Nashville Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Nashville. Here they are! All 100 of them:

I was in Nashville, Tennessee last year. After the show I went to a Waffle House. I'm not proud of it, I was hungry. And I'm alone, I'm eating and I'm reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me: 'Hey, whatcha readin' for?' Isn't that the weirdest fuckin' question you've ever heard? Not what am I reading, but what am I reading FOR? Well, goddamnit, ya stumped me! Why do I read? Well . . . hmmm...I dunno...I guess I read for a lot of reasons and the main one is so I don't end up being a fuckin' waffle waitress.
Bill Hicks
I could get drunk and run around Nashville naked. But I won't because I want to set a good example for my fans. I think they deserve to have a role model.
Taylor Swift
When I was in Nashville, I went to our Macy's and went and tried on all the Hannah Montana stuff. Then I said, 'This is weird, I'm wearing my face.
Miley Cyrus
Nashville has always been competitive. My granddaddy called it the Hillbilly Babylon.
Hunter S. Jones (Fortune Calling (The Fortune Series, #1))
I’m currently between assignments and was looking for a change. I heard there was work in Nashville and it seemed like a good place to start over. So here I am stuck in the freezing cold with a…serial killer. Has the making for a great horror movie, huh? (Leta)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Upon the Midnight Clear (Dark-Hunter, #12; Dream-Hunter, #2))
Being Jesus means that we go through life embracing it all fully and feeling it all deeply. That we don’t hide and try to protect ourselves. That we live. That we show up. That we laugh. That we cry. That we hurt. That we heal. That we care. That we love. And then, that we wake up the next morning and sign up for it all over again.
Jim Palmer (Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life)
What the hell am I doing in Nashville? What – you want me to shoot Minnie Pearl? (Steele)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Bad Attitude (B.A.D. Agency #1))
Maybe being Jesus is simply seeing people as they truly are.
Jim Palmer (Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life)
I'm in love with Dr. Lowe," I said abruptly. My mom paused, arched one eyebrow, and set the bands on my nightstand. "Oh, Cassidy, I know. I figured that out watching you two in recovery.
Nikki Sloane (The Doctor (Nashville Neighborhood, #1))
It’s not our job to make people like us if they don’t want to. It’s not our job to change people. That’s beyond our control. But what you CAN control is how you respond to it.
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift - Guitar Chord Songbook)
You’re still several calamities short of a country song, Jordan. If your truck breaks down or your dog dies, I’ll put in a call to Nashville for you. In the meantime, suck it up.
Yolanda Wallace (The War Within)
Funny how often something she'd been so certain she needed turned out not to be a need at all, but a want--when the real 'need' was something else entirely. Something that could only be gained by giving, not by getting.
Tamera Alexander (A Beauty So Rare (Belmont Mansion, #2))
But don't forget, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and most of them are just full of shit." - Lacey
Toni Aleo (Laces and Lace (Nashville Assassins, #2))
It’s odd how you can know someone for such a short period of time and yet feel like you’ve always been there with them.
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
When she finally found her way onto the Trace, the sun was rising and, with it, her spirits. The Natchez Trace Parkway, a two lane road slated, when finished to run from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi, had been the brainchild of the Ladies' Garden Clubs in the South. Besides preserving a unique part of the nations past,...the Trace would not be based on spectacular scenery but would conserve the natural and agricultural history of Mississippi.
Nevada Barr (Deep South (Anna Pigeon, #8))
I meant that the hatred of that July day in Nashville was alive and well on that horrible day in Pittsburgh. People hate others so they strike like snakes. It’s all connected—we’re all connected, bumping around into each other, some of us good, some bad, most a mixture. Every thought acted upon has consequences. Every one.
Laura Anderson Kurk (Glass Girl (Glass Girl, #1))
you do. Jordie Thomas is not a take-home-to-Momma kind of man.” “No, he isn’t,” she agreed. “But he is a fuck-you-stupid kind of man.
Toni Aleo (A Very Merry Hockey Holiday (Nashville Assassins, #3))
Lucy, I want so much more with you...but I can't give you anything besides friendship right now.
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
...we're waiting until we can drink legally before we add in another.
