Chestnut Springs Quotes

You’ll be fine. You’re 25. Feeling [unsure] and lost is part of your path. Don’t avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you and use it. Take a breath. You’ll be okay. Even if you don’t feel okay all the time.

If this were my last moment alive, how would I want it to be?

Everything's amazing right now, and nobody's happy.

Save a horse, ride a cowboy.

What the hell is the cowboy hat rule? You wear the hat, you ride the cowboy.

Willa might be a bit of a psycho—after all, she did just push a child into the pool—but the more time I spend with her, the more I feel like she’s my psycho.

She and I really are binary stars, stuck in each other’s orbit, drawn together by forces we can’t see or understand—but that we can feel.

Life lesson, shithead. Careful who you pick a fight with. Someone insane might love him.

You don’t tell a person you love them with the expectation they’ll say it back. You tell them because you want to. You tell them because it’s true.

You were out there this whole time, and now I know you exist, and I can never go back. Wouldn’t want to if I could.

It strikes me that perhaps I’m not an easy woman to love, but Theo does it so effortlessly that I feel like I could be. Like I deserve to be.

And I realize in that moment maybe I am heartless after all, because the beautiful girl with the copper hair grinning back at me right now is the one who stole it.

I could fucking bury whoever made you believe you’re as unlovable as you seem to think.

Times have changed, Sloane. I’m not scared anymore. You’re not my fucking friend. You’re just mine.

I think people mistake you being in a bad mood when you’re just overwhelmed. I think you needed to lie here for a few minutes with no one needing you. I think you’re overstimulated and even the best of us require some time to collect ourselves.

It means . . . I live you. Like I see you everywhere, you are in everything. Our connection is more than physical.

Princess, you look like you were made for me." "I feel like I was made for you.

Don’t you get it, Jas? I’ve seen all the darkest parts of you and I’m still here. I still want more. Stop trying to scare me away. It isn’t going to work.

Willa: You only live once, you know. This is a story you could tell your kids one day. Summer: What the fuck kind of stories do you plan on telling your children, Wils?

The answer is no. None of that shit matters. Because we’re me and you. We’re us. Unlikely and inevitable all at once. We’re forever.

Please don’t cry. I fucking hate it when you cry. It’s like a bullet to my chest.” “Taken many bullets, have you?” My voice is weak, and I hate that. “No,” he husks, “but I would. For you, I would.

I don’t care. Don’t you get it? I’m in love with you, Willa. Prickly legs, random carrots in your purse, pregnant, not pregnant. I want you.

I just remembered that he called me the morning after you two first got together. And do you know what he said to me? He said, ‘Mom, I met her.’ And I said, ‘Who?’ He said, ‘The woman I’m going to marry one day.

Have you tried talking to him?” I blink at her. “Talking?” “Yes. You know . . . where you use your mouth to create words that describe what’s going through your head.” “Sounds weird. Sounds awkward. Don’t like it. Not approved by me.

Careful, that one’s got claws,” Cade offers right as Willa shoves a pointy elbow into his ribs. I grin. “That’s okay. I like having my back scratched.

You’ve got me, Princess. Only you, I promise,

See, Sloane? You can wear someone else’s ring, but we both know you’ve always been mine.

Watch your fucking tone when you’re talking to the mother of my child.

I love your freckles,” he murmurs from behind me, the pad of his finger tracing lines across the expanse of my back. “They remind me of all the constellations. Like I could draw lines between them, and pictures would appear.

I don’t know. New sounds scary. It sounds like failure.

You have to freak out with me because I need you. And I love you. I love you so much it paralyzes me to think of carrying on without you. You’re not allowed to shut me out. Because you made me need you, and now you have to deal with the consequences.

I’m done pretending to be head over heels in love with you because I’m legitimately head over heels in love with you. And acting like I’m not tears me up.

Choosing each other. Finding each other. Showing up for each other. And everything about the moment is flawless.

Nah, Sunny. You’re my only girl.

I’ll take a boozy brunch with my bestie and a dirty book in bed by eight for a thousand, Alex.

Keep talking like that and I’m going to fuck the filth right out of your pretty mouth.

Did Winter say something to you? Do we like her? Do we hate her? Am I supposed to be mad at something with you? Because I will be if you are. Just tell me how to be supportive.

