“
As they approached the next stall, the old woman tending to it looked up at Matthias with suspicious eyes. Nina nodded encouragingly at him.
Matthias smiled broadly and boomed in a singsong voice, “Hello, little friend!”
The woman went from wary to baffled. Nina decided to call it an improvement.
“And how are you today?” Matthias asked.
“Pardon?” the woman said.
“Nothing,” Nina said in Ravkan. “He was saying how beautifully the Ravkan women age.”
The woman gave a gap-toothed grin and ran her eyes up and down Matthias in an appraising fashion. “Always had a taste for Fjerdans. Ask him if he wants to play Princess and Barbarian,” she said with a cackle.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
“
Sometimes, letting go and realizing that things will unfold as they should is the best thing you can do for yourself.
”
”
Erin Zak (The Hummingbird Sanctuary)
“
I’ve watched it time and time again—a woman always slots into a man’s life better than he slots into hers. She will be the one who spends the most time at his flat, she will be the one who makes friends with all his friends and their girlfriends. She will be the one who sends his mother a bunch of flowers on her birthday. Women don’t like this rigmarole any more than men do, but they’re better at it—they just get on with it. This means that when a woman my age falls in love with a man, the list of priorities goes from this: Family Friends To this: Family Boyfriend Boyfriend’s family Boyfriend’s friends Girlfriends of the boyfriend’s friends Friends Which means, on average, you go from seeing your friend every weekend to once every six weekends. She becomes a baton and you’re the one at the very end of the track. You get your go for, say, your birthday or a brunch, then you have to pass her back round to the boyfriend to start the long, boring rotation again. These gaps in each other’s lives slowly but surely form a gap in the middle of your friendship. The love is still there, but the familiarity is not. Before you know it, you’re not living life together anymore. You’re living life separately with respective boyfriends then meeting up for dinner every six weekends to tell each other what living is like. I now understand why our mums cleaned the house before their best friend came round and asked them “What’s the news, then?” in a jolly, stilted way. I get how that happens. So don’t tell me when you move in with your boyfriend that nothing will change. There will be no road trip. The cycle works when it comes to holidays as well—I’ll get my buddy back for every sixth summer, unless she has a baby in which case I’ll get my road trip in eighteen years’ time. It never stops happening. Everything will change.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love)
“
Maybe the conference was an inversion layer of another kind, bringing me face-to-face with old friends and old places. With cancer and the Gap and the Old Man, railing about newfangled players and spicy food. Bringing me face-to-face early with death and old age and change.
”
”
Connie Willis (The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories)
“
Jesus is the true and better Adam, who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us (1 Corinthians 15). Jesus is the true and better Abel, who, though innocently slain, has blood that cries out for our acquittal, not our condemnation (Hebrews 12:24). Jesus is the true and better Abraham, who answered the call of God to leave the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void “not knowing whither he went” to create a new people of God. Jesus is the true and better Isaac, who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us all. God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me, because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love, from me.” Now we can say to God, “Now we know that you love us, because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love, from us.” Jesus is the true and better Jacob, who wrestled with God and took the blow of justice we deserved so that we, like Jacob, receive only the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us. Jesus is the true and better Joseph, who at the right hand of the King forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them. Jesus is the true and better Moses, who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant (Hebrews 3). Jesus is the true and better rock of Moses, who, struck with the rod of God’s justice, now gives us water in the desert. Jesus is the true and better Job—the truly innocent sufferer—who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends (Job 42). Jesus is the true and better David, whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves. Jesus is the true and better Esther, who didn’t just risk losing an earthly palace but lost the ultimate heavenly one, who didn’t just risk his life but gave his life—to save his people. Jesus is the true and better Jonah, who was cast out into the storm so we could be brought in.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism)
“
They were not quite friends, and far from lovers, but something indistinguishable connected them; a thin thread binding one to the other.
”
”
Leighann Hart (Loving Rosenfeld (Rosenfeld Duet, #1))
“
And through of all those visits, Linh and Wylie became close friends—though some occasionally wonder if there might be more between them than friendship. That’s pure speculation, of course—and given the age gap between them (which is significant, since Linh has yet to register for the match), it also seems somewhat unlikely.
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5))
“
Do you know Aggrey Awori?’ Mushana said, ‘He’s an old man.’ Awori was my age, regarded as a miracle of longevity in an AIDS stricken country; a Harvard graduate, Class of ’63, a track star. Thirty years ago, a rising bureaucrat, friend and confidant of the pugnacious prime minister, Milton Obote, a pompous gap-toothed northerner who had placed his trust in a goofy general named Idi Amin. Awori, powerful then, had been something of a scourge and a nationalist, but he was from a tribe that straddled the Kenyan border, where even the politics overlapped: Awori’s brother was a minister in the Kenyan government. ‘Awori is running for president.’ ‘Does he have a chance?’ Mushana shrugged. ‘Museveni will get another term.
”
”
Paul Theroux (Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town)
“
It was then that I made the discovery that his talk created reverberations, that the echo took a long time to reach one's ears. I began to compare it with French talk in which I had been enveloped for so long. The latter seemed more like the play of light on an alabaster vase, something reflective, nimble, dancing, liquid, evanescent, whereas the other, the Katsimbalistic language, was opaque, cloudy, pregnant with resonances which could only be understood long afterwards, when the reverberations announced the collision with thoughts, people, objects located in distant parts of the earth. The Frenchman puts walls about his talk, as he does about his garden: he puts limits about everything in order to feel at home. At bottom he lacks confidence in his fellow-man; he is skeptical because he doesn't believe in the innate goodness of human beings. He has become a realist because it is safe and practical. The Greek, on the other hand, is an adventurer: he is reckless and adaptable, he makes friends easily. The walls which you see in Greece, when they are not of Turkish or Venetian origin, go back to the Cyclopean age. Of my own experience I would say that there is no more direct, approachable, easy man to deal with than the Greek. He becomes a friend immediately: he goes out to you. With the Frenchman friendship is a long and laborious process: it may take a lifetime to make a friend of him. He is best in acquaintanceship where there is little to risk and where there are no aftermaths. The very word ami contains almost nothing of the flavor of friend, as we feel it in English. C'est mon ami cannot be translated by "this is my friend." There is no counterpart to this English phrase in the French language. It is a gap which has never been filled, like the word "home." These things affect conversation. One can converse all right, but it is difficult to have a heart to heart talk.
”
”
Henry Miller (The Colossus of Maroussi)
“
Though wildly different in both character and tastes, Jane and Mary shared a common bond aside from the royal blood which flowed in their veins: their religious devotion was unswerving, and the dominant factor in both of their lives. For Mary, the situation was heartbreaking. Jane's mother, Frances, had been a close childhood companion. Frances, like her husband and her daughter, was a Protestant, though perhaps not as fervent in her faith as her husband and eldest daughter. Despite the fact that she and Mary were on opposing sides of the religious fence, to all appearances their differing beliefs had never driven a wedge between the cousins. Frances was a seasoned courtier, and as such she was well skilled in the art of diplomacy. It seems likely, therefore, that when she was in the company of her childhood friend, the two women tactfully avoided conversing on the subject of religion. After all, there were many at court who managed to maintain friendships with people who held differing religious beliefs, and Mary had also been friendly with Jane's step-grandmother, Katherine Willoughby. But it was quite different with jane, for though Mary had tried her best with the teenager, and had done her utmost to be affectionate, the relationship was not a harmonious one. The age gap between them meant that to Jane, Mary was probably more like an aunt than a cousin. Mary may have been twenty years Jane's senior, but it was not age that lay at the heart of the matter; the reason for the distance between the two cousins was perfectly simple: religion.
”
”
Nicola Tallis (Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey)
“
Crawl to me, baby" I whisper, my voice raspy and sweet.
Nash doesn't even consider what I ask for more than one second. His knees hit the floor with a thud, he discards his shirt and begins moving toward me. My breathing increases as I watch his powerful inked body make his way toward me
”
”
Paisley Hope
“
but for the most part we lived in a harmonious household. Two really good friends, with a significant age, income, and authority gap.
”
”
Jen DeLuca (Well Matched (Well Met, #3))
“
Research by Katherine Kinzler and her colleagues indicates that humans are predisposed from an early age to use the original shibboleths—linguistic cues—as markers of group identity and as a basis for social preference. In a series of experiments using English and French children, they showed that six-month-old infants prefer to look at speakers who lack foreign accents, that ten-month-old infants prefer to accept toys from native language speakers, and that five-year-old children prefer to be friends with children who lack foreign accents. It seems that human brains, even before they can generate speech, use language to distinguish trustworthy Us from untrustworthy Them. Shibboleths
”
”
Joshua Greene (Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them)
“
He’s even trying to hurt me as I am coming. But the pain he is inflicting feels so good. It was like riding a thin line between pleasure and pain.
”
”
K.S. Originals (DADDY'S RAW FRIEND: AN AGE GAP YOUNG ADULT DADDY ROMANCE (Daddy It Hurts Collection Book 22))
“
Despite the more than thirty-year difference in our ages, I felt much more familiar with him than with friends my own age.
”
”
Hiromi Kawakami (Strange Weather in Tokyo)
“
We’re not all besties – the age gap and the fact that I’m their superior doesn’t allow it – but we are friends, and I value that.
”
”
Sheryl Browne (The Marriage Trap)
“
The best parties are a wild mixture. Take some corporation presidents, add a few lovely young actresses, a bearded painter, a professional jockey, your visiting friends from Brussels, a politician, a hairdresser, and a professor of physics, toss them all together, and try to get them to stop talking long enough to eat! It’s especially important to have all age groups. I’ve never noticed any generation gap. Of course I wouldn’t want to have hippies come crawling in with unwashed feet, but all the younger people I know are bright and attractive and have something to say. They also dress like human beings. They love to listen, too. They make wonderful guests.
”
”
Joan Crawford (My Way of Life)
“
I reach for her, pull her closer to me, wanting, no needing to hold her. “Yes, I do. I love you, Chloe Jane Morris. I think I always have and I just didn’t know what it was.”
She crawls closer to me, climbing into my lap. Tears are streaking down her cheeks unchecked. Her smile could light up the whole town in a blackout. “I love you, Raif Montgomery,” she says, and the tension leaves my body. Finally. I don’t know how long I’ve been longing to hear those words from her, but it feels like an age. Her mouth is mere inches from mine as she murmurs, “I’ve loved you forever. I don’t know how to stop.”
I pull her even closer. “Don’t ever stop, darlin’.” I plead with her as she closes the short gap between us and sears my mouth with her kiss.
”
”
Lissa Lynn Thomas (Renegade Heart)
“
Meet at the top, Sinclaire." Chap35 page 340
”
”
Elsie Silver (A False Start (Gold Rush Ranch, #4))
“
My Girl, My Reason, My Wildflower." Epilogue Page 380
”
”
Elsie Silver (A False Start (Gold Rush Ranch, #4))
“
And when you are old enough, Papa will teach you important lessons. Like how to throw proper punch. How to negotiate. How to make your enemies kneel." He pauses. "Also how to use modern cell phone, because your mother will not stop teasing Papa about flip phone.
”
”
Milka Moore (Milky For The Bratva Bully: An Age Gap, Milky Romance, Brother's Best Friend, Mafia Romance with ABF/ANR and Breeding (Cloverfield Academy Book 22))
“
Touch your pussy, baby. I like it better when you're desperate to come. You're so sweet and obedient.
”
”
Cassie Truett (Playing With Fire (Whittaker Ranch, #1))
“
Get it wet with that bratty little mouth of yours first. It needs something filling it.
”
”
Cassie Truett (Playing With Fire (Whittaker Ranch, #1))
“
Time to see how red your pretty ass gets when it gets the attention you've been begging for.
”
”
Cassie Truett (Playing With Fire (Whittaker Ranch, #1))
“
Austin Taylor was wild. It was the most beautiful thing about her. I'd tamed her a bit: earned her submission in the bedroom, gotten her used to kisses that didn't come with expectations, and saddled her with a pet name. But that didn't change the fact that she was wild and what was wild could not be bought or sold.
”
”
Cassie Truett (Playing With Fire (Whittaker Ranch, #1))
“
We flirted because it was fun, but it was clear we both knew we wouldn’t be more than friends. And then…we kissed, and everything changed.
”
”
Kat Singleton (More than Friends (Pembroke Hills, #3))
“
I’m falling hard and fast for Jude Kensington—my best friend—and I don’t think there’s anything I can do to stop it. All I can do is hide it and try my best to pretend it isn’t the truth.
”
”
Kat Singleton (More than Friends (Pembroke Hills, #3))