β
Never say more than is necessary.
β
β
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
β
Sometimes an understanding silence was better than a bunch of meaningless words.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I lost my heart to you. And, Bree, in case you're wondering, I don't ever want it back.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Try to believe that maybe more light shines out of those who have the most cracks.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
Someday β¦ when we're old and gray, I'm going to look at you lying in bed beside me, just like this, and I'm going to look into your eyes and know that it's only ever been you. And that is going to be the great joy of my life.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I stand by my logic though. I think love is a concept, and each person has an individual word for what sums it up for them. My word for love is Bree.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I'm afraid to love you. I'm afraid that you'll leave and that I'll go back to being alone again. Only it will be a hundred times worse because I'll know what I'm missing. I can'tβ¦β He sucked in a shaky breath. βI want to be able to love you more than I fear losing you, and I don't know how. Teach me, Bree. Please teach me. Don't let me destroy this.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
You brought the silence,
The most beautiful sound Iβd ever heard.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
..the loudest words are the ones we live.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I knew I loved her β fiercely and with every part of my heart, even the broken parts, even the parts that felt unworthy and without value. And maybe those parts most of all.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla (The Gothic Vampire Classic!))
β
I know I'm probably the last person you want to see right now, but I thought if I sat on your porch, you wouldn't be scared. You wouldn't be alone.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I CAN SPEAK. I JUST LIKE TO SHOW OFF MY NICE PENMANSHIP.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Each night before I fall asleep, I make it a point to turn to my wife and silently say "Only you, only ever you". And her love slips quietly around me, holding me, anchoring me, reminding me that the loudest words are the ones we live.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I didnβt know enough to dream you, Bree, but somehow you came true anyway. How did that happen?β He rubbed his nose along mine, pausing and then pulling back again. βWho read my mind and knew exactly what I wanted, even when I didnβt?
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Maybe there was no right or wrong, no black or white, only a thousand shades of gray when it came to pain and what we each held ourselves responsible for.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
Loving another person always means opening yourself up for hurt
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Nevertheless, life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
...not all great acts of courage are obvious to those looking in from the outside.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Friends are the family you get to choose for yourself.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
I want to be able to love you more than I fear losing you
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
And sometimes, that's all it takesβone person who's willing to listen to your heart, to the sound no one else has ever tried to hear.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I'm here for you. I'm here because of you. I'm here because you saw me, not just with your eyes, but with your heart. I'm here because you wanted to know what I had to say and because you were right...everyone does need friends.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell
β
β
Philip Henry Sheridan
β
Sticks and stones and fists CAN break your bones, but it's the words that break your heart.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
I realized that people's reactions had more to do with them, more to do with who they were, than anything about me
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
How do you teach a man who has lost everything, not to fear it happening again?
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Today may be a very bad day, but tomorrow may be the best day of your life. You just have to hang on until you get there.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Grayson's Vow)
β
I'm going to kiss you now, Evie, and when I do, it's going to mean that you're mine. I don't care how far away from each other we are. You. Are. Mine. I'll wait for you. And I want you to wait for me. Promise me you won't let anyone else touch you. Promise me you'll save yourself for me.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
Bad things don't happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn't work that way. It's just⦠life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we're dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway⦠to have faith that there's a purpose to the journey we're on.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
This is that burden I was talking about, Bree. This is what the burden of loving me looks like.β
βLoving you isn't a burden. Loving you is an honor and a joy, Archer.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I will prove to you that forever is not just a word, not just a measurement of unending time, but that forever is a place where I will treasure your heart.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
I do go to hell. Every day. For you.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Kyland)
β
It suddenly occurred to me that Archer Hale had taught himself an entire language, but hadn't had a single person to talk to. Until me.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Looking at the past can be painful, but you can either run from it, numb it, or you can learn from it.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
Maybe having something good and then having to let it go is more painful that never knowing what you're missing
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Stinger)
β
He smiled back and put his lips against mine, mouthing, βI love you, too,β against my mouth, as if he was breathing love into my body.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
It will only ever be you, Evie.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
Sometimes, you don't even realize anything is wrong until someone comes along and changes you
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Stinger)
β
Did you⦠want me to kiss you yesterday? Did you want me to touch you? His lips parted slightly, and he watched me for my answer like his life depended on it.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Youβre my everything, Bree.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Everyone tells a story about who they are in their own head. That story defines you, dictating all your actions and all your mistakes. If your own story is filled with guilt and fear and self-hatred, life can look pretty miserable. But, if you're very lucky, you might have a person who tells you a better story, one that takes up residence in your soul, speaking louder than the woeful tale of which you've convinced yourself. If you let it speak loudly within your heart, it becomes your passion and your purpose.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see - each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
Our relationship is complicated by the fact that I am emotionally retarded.