Toni Aleo (Rushing the Goal (Nashville Assassins, #6))
Are you ready for this thing called life? 'Cause I can't do it without you.
Toni Aleo (Pucks, Sticks, and Diapers (Nashville Assassins, #7))
I love you, Jayden Mitchell Sinclair, I do. But right now , I want to kill you. So just hold my hand and tel l'me I'm pretty as I push your kid out.
Toni Aleo (Pucks, Sticks, and Diapers (Nashville Assassins, #7))
I love everything about you Kacey, because the best thing in life is finding someone who knows your flaws, mistakes, difficulties, and still think you are bad-ass and loves you.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
Oh, trust me, Wyatt’s not exempt. There’s a reason he never brings girls home. He did it once when he was nineteen. Poor girl spent the weekend being interrogated by my husband and then flew back to Nashville and never spoke to Wyatt again.
Elle Kennedy (The Graham Effect (Campus Diaries, #1))
I turn around and face my mom. “I’ve never asked too much of you, Mom, but today, I need you to run me over with your car.” She curls her lips inward, making a cooky smile, and pats the side of my arm. “Did someone make a bad decision last night on her date?
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
here’s the thing about people you admire speaking into your life: sometimes you trust their opinion of yourself more than your own. But just because they say it, doesn’t make it true, and I’m done letting him tell me who I am.
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
Broken people are like broken clay pots. They can be put back together. I know it will never be the same when the pieces are glued. There will be cracks. But those cracks, they add character. Tell of survival. Of strength, of character.
Hildie McQueen (Even Heroes Cry (Fords of Nashville, #1))
CAPT. J. W. SIMMONS, master of the steamship Pensacola, had just as little regard for weather as the Louisiana’s Captain Halsey. He was a veteran of eight hundred trips across the Gulf and commanded a staunch and sturdy ship, a 1,069-ton steel-hulled screw-driven steam freighter built twelve years earlier in West Hartlepool, England, and now owned by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company. Friday morning the ship was docked at the north end of 34th Street, in the company of scores of other ships, including the big Mallory liner Alamo, at 2,237 tons, and the usual large complement of British ships, which on Friday included the Comino, Hilarius, Kendal Castle, Mexican, Norna, Red Cross, Taunton, and the stately Roma in from Boston with its Captain Storms. As the Pensacola’s twenty-one-man crew readied the ship for its voyage to the city of Pensacola on Florida’s Gulf Coast, two men came aboard as Captain Simmons’s personal guests: a harbor pilot named R. T. Carroll and Galveston’s Pilot Commissioner J. M. O. Menard, from one of the city’s oldest families. At
Erik Larson (Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History)
Raspberry, strawberry, lemon and lime What do I care Blueberry, apple, cherry, pumpkin and plum Call me for dinner Honey, I'll be there
Bob Dylan
What doesn't kill you, makes you wish you were dead
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
I don’t think everyone is meant to have careers that change the world. Sometimes you’ve just gotta pay the bills and then clock out so you can get to the life you love the most,
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
This chemistry between us? It wasn’t just explosive. It was real.
Nikki Sloane (The Frat Boy (Nashville Neighborhood, #4))
Oh heavens!” Henry says, sounding like a 1950s housewife who’s never heard a swear word.
Sarah Adams (The Temporary Roomie (It Happened in Nashville, #2))
Jessie is starting to make sense to me, and she’s only becoming more beautiful as she comes into focus.
Sarah Adams (The Temporary Roomie (It Happened in Nashville, #2))
I’m guessing it has something to do with that paragraph-long text she sent me—the one I’ve literally read thirty times because it’s so freaking cute I can’t stand it.
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
I’ve come to terms with the fact that in a room full of J.Crews, I’ll always be a Target. I love Target. Let’s see J.Crew try to sell delicious soft pretzels in their store.
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
Are you away with the fairies?
Morgan Jane Mitchell (Kissin Irish (Royal Bastards MC: Nashville, TN #2))
I don't think I can give up on Reese. I 'or something' her.
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
She wanted to be mad tat e saw through her, but his mouth could honestly turn a nun into a sinner.
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
So you two are together?" "Nope, just friends...with incredible benefits. Supergreat ones. Mind-blowing ones.
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
I think my work here is done. Breakfast and multiple orgasms...You won't get that at your favorite diner.
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
Jayden cried out, "Shit, are you pissing on me?" With her eyes wide, she shook her head. "No, I think my water broke.
Toni Aleo (Pucks, Sticks, and Diapers (Nashville Assassins, #7))
I love you too, now let's make this birth our bitch.
Toni Aleo (Pucks, Sticks, and Diapers (Nashville Assassins, #7))
I won't sugarcoat shit. You're tiptoeing on the line between batshit crazy and sane.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
Payback's a bitch, but thankfully those tissues are only full of snot and tears instead of dead little sperms.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
Letting her head hang, all she could do was think what a freaking mess she had gotten herself into. And not even Ben & Jerry's could get her out of this.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
But I didn't even make you work for it. I just jumped you like a cat in heat.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
Guess our sex is hot, we start fires.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
But remember, Kacey has a temper and she's crazy protective of you so if you need bail money, let me know.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
She needs Jesus and as ass-whooping!
Toni Aleo (Face-Off at the Altar (Nashville Assassins, #8))
You give me butterflies when I thing about you
Toni Aleo (Face-Off at the Altar (Nashville Assassins, #8))
FEAR IS A REACTION YOU HAVE WHEN YOU’RE GETTING CLOSER TO THE TRUTH
Jim Palmer (Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life)
Why did perfect feel broken?
Mary Burton (Be Afraid (Morgans of Nashville, #2))
Make a wish and it will be granted along with all the unintended consequences.
Mary Burton (Be Afraid (Morgans of Nashville, #2))
My husband is a man who watches cartoons with his son; whose favourite show is Nashville; and who cried when Buffy’s mum died.
Iain Rob Wright (M is for Matty-Bob (A-Z of Horror, #13))
Wen he pulled away e smiled as he said, "I'm on a mission to make you like hockey more than baseball." "Unless you are wearing tight baseball pants, you aren't keeping my attention.
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
Being Jesus doesn't mean that I am always at the center, always doing something, always making something spectacular happen. Being Jesus simply means that I show up to be "part of" something. Maybe being Jesus isn't so much about making it happen as it is letting it happen.
Jim Palmer (Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life)
But it’s not just Lucy’s skin, hair, and eyes that contribute to her beauty. It’s every smile, every laugh, every little thing she does for her son and did for me when I was sick. It’s all of it. I meant it when I said I thought Lucy was the complete package. She’s too good to be true.
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
Here’s the point. If I had waited until the songs were finished, this thing might never have happened. If I had merely tinkered with these songs for all the years it took to finally record them, chances are I would have moved on to other things and never given it a try. It wouldn’t have grown into what it was meant to be. You can think and plan and think some more, but none of that is half as important as doing something, however imperfect or incomplete it is. Intention trumps execution, remember? Sometimes you book the tour before the songs are written. Sometimes you stand at the altar and say “I do” without any clue how you and your wife are going to make it. Sometimes you move to Nashville with no money in the bank and no real prospects. Sometimes you start with nothing and hope it all works out. Not sometimes—every time. All you really have is your willingness to fail, coupled with the mountain of evidence that the Maker has never left nor forsaken you.
Andrew Peterson (Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making)
Phillip has enough to worry about. He doesn't have time to have his heart broken by my man-eating twin," Piper teased. Reese faked a hurt look as she said, "Hey, I make sure they're satisfied before I feed!
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
don’t think everyone is meant to have careers that change the world. Sometimes you’ve just gotta pay the bills and then clock out so you can get to the life you love the most, which, for me, is being with Levi.
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
We gotta get out of here before I set up a tent in here and never leave. You don't know how many guys I saw with tattoos and One Direction hair as I walked in here. Trouble. They are all trouble. Stay away Claire!
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
I exist on an imaginary tightrope and must watch every step, lest I fall into the cold, dark abyss. I live in constant fear of the future, in fear that the inevitable will take place,and I live in constant fear of the past, in fear that what has already happened will happen again. How can the present exist in such a world?
Francis Fesmire (Nashville Skyline)
Is she worth it though?" he asked and she shrugged. "That's up to you to decide. Either way, I support you, love you, and will stand beside you," she whispered against his lips. "And when you're ready, I'll Spartan kick her in the face.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
We are Nasvillians now. We have to be classy Southern bitches." Kacey glared as she swigged her tea. "Classy girls don't say classy bitches." "This one does," Lacey said as she took a sip of her tea with her pinky up just to show she meant what she said.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
Take me with you?" she asked, reaching for is arm. He looked back at were the four women stood watching them and shook his head. "I've seen Piper ruin a whole gaming area, Harper scares me, Elli is my boss, and I want your mom to like me...Sorry babe, you're on your own.
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
IT TAKES A certain amount of effort to be miserable and another kind of effort to be happy, and I was willing to do the work of happiness. I figured even if I couldn’t make Lucy deeply happy, I could very likely make her cheaply and immediately happy. I could provide the kind of happiness that would seem hollow if we had had the money or the time to stay in it too long. It was the same as carrying her. I couldn’t do it forever, but I could do it for a while. I booked Lucy a massage and had her eyelashes dyed. I took her for a pedicure. I bought her the best pâté I could find in Nashville along with Spaghetti-O’s and Hungry Jack biscuits and everything else I knew she liked. We went to a bad movie and then stayed for a second bad movie. I took her shopping and bought her whatever she wanted. And she was happy, and I was happy.
Ann Patchett (Truth and Beauty)
Well, my beautiful girlfriend, you are about to be one lucky lady." She beamed. "Ryan Reynolds wants to make a baby with me?" He paused and then shook his head. "What the fuck? You dig Deadpool?" She nodded. "Hell yeah, I do, he's sexy." "I'm naked here, you just took advantage of me, and you are calling some other dude sexy?" She smiled. "Yes, because I love you and find you sexy. But that doesn't matter, carry on,
Toni Aleo (Face-Off at the Altar (Nashville Assassins, #8))
Mom had me start posting covers on YouTube. Record labels saw those covers and two, Big Machine Records and Capitol Records Nashville, wanted to sign me. Mom decided on Capitol Records, because “Scott Borschetta’s gonna be too busy with that Taylor chick; he won’t have time for you.
Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
After her mother died and Adrienne and her father took up with wanderlust, Adrienne became exposed to new foods. For two years they lived in Maine, where in the summertime they ate lobster and white corn and small wild blueberries. They moved to Iowa for Adrienne's senior year of high school and they ate pork tenderloin fixed seventeen different ways. Adrienne did her first two years of college at Indiana University in Bloomington, where she lived above a Mexican cantina, which inspired a love of tamales and anything doused with habanero sauce. Then she transferred to Vanderbilt in Nashville, where she ate the best fried chicken she'd ever had in her life. And so on, and so on. Pad thai in Bangkok, stone crabs in Palm Beach, buffalo meat in Aspen. As she sat listening to Thatcher, she realized that though she knew nothing about restaurants, at least she knew something about food.
Elin Hilderbrand (The Blue Bistro)
I jolted from the shocking, acute pleasure. I loved it when a guy went down on me, but this? It was insanity, and it’d never felt like this before. Each lush stroke of his tongue caused static in my body. It was so good, it short-circuited my brain, and my body didn’t know how to handle the overload.
Nikki Sloane (The Architect (Nashville Neighborhood, #3))
They ave a hockey team, Phillip," Claire said as she unlocked her door and pushed it open. "That's good. Stay away from the players," he mumbled. Reese rolled her eyes as she followed them in. "But I like hockey players," Claire pouted playfully. "Yeah, well, unless you want them to die, stay away. Boys are off-limits.
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
maybe it’s working because I’m an author, and maybe it’s working because Karen works like life depends on this bookstore, or because we have a particularly brilliant staff, or because Nashville is a city that is particularly sympathetic to all things independent. Maybe we just got lucky. But my luck has made me believe that changing the course of the corporate world is possible. Amazon doesn’t get to make all the decisions; the people can make them by how and where they spend their money. If what a bookstore offers matters to you, then shop at a bookstore. If you feel that the experience of reading a book is valuable, then read the book. This is how we change the world: we grab hold of it. We change ourselves.
Ann Patchett (This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage)
All roads are tough, but you have to choose the one you know you'll never be sorry for taking.
Chris Burkmenn
I don't think I could ever leave you Peyton. I'm in love with you.
Stacey Lewis (Never Wanted More (Nashville Nights, #1.5))
That made him a perfect match for Philip’s new brother-in-law, Jim Lawson. For if Curtis Murphy was weird, then Jim Lawson was even weirder, not only because he was already going to divinity school at the most unattainable of Nashville schools, Vanderbilt, but because he had simultaneously started holding classes on how to challenge segregation in Nashville.
David Halberstam (The Children)
You’ll get your turn to fuck me, but right now . . . I get to fuck you.
Nikki Sloane (The Frat Boy (Nashville Neighborhood, #4))
My head was a fucking mess after . . . whatever that was. You mean, the hottest fuck of your life?
Nikki Sloane (The Frat Boy (Nashville Neighborhood, #4))
I’d learned the only promises I could count on were the ones I made to myself.
Nikki Sloane (The Frat Boy (Nashville Neighborhood, #4))
Cooper comes out of the house with two travel mugs full of coffee. Because he’s practically my husband, I bet he has even added the perfect amount of my favorite creamer.
Sarah Adams (The Temporary Roomie (It Happened in Nashville, #2))
What’s the point of having an incredible salary if you can’t spoil someone with it?
Sarah Adams (The Temporary Roomie (It Happened in Nashville, #2))
Gray threw open the door, swiftly followed by her legs and everything that went with them. She high-kicked
Nikki Sloane (The Architect (Nashville Neighborhood, #3))
Do you feel that? My heart is going mushy. You’re turning me into a sap, and I don’t know what to do about it. It’s weird.
Sarah Adams (The Off Limits Rule (It Happened in Nashville, #1))
Jordie and I tried to have sex in the kitchen and almost caught it on fir. I was cleaning smoke and burned shit off my brand-new stove all afternoon." Lacey's face twisted in confusion and she sputtered with laughter. "Do I even want to know how this happened?" Kacey grinned. "He threw my shirt on the stove, and I had forgotten to shut it off. Boom! Flames, fire
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
It is only when we go outside that comfort zone, and subject ourselves to the discomfort of considering thoughts we don’t agree with, that we can make an informed judgment on any matter.
Metro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson
We're done? You don't want to ask me anything else?" "No." "Oh, darn, I enjoy this so much<" Vaughn said before walking away like he hadn't just ruined the interview. Bursting at the seams, Brie whipped around to another person in a suit. "Doesn't he know that was live? He can't do that! He ruins it every single time. I refuse to interview him anymore. He wasn't even wearing pants!
Toni Aleo (Face-Off at the Altar (Nashville Assassins, #8))
You're next Claire." She laughed. "Nope, not ready. See, we know about this thing called birth control, and we use it," she teased, and everyone laughed. "Hey, I was on it!" Baylor called to her as Claire grinned back at her. "That's what they all say." "Not me. I wasn't, and we had faulty condoms," Avery said with a snort, which sent everyone into fits of laughter. "But I wouldn't change a thing.
Toni Aleo (Pucks, Sticks, and Diapers (Nashville Assassins, #7))
Southern food has been riding a long wave of popularity that has elevated cooking in Southern cities. But it has also led to a formulaic culinary canon laden with house-cured pork products, bespoke grits and lots of food served in Mason jars. The cooks who defined the style were mostly men in tourist-heavy towns like Atlanta, Nashville and Charleston, S.C. Chefs who didn’t cook like that risked losing business.
Anonymous
You would not believe his imitation of Coach Donnelly," Ben said. I laughed, imagining. "Run as fast as you can," he said, trying to sound like what Bryce probably sounded like imitating Donnelly, but failing. "Like the French did in the Civil War, when they eluded the Greeks on their way from Charleston to Nashville." "We knew the only way to attack the axis of evil was by storming the beaches at Normandy," I said back.
Bill Konigsberg (Openly Straight (Openly Straight, #1))
And we'll let the world dance around us while you lie here in my arms. The beat of your heart is all the music I need to hear. I spent my whole life searching for this melody, so I'll listen while I hold you near.
Courtney Giardina (Behind the Strings (Book 1))
Think of this small book as a passport, a document that details the dogs and people who have traveled far and wide, and somehow, miraculously, found their way back to where they belong - to dog heaven, book heaven, reader heaven. Home.