If we’re struggling, we’re still in motion, yeah? Heading somewhere better. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.

Beau: Willa doesn’t run my show. Cade: You must be new here. Willa runs everyone’s show.

Sunny, you’re gonna make me lose my mind.” “Good,” I murmur against his mouth. “We’ll be insane together. I’m so tired of doing it alone.

For too long, I was a soft, demure little dove. And then they burned me. Scorched me. Turns out I’m a dragon and I’m fed the fuck up with boys and their bullshit.

You know what I'm sick of, Summer?" "What's that?" "Having you think I'm out fucking everything that moves when I've looked at nothing and no one since the first day I laid eyes on you. I stepped into that godforsaken boardroom, and you practically demanded I become obsessed with you.

You are not a burden. You are not a waste of time. You are very wanted. And anyone who makes you feel you’re anything less deserves Rhett Eaton’s fist to their face. Or yours. You can hit back too, you know? I’ll bail you out every fucking time.

Hey, Willa?” “Hey, Luke,” I reply dryly, since the be quiet part obviously didn’t register. “Sometimes I wish you were my mom.

I must have a stupid smile on my face as I stare back at him because I feel an elbow nudge against mine. “It’s nice to see someone looking at Cade like that. Defending him like that,” Jasper says. “Like they can see him for who he is rather than the man circumstances forced him to become.

One more championship and maybe I'll take my gold buckle and hang up my hat. Preferably on Summer Hamilton's head.

We’re often blind to the people we love the most.

Sometimes we seize the moment, and sometimes it seizes us.

Sounds like her loss, because you might be the coolest kid I’ve ever met.” She doesn’t use a sad voice, or a baby voice, she just talks to him like a normal human being. “Fucking hell,” I curse under my breath because she just practically hired herself.

That night he dreamt of horses in a field on a high plain where the spring rains had brought up the grass and the wildflowers out of the ground and the flowers ran all blue and yellow far as the eye could see and in the dream he was among the horses running and in the dream he himself could run with the horses and they coursed the young mares and fillies over the plain where their rich bay and their rich chestnut colors shone in the sun and the young colts ran with their dams and trampled down the flowers in a haze of pollen that hung in the sun like powdered gold and they ran he and the horses out along the high mesas where the ground resounded under their running hooves and they flowed and changed and ran and their manes and tails blew off of them like spume and there was nothing else at all in that high world and they moved all of them in a resonance that was like a music among them and they were none of them afraid neither horse nor colt nor mare and they ran in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I can’t wait to be old and retired and say things just to see how people will react to get my kicks. That’s the dream right there.

You do know you’re in love with that girl, don’t you?” “Yeah, Mom. I know.

You heard me, Red. You keep barking at me like that and I’m going to put you on your knees, open those strawberry lips, and fuck your face just to shut you up.

It bothers me that what we’re doing here can be filed away as fake when it’s the most real thing I’ve felt in my life.

I loved you the moment you walked into that boardroom and smirked at me like you knew something I didn’t. It bothered me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Because the very last thing I need in my life is someone who makes me feel like there’s not enough oxygen in my lungs when I’ve only just caught my breath.

That’s everyone, Tink. You’ve ruined me. Don’t you get it? I only see you. You’ve got all my attention. Every last bit of it.

He’s constantly trying to blend into the background, but even when he’s hiding, I see him.

Beg.” “Pardon me?” “You heard me.” Her lips don’t even twitch. She’s not joking at all. “Beg.

With everyone around me screaming his name and cheering for him, someone who’s been theirs for over a decade now, he feels like mine. Because he’s staring at me.

None of that shit matters. Because we’re me and you. We’re us. Unlikely and inevitable all at once. We’re forever.

What’s happening is Miss Independent met the treat-her-like-a-princess guy, and she’s freaking out.

I love you, Sloane Winthrop. I always have. I love you so damn hard I don’t even know what to do with it. You’re my person. And I think I’m yours too.” “You have always been my person,” she chokes out. “I love you so much.

Not a big fan of sharing something once I decide it’s mine.

He’s connected the freckles to say Mine. And God, in this moment, I feel like that might be true.

I’m tired of doing what I should and ignoring what I want. And what I want is you. Inside me. All around me. I want you with me. And I want to be the only one.

This girl has brought me back to life without even trying. All that time I searched for someone to make me feel something, and she was right fucking there.

I know you’re scared of losing control around me.” Her chin tips up as though she’s told me something that will make me back down. Run me off. It doesn’t. “No, I’m scared of you becoming something I can’t live without.

There's something fractured about Beau. About his spirit. Like he's torn between so many versions of himself and doesn't know which one to pick. I wish he knew it's okay to be all of them with me.

I want to do distinctly ungentlemanly things to Summer Hamilton.

Yeah, don’t worry, Winter. We’re gonna free you from that husband and bury him in the back field. It’ll be like that Dixie Chicks song. Rob is the new Earl.

I don’t know how no one else sees it. Sees her. It’s like we’re all staring at the same painting and every other person in this town is missing the point.

I’m definitely in my country-boy era.

Then she turns and walks back toward her bedroom, holds one fist up above her head, and says, “Fuck the patriarchy.

Jasper: I don’t like talking to people. Sloane: You talk to me. Jasper: You’re not people. Sloane: Lmao. What am I then? Jasper: My person.

Rhett: Can you fuck off now? Beau: Sadly, no. You’re stuck with me forever. Don’t die out there tonight! Rhett: What if that was the last thing you ever said to me? Beau: Then I’d think to myself: if only Rhett had listened to my good advice.

Tell me what to do, Summer. Tell me, and I’ll do it. Was I unclear before? Because I want to be crystal clear now. I love you. I loved you the moment you walked into that boardroom and smirked at me like you knew something I didn’t. It bothered me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Wanting to know what you know. I fixated on it, but I think I was just fixated on you.

I’m trying to give you what you need. But if you think I don’t like what I see, then I’m not the one who needs his head checked. Because your wellbeing has quickly become my number one priority.” “Why?” “Because I fucking adore you. Haven’t you been paying attention?

I will go wherever you want. I will wear whatever you want. I will never turn my phone off again. I will always, always be there for you. For Vivi. You don’t need to beg, and you don’t need to say please. For as long as I live, for as long as you need me, you’ll have me. Okay? Never doubt that.

It’s like she and I are tethered together, but she’s the strong one. The pillar. And when troubled waters wash me downstream, all I have to do is follow the rope that ties me back to her. It always leads me back to her.

No, Sunny. I shouldn’t be scared. You’re the least scary thing in my life. You’re not just tattooed on my skin. You’re branded on my heart. Woven into the fiber of my being. The most constant and reassuring person in my life. When I close my eyes, I see you. When you’re away from me, I dream about you. When I need someone to lean on, you are always there for me. God. You’ve loved me when I haven’t even been able to love myself.” My hands squeeze her cheeks and tears seep out over them. But she’s smiling up at me like I hung the moon.

This thing between us? For me? It’s everything. It’s it. You’re it.

Will you take back my feminist card if I tell you I really just want to live in that little house on the ranch, teach guitar lessons, get titty-fucked in the hot tub, and have a bunch of adorable babies?

That night we were reckless. But god, I’d be reckless with you over and over again if it means ending up here.” ‘That sentiment. This man. It’s like there was something missing inside me. Like I wasn’t whole, until he came along.

Sometimes things just happen, and you don’t realize how right they are until you’re in the thick of it.

Do you love her?” I stare at Harvey, trying to work it all out in my head like I have been for days. “Of course, I love her. I’ve always loved her.” “Did you tell her that?” A stone drops in my stomach. “No.

It’s like I’ve been searching for something, something to tie me to this new reality. I wasn’t looking for love; I was looking for a purpose. I just didn’t expect my purpose to be you.

Harvey: Two rooms or one? ;) Jasper: Don’t be weird. One room, two beds. Harvey: I’m not weird. You’re the one with a crush on your cousin. Jasper: She’s not my cousin. Harvey: Ha! But you didn’t deny the crush.

Cade is the embodiment of actions speaking louder than words. He wasn’t about to fall all over himself apologizing for not making enough coffee for me. Instead, he just made more and left me a mug, knowing that it would make me feel good. And a Post-it note addressed to Red. Maybe I’m an idiot but it feels sweet. Coming from Cade, it is sweet.

You’re not just tattooed on my skin. You’re branded on my heart. Woven into the fiber of my being. The most constant and reassuring person in my life. When I close my eyes, I see you. When you’re away from me, I dream about you. When I need someone to lean on, you are always there for me. God. You’ve loved me when I haven’t even been able to love myself.

I love you,” she says, her voice soft but sure. I gaze down at her and wonder what the hell I did to get this fucking lucky. “I love you too. And I don’t need to ride tonight. Or ever again. Hearing that from your lips is the biggest win of my life.” I take my hat, and I plunk it on her head. Just like I told myself I would. And then I kiss her.

It doesn't have any effect on your life. What do you care?! People try to talk about it like it's a social issue. Like when you see someone stand up on a talk show and say, 'How am I supposed to explain to my child that two men are getting married?' ... I dunno, it's your shitty kid, you fucking' tell 'em. Why is that anyone else's problem? Two guys are in love but they can't get married because you don't want to talk to your ugly child for fuckin' five minutes?

We’re going to have to tell people soon.” “Yeah. I already told my mom. I hope that’s okay.” “What did she say?” “That I’ve got some catching up to do. And that she can’t wait to see you.” “Vivi, you mean? Yeah, that will be nice.” “No, Winter. You. She can’t wait to meet you.” “That should be interesting. Hope she’s not too disappointed.” “I could fucking bury whoever made you believe you’re as unlovable as you seem to think.

One day, years down the road, we’ll be gray-haired and soft in the middle section, drinking an enormous glass of spiced rum and eggnog around the Christmas tree. I’ll make some joke about the night I offered friends-with-benefits to you. Rhett will howl. Summer will roll her eyes, because I’m going to tell her tomorrow, and she’ll think I’m ridiculous for bringing it up so many years later. Your small-town wifey will throw a hand over her chest”—Willa imitates the motion—“and act scandalized all night. In fact, she’ll give me the cold shoulder for the rest of our lives. And I’ll outlive her, so that’s fine. Joke’s on her. I win. And my husband will be accustomed to my antics, so he’ll just roll his eyes and continue drinking.

Every year, Kansas watches the world die. Civilizations of wheat grow tall and green; they grow old and golden, and then men shaped from the same earth as the crop cut those lives down. And when the grain is threshed, and the dances and festivals have come and gone, then the fields are given over to fire, and the wheat stubble ascends into the Kansas sky, and the moon swells to bursting above a blackened earth. The fields around Henry, Kansas, had given up their gold and were charred. Some had already been tilled under, waiting for the promised life of new seed. Waiting for winter, and for spring, and another black death. The harvest had been good. Men, women, boys and girls had found work, and Henry Days had been all hot dogs and laughter, even without Frank Willis's old brown truck in the parade. The truck was over on the edge of town, by a lonely barn decorated with new No Trespassing signs and a hole in the ground where the Willis house had been in the spring and the early summer. Late summer had now faded into fall, and the pale blue farm house was gone. Kansas would never forget it.

You’re so busy running around being a showboat rodeo boy that you don’t even realize what you’ve got. You think we all pick on you for riding bulls because we’re just being dicks? It’s because we love you. You don’t remember when mom died. But I do. I was there. I watched our dad hold her while she bled out. Suddenly, at eight, I was wrangling you and Beau because dad was a shell of himself, focused on taking care of Violet. And now I’m a single dad. I watch Luke grow every day and dread the day I can’t be the one to keep him safe.” I bite my inner cheek. I know Cade is serious right now because I don’t think I can remember him ever telling me that he loves me. “When you have a kid, everyone warns you about the sleepless nights. The explosive diaper changes. How they grow so fast that you hemorrhage money on clothing them. What they don’t tell you is that you’ll never spend another day of your life without worrying about another person. You’ll never completely relax again because that person you created will always, always be on your mind. You’ll wonder where they are, what they’re doing, and if they’re okay.

That ride was perhaps the most wonderful thing that happened to them in Narnia. Have you ever had a gallop on a horse? Think of that; and then take away the heavy noise of the hoofs and the jingle of the bit and imagine instead the almost noiseless padding of the great paws. Then imagine instead of the black or grey or chestnut back of the horse the soft roughness of golden fur, and the mane flying back in the wind. And then imagine you are going about twice as fast as the fastest racehorse. But this is a mount that doesn't need to be guided and never grows tired. He rushes on and on, never missing his footing, never hesitating, threading his way with perfect skill between tree trunks, jumping over bush and briar and the smaller streams, wading the larger, swimming the largest of all. And you are riding not on a road nor in a park nor even on the downs, but right across Narnia, in spring, down solemn avenues of beech and across sunny glades of oak, through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees, past roaring waterfalls and mossy rocks and echoing caverns, up windy slopes alight with gorse bushes, and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along giddy ridges and down, down, down again into wild valleys and out into acres of blue flowers.

Wild Peaches" When the world turns completely upside down You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore; We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town, You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color. Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor, We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown. The winter will be short, the summer long, The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot, Tasting of cider and of scuppernong; All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all. The squirrels in their silver fur will fall Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot. 2 The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold. The misted early mornings will be cold; The little puddles will be roofed with glass. The sun, which burns from copper into brass, Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass. Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover; A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year; The spring begins before the winter’s over. By February you may find the skins Of garter snakes and water moccasins Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear. 3 When April pours the colors of a shell Upon the hills, when every little creek Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell, When strawberries go begging, and the sleek Blue plums lie open to the blackbird’s beak, We shall live well — we shall live very well. The months between the cherries and the peaches Are brimming cornucopias which spill Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black; Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches We’ll trample bright persimmons, while you kill Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback. 4 Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones There’s something in this richness that I hate. I love the look, austere, immaculate, Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones. There’s something in my very blood that owns Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate, A thread of water, churned to milky spate Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones. I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray, Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves; That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath, Summer, so much too beautiful to stay, Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves, And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.

THOSE BORN UNDER Pacific Northwest skies are like daffodils: they can achieve beauty only after a long, cold sulk in the rain. Henry, our mother, and I were Pacific Northwest babies. At the first patter of raindrops on the roof, a comfortable melancholy settled over the house. The three of us spent dark, wet days wrapped in old quilts, sitting and sighing at the watery sky. Viviane, with her acute gift for smell, could close her eyes and know the season just by the smell of the rain. Summer rain smelled like newly clipped grass, like mouths stained red with berry juice — blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. It smelled like late nights spent pointing constellations out from their starry guises, freshly washed laundry drying outside on the line, like barbecues and stolen kisses in a 1932 Ford Coupe. The first of the many autumn rains smelled smoky, like a doused campsite fire, as if the ground itself had been aflame during those hot summer months. It smelled like burnt piles of collected leaves, the cough of a newly revived chimney, roasted chestnuts, the scent of a man’s hands after hours spent in a woodshop. Fall rain was not Viviane’s favorite. Rain in the winter smelled simply like ice, the cold air burning the tips of ears, cheeks, and eyelashes. Winter rain was for hiding in quilts and blankets, for tying woolen scarves around noses and mouths — the moisture of rasping breaths stinging chapped lips. The first bout of warm spring rain caused normally respectable women to pull off their stockings and run through muddy puddles alongside their children. Viviane was convinced it was due to the way the rain smelled: like the earth, tulip bulbs, and dahlia roots. It smelled like the mud along a riverbed, like if she opened her mouth wide enough, she could taste the minerals in the air. Viviane could feel the heat of the rain against her fingers when she pressed her hand to the ground after a storm. But in 1959, the year Henry and I turned fifteen, those warm spring rains never arrived. March came and went without a single drop falling from the sky. The air that month smelled dry and flat. Viviane would wake up in the morning unsure of where she was or what she should be doing. Did the wash need to be hung on the line? Was there firewood to be brought in from the woodshed and stacked on the back porch? Even nature seemed confused. When the rains didn’t appear, the daffodil bulbs dried to dust in their beds of mulch and soil. The trees remained leafless, and the squirrels, without acorns to feed on and with nests to build, ran in confused circles below the bare limbs. The only person who seemed unfazed by the disappearance of the rain was my grandmother. Emilienne was not a Pacific Northwest baby nor a daffodil. Emilienne was more like a petunia. She needed the water but could do without the puddles and wet feet. She didn’t have any desire to ponder the gray skies. She found all the rain to be a bit of an inconvenience, to be honest.