β
β
Chelsea Cain (Heartsick (Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell, #1))
β
Watch what people do when they think no one's watching, love. That's how you'll know who they really are.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Grayson's Vow)
β
Mr. Pugh turned bright red. His cheeks puffed up like the galls of shad from the nearby river. His green- monster eyes rolled around his face, and he pounded both fists down on the table, and through grinding teeth and snorting gasps hollered, βINDEED NOT, MISS KNAPP! Slaves are not allowed to read and write. We have you here with good and steady pay to instruct our children and nothing else. Going near that boy, or any other slave, with chalk or book learninβ is strictly forbidden! Do you understand me?
β
β
Sheridan Brown (The Viola Factor)
β
Only you, only ever you.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I have never been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with you.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
Something about the way she moves through the world does not lend itself to the care of fragile objects.
β
β
Chelsea Cain (Heartsick (Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell, #1))
β
Half agony, half hope. Half pain, half ecstasy. Half grief, half joy. Half my downfall, half my savior.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Kyland)
β
Bad things don't happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn't work that way. It's just... life
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with you."
How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!
Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled.
Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. "Darling, darling," she murmured, "I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so."
I started from her.
She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown, and a face colorless and apathetic.
"Is there a chill in the air, dear?" she said drowsily. "I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? Let us come in. Come; come; come in.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
Why are you looking at me? His eyes search mine for several long seconds before he holds contact and whispers, " Because I like your face.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
Because the problem is, you can't shut off one emotion without shutting off all your emotions. You have to feel the pain if you're going to feel the joy.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Grayson's Vow)
β
I remember everything about itβwith an effort. I see it all, as divers see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but transparent.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetly die--into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
You are afraid to die?'
Yes, everyone is.'
But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together. Girls are caterpillars when they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see - each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structures.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
Darling, darling. I live in you, and you would die for me. I love you so.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
He rips his mouth from mine as he growls, "Mine. Only mine. Only. Ever. Mine," still slamming into me, pounding me against the wall.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers.
β
β
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (The School for Scandal)
β
He reached out and lightly touched her hair. Thereβs no way, he thought. Iβm sunk. And my heart hasnβt beat the same since she walked into town.
β
β
Robyn Carr (Virgin River (Virgin River, #1))
β
Iβm in love with you too. I am so desperately in love with you. Is it enough, Bree?
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
Sometimes my life felt so small. And I had to wonder why those of us who were given small lives, still had to feel pain so big.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Kyland)
β
love was all about learning to speak a person's language.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
She criticized, βThere are no excuses for why it could not be better. The devilβs in the details,β Viola tried to teach him. That made him mad and she heard him mutter, βNowβs I know why they call you Mrs.Β Rough-ner!β He went out and used hand scissors for the edges making the yard crisp and pleasant for all to see. Then, Viola just had to smile to herself because she guessed she had pushed him to his limit! But at last, the task was perfect and then, right after that, he left their home again.
β
β
Sheridan Brown (The Viola Factor)
β
There is nothing to find out. What I know, is that you walked through my gate that day and I lost my heart. But not because it could have been any girl-because it was you. I lost my heart to you. And, Bree, in case you're wondering, I don't ever want it back.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I choose you, I choose you, Leo. Always.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
but curiosity is a restless and scrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience, that hers should be baffled by another.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
We dreamed together, we planned a life together. We were so young, but we were so sure.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
I try to believe that something beautiful can result from something ugly, and that there will come a time when I'll get to see what that is.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed.
β
β
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (The Critic)
β
Itβs like, the second I saw him, my life started.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
It wasnβt until someone kicked his legs that Nik woke up. Alek, snoring beside him, his head resting on his shoulder. Ban snoring on the other couch, the noise rivaled only by the dog. He looked into the impossibly cranky face of Zach Sheridan. βYβall get food?β
βWe had a full refrigerator before you three got here.β
βWhere I come from, we donβt let the refrigerator get empty.β
βWhere you come from, you marry your sister.
β
β
Shelly Laurenston (Here Kitty, Kitty! (Magnus Pack, #3))
β
After a minute, I look up and the boy named Leo is staring at me. I stare back, but he doesnΒ΄t look away.
"Why are you looking at me?" I hiss at him, my cheeks turning hot, filled with shame for the exchange he just heard.
He just keeps looking at me for a moment, and then he shrugs. "Because I like your face," he says, but now a corner of his mouth is quirking up in a half smile.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
I really, really like how you make me feel β like if you looked at me every day, the way youβre looking at me right now, I could do anything, be anything, be more
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Stinger)
β
I don't know how to do any of this. You deserve better than the nothing I have to offer you. But it hurts even more to think of letting you go
β
β
Mia Sheridan
β
Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
You brought the silence, The most beautiful sound I'd ever heard, Because it was where you were. And now you've taken it away. And all the noises, all the sounds in the world, Aren't loud enough to pierce my broken heart. I look up at the stars, endless and forever, and whisper, Come back to me, Come back to me, Come back to me.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
love is not always smooth and easy. Love can be piercing. Love means exposing yourselfβall of yourself, every tender partβto being hurt. Because true love is not only the flower, true love is also the thorns.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Grayson's Vow)
β
She had told me my voice mattered, and her love had made me believe it might be true. And sometimes, that's all it takesβone person who's willing to listen to your heart, to the sound no one else has ever tried to hear.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. I wish you could read my mind so that you would know how much I want you, no one else. There could be three hundred men after me right now, and it wouldn't matter. Because none of them are you, Archer Hale. None of them are the man I love.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
...and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to mind with ambiguous alterations--sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla)
β
When Booker first started working for her a few years ago and was living in their home, she saw him cower with apprehension every time she snapped a new order or made him redo tasks more than once, twice, or three times. Now, she knew that he understood her ways better, her need for order, cleanliness, and strict attention to details. She felt he was beginning to realize just what this fifty-seven-year-old Yankee schoolteacher expected of her thirteen-year-old house servant and pupil. He began to appreciate the books from which she taught him after his morning chores were completed. She gave him a few to start his own library and found he stored them in old dry goods boxes in his bedroom.
β
β
Sheridan Brown (The Viola Factor)
β
I think that when enough time has passed, when you've survived that which you didn't imagine you could, there's a dignity in that. Something you can own. A pride in knowing the pain made you stronger. The pain made you fight to succeed. Someday, when I'm living my dreams, I'm going to think of all the things that broke my heart and I'm going to be thankful for them. β TF
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Kyland)
β
I think that 95 percent of knowing you're the greatest is all about confidence. You might suspect you're the greatest, you might hope you're the greatest, but if you don't have the balls to proclaim yourself the greatest in bold packaging, and let your critics test you if they dare, then you probably aren't the greatest. Who can resist the guy who really, truly believes in himself?
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
And the thing about falling in love is that no matter where you are when it happens, you can't help but to color those moments with beauty, even if you're in a location of ugliness. He made what would have been a place of nightmares into a place to dream.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, βDearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall dieβdie, sweetly dieβinto mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.β
And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu
β
I felt him smile against my skin, but he didnβt raise his head and he didnβt attempt to move, his body laying half on me, and half on the bed so I wasnβt being crushed.
βHey,β I said softly, βyou alive there?β
I felt another slow grin against my neck and then he shook his head, no.
I laughed softly and his head came up, a sweet smile on his face.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
TheΒ cold buriedΒ deep inside the bones of her hands, her feet, her head, her backβ¦everywhere. Viola felt old, chilled, andΒ exflunctified.Β She brushed away her snow-white hair and with gnarled fingers tried tucking it under the black, lacy, silk nightcap that her great niece Annie had sewn for her. Each day, her clothes consisted of aΒ long, white, embroidered nightgown,Β and a soft, warm, lavender sontag with the hair brooch secured upon her left shoulder. The few pleasures she had since she could no longer see were those of having mail or newspaper stories read to her by relatives who took turns caring for her. She could not tolerate people or activity. Food and drink were tasteless. Although the family made many attempts at a tray of concoctions for her each day, she had just quit eating. She remained closed in her bedroom in this dizzy age, propped in bed, eyes shut with her memories. βWho knew I would live this long?
β
β
Sheridan Brown (The Viola Factor)
β
Evie to Jake βOh my God,β she breathes βYour boy part is like the Incredible Hulk.β Jake raises an eyebrow and asks βBoy part?β Evie nods and asks βIs he angry?β Jake answers βNot yet. But if you keep referring to him as a βboy part,β he could get there. Heβs all man. You donβt want to see him get angry.β Evie responds βOh, I definitely want to see him get angry.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)
β
There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a strange fear and elation β an ascent above the reach of life's expectations or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgivings.
β
β
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (The Haunted Baronet and Others: Ghost Stories 1861-70)
β
My eyes moved over his face. 'Why did you do it?'
He was silent for a couple beats, looking down, taking his bottom lip between his teeth before he brought his hands up and said, 'I don't know.' His expression turned thoughtful, his eyes meeting mine, and then he continued. 'When you were in the trap, I couldn't speak to you to reassure you. You can't hear me...I can't help that.' He looked down for a second and then back up at me. 'But I want you to see me.' An expression of vulnerability washed over his face. 'Now you can see me.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Archer's Voice)
β
All the world's a circus. Sometimes you choose your act and sometimes it's assigned to you. I had roamed the arena for far too long, roaring and bellowing, believing that I wasn't brave enough to leap through fire. But all along, she had stood there, constant and calm."I can't make the fire go away," she had seemed to say, "I can't guarantee you won't get burned. But I can hold this hoop for you, I can remain steady and strong, because I believe in you. Because you are mine."
And in the end, I had jumped. And the other side was just as glorious as her eyes had promised.
β
β
Mia Sheridan (Leo)