Ann Patchett (The Shop Dogs of Parnassus)
Dude, I told you she was a man-eater." "That's the thing, she isn't. She is actually an amazing woman. Tough as nails, and man she keeps me on my toes, but she has a heart of gold that she hides from everyone. I really do believe that she was made for me, and I don't care how girly that sounds." Erick scoffed. "No worries, when a dude is really in love, he turns into a freaking girl. It's scary. So stay away from girls, they are icky and will make you do stupid things. Okay, buddy?
Toni Aleo (Breaking Away (Nashville Assassins, #1))
They only want to be there while you’re on top, and when you haven’t gotten a gig in a while and you don’t know how you’re going to pay your rent at the end of the month and the glamor they thought they signed up for is gone, they’re walking out the door, leaving you to pick up the pieces.
Courtney Giardina (Behind the Strings (Book 1))
You steamrolled your way into my life and reminded me how good it feels to let go a little…to fight, to play, to laugh. I don’t think I’d really done any of that since I started med school. My life became very objective-based, and then I met you and…” “And I taught you the meaning of life?” “You snuck your underwear into my laundry just to make me mad. And you eat a million milligrams of sodium every day. And you wanted the Frosty mug just as much as I did.” A laugh spills from my mouth. “None of that sounds like a lesson you’ve learned.” “Exactly. You don’t teach me lessons—you help me rest.
Sarah Adams (The Temporary Roomie (It Happened in Nashville, #2))
Think of Chicago as a piece of music, perhaps,” he continued. “In it you can hear the thousands of years of people living here and fishing and hunting, and then bullets and axes, and the whine of machinery, and the bellowing of cattle, and the shriek of railroads, and the thud of fists and staves and crowbars, and a hundred languages, a thousand dialects. And the murmur of the lake like a basso undertone. Ships and storms, snow and fire. To the north the vast dark forests, and everywhere else around the city rolling fields of farms, and all roads leading to Chicago, which rises from the plains like Oz, glowing with light and fire at night, drawing people to it from around the world. A roaring city, gunfire and applause and thunder. Gleaming but made of bone and stone. Bitter cold and melting hot and clotheslines hung in the alleys and porches like the webbing of countless spiders. A city without illusions but with vaulting imaginations and expectations. A city of burning energies on the shore of a huge northern sea. An American city, with all the violence and humor and grace and greed of this particular powerful adolescent country. Perhaps the American city—no other city in the nation is as big and central and grown up from the very soil. Chicago was never ruled by Spain or England or France or Russia or Texas, it shares no ocean with other countries, it is no mere regional captain, like Cincinnati or Nashville; it is itself, all brawn and greed and song, brilliant and venal, almost a small nation, sprawling and vulgar and foul and beautiful, cold and cruel and wonderful. Its music is the blues, of course. Sad and uplifting at once, elevating and haunting at the same time. You sing so that you do not weep. You have no choice but to sing. So you raise up your voice and sing of love and woe, and soon another voice joins in, and you sing together, for a while, for a time, perhaps a brief time, but perhaps not.…
Brian Doyle
Ah, the trainer with the hands," one of them said. She was very pretty, thick dark hair and even darker eyes. She had a nice body, but it was easy to see she had been having babies. "Lucas talks about you fondly." Kacey smiled. "Yeah, his shoulder's been giving him shit lately," she said, figuring this must be Fallon, Lucas's wife. "Yeah, and if you didn't keep him from birching about it, I might have to try and kick your ass. But seeing that he is happy, and you are also a good six inches taller than me and have abs and arms that could squash small children, I'm gonna just say, hey! It's nice to meet you!" she said and everyone laughed as they shook hands.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
The moral and ethical questions I explore in Take My Hand remain salient today. In 2013, the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that between 2006 and 2010, nearly 150 women in California state prisons had been sterilized without official approval. A year later, the Associated Press reported on multiple instances of prosecutors in Nashville, Tennessee, submitting permanent birth control as part of plea deals. In 2020, a whistleblower alleged that immigrant women detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were being forcibly sterilized without their consent in US detainment facilities. In fact, compulsory sterilization of “unfit” inmates of public institutions is still federally protected by a 1927 US Supreme Court ruling, Buck v. Bell.
Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Take My Hand)
Pattie helped me understand that you can provide someone with food and shelter, train them in a skill for employment, even offer professional treatment for an addictions, but these acts don't necessarily reach down to that place inside a person where fear, shame, guilt, hurt, and hopelessness wreak havoc. Pattie's greatest need was to be seen, and then to be loved, accepted and validated.
Jim Palmer (Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life)
I have salt and sugar at home, but I'm paying eighty bucks to have ya'll rub it on my feet. If I want to yell at my sister-in-law about that fact that I just found out I am pregnant, and how my boyfriend, the recovering alcoholic, is still fragile and I don't know if he'll make it, whether I'm going to miscarry like I did before, and a whole other list of shit, like, hell, I don't know, what I'm going to be when I grow up, then I will! And maybe, just maybe, for the eighty bucks you're charging me, I can yell a bit." The woman only blinked as Lacey snickered beside her. "Keep it down and congratulations." "Thanks, and I'll try," Kacey said as the woman walked away. She then turned to Lacey, who was fully laughing at this point. "Really> This is not funny." "Oh, I'm cracking up because if you're already this emotional and bitchy, God help us all once you reach the third Trimester.
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
Fuck, Scott,” Nina’s tone was full of awe, “look at how you make her tremble.” My face contorted, and I blinked in confusion. My shaking wasn’t because of Scott. The shudder that shook my shoulders and rattled my legs was all due to Colin, and I, for some reason, needed him to know that. I took a hand off the desk and grabbed his shoulder, steadying myself so I could lean in and set my lips against the side of his neck. I trailed my kiss up to the shell of his ear, the one that wasn’t wearing the monitor. “Not him,” I whispered so no one else would hear. “You.
Nikki Sloane (The Frat Boy (Nashville Neighborhood, #4))
His hand felt odd against her swollen belly. She started to speak at the same moment that the baby suddenly moved. Tate’s hand jerked back as if it had been stung. He stared at her stomach with pure horror as it fluttered again. She couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. “Is that…normal?” he wanted to know. “It’s a baby,” she said softly. “They move around. He kicks a little. Not much, just yet, but as he grows, he’ll get stronger.” “I never realized…” He drew in a long breath and put his hand back against her body. “Cecily, does it hurt you when he…” He hesitated. His black, stunned eyes met hers. “He?” She nodded. “They can tell, so soon?” “Yes,” she said simply. “They did an ultrasound.” His fingers became caressing. A son. He was going to have a son. He swallowed. It was a shock. He hadn’t thought past her pregnancy, but now he realized that there was going to be a miniature version of himself and Cecily, a child who would embody the traits of all his ancestors. All his ancestors. It made him feel humble. “How did you find me?” she asked. He glared into her eyes. “Not with any help from you, let me tell you! It took me forever to track down the driver who brought you to Nashville. He was off on extended sick leave, and it wasn’t until this week that anybody remembered he’d worked that route before Christmas.” She averted her eyes. “I didn’t want to be found.” “So I noticed. But you have been, and you’re damned well coming home,” he said furiously. “I’m damned if I’m going to leave you here at the mercy of people who go nuts over an inch of snow!” She sat up, displacing his hand, noticed that she was too close to him for comfort, swung her legs off the sofa and got up. “I’m not going as far as the mailbox with you!” she told him flatly. “I’ve made a new life for myself here, and I’m staying!” “That’s what you think.” He got up, too, and went toward the bedroom. He found her suitcase minutes later, threw it open on the bed and started filling it. “I’m not going with you,” she told him flatly. “You can pack. You can even take the suitcase and all my clothes. But I’m not leaving. This is my life now. You have no place in it!” He whirled. He was furious. “You’re carrying my child!” The sight of him was killing her. She loved him, wanted him, needed him, but he was here only out of a sense of duty, maybe even out of guilt. She knew he didn’t want ties or commitments; he’d said so often enough. He didn’t love her, either, and that was the coldest knowledge of all. “Colby asked me to marry him for the baby’s sake,” she said bitterly. “Maybe I should have.” “Over my dead body,” he assured her.
Diana Palmer (Paper Rose (Hutton & Co. #2))