burden without saying a word: if it weren't for their silence, happiness would be quite impossible. It's a kind of mass hypnosis. Someone ought to stand with a hammer at the door of every contented man, continually banging on it to remind him that there are unhappy people around and that however happy he may be at that time, sooner or later life will show him its claws and disaster will overtake him in the form of illness, poverty, bereavement and there will be no one to hear or see him. But there isn't anyone holding a hammer, so our happy man goes his own sweet way and is only gently ruffled by life's trivial cares, as an aspen is ruffled by the breeze. All's well as far as he's concerned
”
”
Anton Chekhov (Gooseberries and other stories (Penguin Little Black Classics, #34))
“
Last Night’s Moon,"
“When will we next walk together
under last night’s moon?”
- Tu Fu
March aspens, mist
forest. Green rain pins down
the sea, early evening
cyanotype. Silver saltlines, weedy
toques of low tide, pillow lava’s
black spill indelible
in the sand. Unbroken
broken sea.
—
Rain sharpens marsh-hair
birth-green of the spring firs.
In the bog where the dead never disappear,
where river birch drown, the surface
strewn with reflection. This is the acid-soaked
moss that eats bones, keeps flesh;
the fermented ground where time stops and
doesn’t; dissolves the skull, preserves
the brain, wrinkled pearl in black mud.
—
In the autumn that made love
necessary, we stood in rubber boots
on the sphagnum raft and learned
love is soil–stronger than peat or sea–
melting what it holds.
The past
is not our own. Mole’s ribbon of earth,
termite house,
soaked sponge. It rises,
keloids of rain on wood; spreads,
milkweed galaxy, broken pod
scattering the debris of attention.
Where you are
while your body is here, remembering
in the cold spring afternoon.
The past
is a long bone.
—
Time is like the painter’s lie, no line
around apple or along thigh, though the apple
aches to its sweet edge, strains
to its skin, the seam of density. Invisible line
closest to touch. Lines of wet grass
on my arm, your tongue’s
wet line across my back.
All the history in the bone-embedded hills
of your body. Everything your mouth
remembers. Your hands manipullate
in the darkness, silver bromide
of desire darkening skin with light.
—
Disoriented at great depths,
confused by the noise of shipping routes,
whales hover, small eyes squinting as they consult
the magnetic map of the ocean floor. They strain,
a thousand miles through cold channels;
clicking thrums of distant loneliness
bounce off seamounts and abyssal plains. They look up
from perpetual dusk to rods of sunlight,
a solar forest at the surface.
Transfixed in the dark summer
kitchen: feet bare on humid
linoleum, cilia listening. Feral
as the infrared aura of the snake’s prey, the bees’
pointillism, the infrasonic
hum of the desert heard by the birds.
The nighthawk spans the ceiling;
swoops. Hot kitchen air
vibrates. I look up
to the pattern of stars under its wings.
”
”
Anne Michaels
“
She sometimes takes her little brother for a walk round this way," explained Bingo. "I thought we would meet her and bow, and you could see her, you know, and then we would walk on."
"Of course," I said, "that's enough excitement for anyone, and undoubtedly a corking reward for tramping three miles out of one's way over ploughed fields with tight boots, but don't we do anything else? Don't we tack on to the girl and buzz along with her?"
"Good Lord!" said Bingo, honestly amazed. "You don't suppose I've got nerve enough for that, do you? I just look at her from afar off and all that sort of thing. Quick! Here she comes! No, I'm wrong!"
It was like that song of Harry Lauder's where he's waiting for the girl and says, "This is her-r-r. No, it's a rabbut." Young Bingo made me stand there in the teeth of a nor'-east half-gale for ten minutes, keeping me on my toes with a series of false alarms, and I was just thinking of suggesting that we should lay off and give the rest of the proceedings a miss, when round the corner there came a fox-terrier, and Bingo quivered like an aspen. Then there hove in sight a small boy, and he shook like a jelly. Finally, like a star whose entrance has been worked up by the personnel of the ensemble, a girl appeared, and his emotion was painful to witness. His face got so red that, what with his white collar and the fact that the wind had turned his nose blue, he looked more like a French flag than anything else. He sagged from the waist upwards, as if he had been filleted.
He was just raising his fingers limply to his cap when he suddenly saw that the girl wasn't alone. A chappie in clerical costume was also among those present, and the sight of him didn't seem to do Bingo a bit of good. His face got redder and his nose bluer, and it wasn't till they had nearly passed that he managed to get hold of his cap.
The girl bowed, the curate said, "Ah, Little. Rough weather," the dog barked, and then they toddled on and the entertainment was over.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse