Magnolia Parks Quotes

He laughs and for some reason it sounds like I'm ringing the doorbell of the home I grew up in.

Our eyes hold like our hands won’t. I love you, he blinks. Prove it, I sigh.

Painful things can still be beautiful things, in case you didn’t know.

In another life I reckon I could have loved you,' I tell her. She gives me a little smile back. 'In another life I would have let you-' Never you mind that I already love her in this one.

Because she can only hate me how she hates me because she loves me how she loves me.

I think I understand for a fleeting moment why everything that’s bad and painful and sad is worth it if you love someone, because I’ll remember how he’s looking at me now forever.

how many loves do you get in a lifetime? I remember wondering that. How many people will look at me like he does, not just like I’m the sun but like I’m the whole god damn universe.

and I love her in the dark. I mean, fuck it—I down and out love her in all spectrums of light, even the absence of it.

Everything wonderful, everything magical, everything painful, everything beautiful and spectacular and wretched and defining that has happened to me happened with him. And I hate him for that.

It's the great undoing of my heart as I know it.

Can you die from a broken heart, do you know? And if I did and they cut me wide open, would I bleed loving him? When they lift my heart out of my chest cavity to weigh it, does it weigh the same as his top lip? Is his name carved into my third rib to the left? Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. He's killing me. Loving him is killing me too, and I'm afraid because how many loves really, do you get in a lifetime? How many chances do you give it before you let it go?

Daisy’s that feeling you get when you’re floating on your back in a pool and there’s so much fucking noise around you until you put your ears under and it all goes quiet. That’s how she feels to me.

He’s a time bomb for me, do you see now? That he’ll hurt me. He’ll always hurt me. I’ll never be safe with him, even if I’m always safe next to him.

I’ll wear it like a badge of honour forever that he loved me first, that he loved me at all.

What a mind fuck it is to comfort the person who just blew your whole heart open with a rifle.

The feel of him is my favourite feeling in the world, for all of history and all of time, write it down, ring the town bell and tell the scribes—I’ll wear it on my heart’s sleeve forever that I love him.

Loving you was a good reason not to love anyone else.

How's the weather over there Parks ?

How many loves do you get in a lifetime? How many people do you get to call yours? There are all sorts of loves in this world, not all of them, but most of them are beautiful. Some are old, some noble, some brave. Others are dishonourable and weak and make you so by association. Some are a low whisper on a sombre night, some are maddening. Some you can’t ignore—they slow-burn inside of you, never quite going out completely but you’re too scared to dare try to fan that flame. Some loves you pretend you don’t feel, even when you can, even when you know you do, even if he’s the first thing you think of in the morning, even if he’s like a match in the darkened room of your heart—because loving something how you love him is a painful love that puts rocks in your pockets and melancholy in your eyeballs and if time has taught you anything it’s that it doesn’t matter. You’ll love him forever anyway.

You're Central Park at midnight.

If this is what being loved by him on accident feels like, I can't imagine what it'd feel like to be loved on purpose.

I know that some love is beautiful, and some is freeing, some unravels you, some love poisons you, some blinds you, some betters you, and some loves break you in invisible ways that no one else knows about until you have to stand up and the weight of your love crushes your bones.

Because if she loved herself more than she loves me, she’d have fucked off years ago. I don’t deserve all the chances she half-tries to give me.

How many loves do you get in a lifetime? For me it's just the one. I've had more but as I float away there's only one I'm thinking of. He is what I'm thinking of. Not how he hurt me, not what he did to me, not what we've done to each other. Just him.

If it wasn’t him, it would be you,” I tell him, for better and for worse. He blows some more air out of his mouth and catches my eye. “In another life, yeah?” I nod and offer him a weak smile. “I’ll meet you there.

Eternally sunny, then.” “Oh—” He grimaces. “Can’t promise that. Storms always come, they have to — brings balance.

He laughs from the back of his throat and I love it when he laughs at the things I say, I want to make him laugh forever but I can’t because he broke forever and still I fight the urge to kiss him anyway.

I wonder if we’ll ever not be like magnets… not be these two things that drift home to each other no matter what. If there is a way to break the spell, I don’t want to know a fucking thing about it.

She pulls away from me and as she does, I slip my heart in her back pocket. That’s a lie. She already had it. But I give it to her again for good measure.

maybe this is how we’ll always be—stuck together, drifting back to each other if we somehow pull apart. I hope that’s what we’ll be like. I hope we’ll always find our way back.

You’re all here to bury the smartest girl, the sharpest shooter in the whole wide world. But I’m burying my guiding light.

Let me be clear now then, Daisy—” Gives me a tall look. “I am fucked up in love with you.

Because loving him is the same thing as tossing the keys to my heart to a valet without a driver’s license. He’ll drive me off a cliff.

What are we then?” I ask defiantly, putting some distance between us which he crosses with one step anyway. He kisses my cheek. “Each other’s.

I remember it, like a physical punch in the gut, how much I loved him. Really loved him. To the bone, I loved him. Cut me and I'd bleed him. How much I needed him, still need him, would forever, always, never couldn't, even if I tried, needed him.

How many loves do we get in a lifetime? I really don't know anymore—my heart's racing so fast now and the dam is building—and there are all sorts of love in this world and mine is killing me, I think.

I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias. We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.

And I wonder what love is like for other people… Is love for everyone wordless exchanges and a million memories that fuck you up to the bone?

She could walk all over me, strangle me to death, and I wouldn’t notice. If the emerald eyes are out then I’m dying anyway.

I can’t even look at him because I’m a flower and he’s the whole entire sun and he’ll wilt me away,

Echoes through the ancient mountains around us and the Greek philosophers who waxed lyrical about true love and soulmates roll in their graves as I try for the billionth time to sever myself from mine.

A love like ours—? Are you joking?” I give her the magic smile. “We’re what the poems are about

What am I to you?” “Oh, I don’t know—” I give her a little shrug, stare straight ahead. Take a long sip before I look over at her. “Like, just—everything.

I know your freckles too,” he tells me.

and there are all sorts of love in this world and mine is killing me, I think.

What am I to you?” I lean back into him, pursing my mouth at the question. “The oxygen mask”—I glance back at him—“that falls down from the ceiling of the planes.

Will you walk me down the aisle?” I ask him. “At the wedding?” He looks down at me and smiles a bit. “Honour of a lifetime.

But he can't promise he won't hurt me so I don't know how to promise I'll stay.

I think fragrances are important. They leave a mark on your mind in a way other things can’t.

But I love you more than I’m angry at you, so I need to figure it out.

The most beautiful boy in every room, the great love of my life—how many loves do you get in a lifetime? I remember wondering that. How many people will look at me like he does, not just like I’m the sun but like I’m the whole god damn universe.

She is the goddess in the Botticelli clam shell, her eyes are the waterlilies in Monet’s pond, she is the hand of God reaching down to mankind. Klimt’s kiss is a portrait of us and I’m gonna steal it. Take it, make it mine, make her mine too.

Loving him will be my magnum opus.

How many loves do you get in a lifetime? That’s a question I’ve wondered before … If you ask The Sun, I’ve had far too many, and in some ways that’s true, I have. But actually, I’ve only had two great ones.

Wherever she is, it’s good. I know it is.” “How?” I ask. He shrugs like it’s easy. “Because she’s there.

If you keep pushing someone away, eventually they’ll stay there.

What do I have to show for this life? Her. It’s her. Loving her. That’s all I’ve got, and he’s saying I’ve not even fucking done that well. Everyone has markers for their life. Ways they remember certain things and times. Stakes in the ground. She’s mine. My whole life, all dotted with and by things I remember about her. She’s how I frame the world.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it’s not proud. It doesn’t dishonour others, it’s not self-seeking, it’s not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But it’s shit. It’s all a lie.

He's the moon, and I'm the tides.

Memories are funny, don’t you think? Creep up on you, break through the ground of your mind like a weed, even when they don’t have permission to be there.

No guns at the dinner table. That's my one rule

His face cracks into the best smile I've ever seen and will ever see, because his face is... fuck The Mona Lisa, screw The Last Supper, never think of Michelangelo's David again—they all pale compared to him in front of me.

I feel that it's important for you to know that even if I didn't love you in the sort of stupid, embarrassing way that I do; if I did, hypothetically, have a choice - I would choose you anyway.

There's not much I wouldn't give just to have her next to me in it all, anything, really. Just not her life, and I'm pretty sure that's the going rate.

Rummage through the drawer in my mind as fast as I can to find the words to tell her that I’m coming for her, I’m on my way back, that this is just the long way home.

I’ve never felt like this and it’s now, right now, this exact second that I realise I am in love with Daisy Haites. And then it is immediately after, in that exact second, that I realise I’ve lost her.

The problem with me and Parks is, I think we love each other more than ourselves. Again, that sounds romantic but it’s not— Because if she loved herself more than she loves me, she’d have fucked off years ago.

You can love someone and not have it rule you, not have it dictate your every waking thought and decision. You can love someone and still retain your power and autonomy. You can love someone and have it just be there, a part of you, and still have a completely functional life. Even if it's a life without them. Doesn't sound much like any life I'm interested in, actually.

In another life I reckon I could have loved you,” I tell her. She gives me a little smile back. “In another life I would have let you—

She catches my eye from across the room, holding like our hands can’t.

What?” Henry shrugs. “Like, it’s ironic. Because BJ went home with the Anti-Parks, and Parks went home with the BJ deluxe.

His voice, I remember it sounding like Christmas morning and my birthday and Valentine’s Day and home and I loved him.

He lets out my favourite laugh that feels like a cup of tea on a rainy day, and his face looks the kind of happy I always want it to with a smile that touches his eyes.

Edith Whisker’s version of “Home” starts playing

Marsaili used to say something about how love can go sour like milk and then it turns to hate. Maybe we left our love out.

I rolled my eyes, trying not to smile too much, trying not to mount him on the spot, trying not to melt into loving him accidentally.

Mum used to say to me—when you pick who you want to be with, you have to imagine every part of life, every scenario. Good, bad, happy, sad, painful, beautiful—not just the person you want to do road trips with, but the person you want to be stuck in gridlock traffic with. Not just the person you want to have babies with, but the person you want to grieve with, the person you want next to you on the worst day of your life, at the funeral of someone you love, who's next to you? You don't need a fair-weather lover, you need the person that's going to stand next to you in their wellies, staring down the barrel of the storm.

But you see, the thing about stars is that in another galaxy, that star is also a sun. “If it wasn’t him, it would be you,” I tell him, for better and for worse. He blows some more air out of his mouth and catches my eye. “In another life, yeah?” I nod and offer him a weak smile. “I’ll meet you there.

You want a metaphor for it? Alright, here goes. I come from a good family, everyone knows that. My parents were great, roof over my head. I never wanted for much, really, and still. She’s the only home I’ve ever been interested in having. Her body is the walls, heart’s the ceiling. I’ll live here forever.

This is me tossing my hat in the ring,” he tells me. “Just so you know.

Touching Parks is like touching no one else. It’s like coming home.

We're fated Woven into the tapestry of the universe, my name right next to hers. We're in the stars.

I’ve been without him before, it’s not a life I’m interested in having

Not a day has gone by since I met you where I’ve not loved you.

Sitting next to him saying nothing feels like taking off a corset. A great undoing, if you will, and he will. In every way.

I just never saw her coming, I couldn't have picked loving her out of a lineup

but I find myself slow-dancing with Christian Hemmes in a laundromat and there’s nothing normal

Then the world goes to black. We lock eyes. And this sheet of impenetrable glass slides up from the ground between us. We can’t touch and we can’t talk and there’s nothing to say anyway besides him screaming through the glass that he misses me and me screaming back that I miss him too and him screaming that he’s sorry and me screaming that it’s not enough. Our faces are frozen in what feels like hopeless love but couldn’t be, because I don’t love him anymore. I cannot.

we keep losing each other, and it doesn’t seem to matter that we love each other how we do, which is with a fullness—kind of like those animals that will eat themselves to death if they’re left to their own devices. I’ll love him ’til I die, love him ’til it consumes me whole and kills me dead—so maybe love doesn’t conquer all but just some.

At the altar of the tree, I make a thousand soundless prayers and offerings, beg whoever’s listening to align our stars and let him be who I thought he was. If he can’t be that, I pray, may I be free of him and not have it kill me.

Over the mantelpiece she hung her own portrait up herself, that little minx. Best painting I've ever seen, too. Better than any woman anyone has ever painted in the history of time, a face I'd win battles for. A face I'd lose anything for. Even her. It's time.

In another life I reckon I could have loved you.” I tilt my head, looking up at him. “In another life I would have let you.

She's my Mecca.

She's on the back foot here. All girls are on the back foot when it comes to me and Parks.

I think if we all could have peeked behind heaven’s curtains at that moment we’d have seen those old Fates knotting our threads together, me and Beej, in this pure, sunny, inexorable, undoable way. I said knotted, not tied. Because I don’t know whether we’ll ever come undone. Not easily, anyway.

Terrible days are sneaks, aren’t they? They love to lull you into a false sense of safety. Dress themselves up in the terrible mundane, make you think that everything’s okay when actually, nothing is.

See you soon?” I say to our reflection. She’d give me a small smile, and I think she’d be a bit sad because I know how much she loves me. “Not too soon, please,” she’d say, because that’s not what she’d want for me. “Not too soon,” I say, nodding. “But one day again.” And then I close my little mirror, lay it down next to her ashes and let her go.

The universe, actually, is ablaze. The planets lose track of their orbits, the birds are poets now and all the songs written before this and all the ones that’ll come after this are about this moment; about how when we’re standing my ear rests right where his heart is, how one hand of his swallows a whole half of my waist. The beautiful nothingness of this, the most intimate moment of my life to date, a life that, actually, has been dotted with much intimacy and I think nothing will ever beat him resting his chin on top of my head.

And he’s all surprised that I know his face, but what he doesn’t know is that how he looks in the morning time is burned into my memory and one day, when all this is over and we’re not hooking up anymore and he’s with someone else and I’ve figured out how to move on and past him and we’re not together anymore55 because I don’t think he has room in his heart to see me like that when all he can see is her, even if sometimes now it feels like maybe56 he could—even then, I will see his face when I close my eyes.

Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally believed to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petrie dish of melodrama and distortion. I remember well, for instance, the blind animal terror which ensued when some townie set off the civil defense sirens as a joke. Someone said it was a nuclear attack; TV and radio reception, never good there in the mountains, happened to be particularly bad that night, and in the ensuing stampede for the telephones the switchboard shorted out, plunging the school into a violent and almost unimaginable panic. Cars collided in the parking lot. People sceamed, wept, gave away t heir possessions, huddled in small groups for comfort and warmth. Some hippies barricaded themselves in the Science Building, in the lone bomb shelter, and refused to let anyone in who didn't know the world to "Sugar Magnolia." Factions formed, leaders rose from the chaos. Though the world, in fact, was not destroyed, everyone had a marvelous time and people spoke fondly of the event for years afterward.