The Wrong Quarterback Quotes

That doesn’t sound invisible to me.” “I’m saying it wrong, then.” Lydia searched for a better way to explain. “She was always holding herself back. She was cocaptain, not captain. She could’ve dated the quarterback, but she dated his brother instead. She could’ve been top in her class, but she’d purposefully turn in a paper late or miss an assignment so she’d fall closer to the middle. She would know about Mauna Kea, but she would say Everest because winning would bring too much attention.

Grief is like that, I guess. You think the world should stop, should fall apart with you, but it doesn’t. It keeps going.

Grief is like that, I guess. You think the world should stop, should fall apart with you, but it doesn’t. It keeps going. And you’re left standing in the middle of it, feeling hollow, watching everything move on like the person you loved wasn’t the very center of it all.

You gained my respect when you proved me wrong. And even more so moments ago when you brought joy back to my daughter’s face that I didn’t know could even exist anymore.

That you’re going to be mine until the day we die and for all our lifetimes after that. There’s no me without you.

Why did no one ever love him back? Why was it so easy for people to leave him? What was wrong with him that made everyone walk away, go back to their own lives, and leave him behind?

What’s football?” he asked. “It’s chess. Tackle chess. And what’s the quarterback? He’s the king. Take him out, you win the game. So that was our philosophy. We’re going to hit that quarterback ten times. We do that, he’s gone. I hit him late? Fine. Penalize me. But it’s like in those courtroom movies, when the lawyer says the wrong thing and the judge tells the jury to disregard it, but you can’t unhear and the quarterback can’t be unhit.

But most soldiers who have experienced combat understand that armchair quarterbacking is shallow and often misguided. It’s easy to second-guess decisions based on their ramifications, and then to assign blame. Considerably harder is accepting that in combat, things can and will often go wrong not because of bad decisions, but despite even the best decisions.

I wasn’t planning on eating with them. For one, carbs are my frenemy. Second, this is supposed to be a players’ bonding dinner and sitting at a table with six football players, listening to them discuss strategy and film, isn’t my idea of a good time. Especially when, out of the six, two are feuding quarterbacks, four are competing wide receivers, two have been in my panties, and only one remembers it. Math has never been my strong point and even I can figure out this word problem.   But hey, how could that possibly go wrong?

Don't get me wrong, a lot has changed...lynchings have become white knees pressed against a black neck. Black knees in kneepads, in protest on the ground have become career enders for Super Bowl-contending quarterbacks. Attempting to spend a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill has become guilty before investigation--a death sentence without a trial--a public execution. Looking at a construction site has become justification for chasing, harassing, fighting, shooting, and killing a man...a man...amen. I agree with myself, as I have to do because whiteness doesn't allow itself to agree with my truth. We tell you we're hurting. You tell us we're not. I hurt. I said, I hurt! When will this country ever begin to believe me?

I’m so sorry. I wish you’d been there tonight. Maybe it would’ve been easier just to have you close. I wish I could fix all this shit. I wish I could sleep next to you tonight and you wouldn’t push me away. I always sleep better next to you.” He sighs. “I wish it was you standing at the end of the aisle tomorrow. I know this is all wrong, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve said it enough times and it hasn’t changed anything, and it won’t. It can’t.

There's nothing wrong with us," Anya said. "You, on the other hand, are way too tense. You probably need to get laid. Maybe Grant Cassidy can help you with that.

You’re going first,” I said.  It was almost like a rain cloud had suddenly appeared over Ethan. He furrowed his brow as he dropped his gaze. “I was hoping we would dance first.” I shook my head. “Nope. You’ve already seen mine, now it’s time I see yours.” I nodded toward his guitar case.  A sinister expression passed over Ethan’s face and I had to sigh and roll my eyes. I knew he would take what I said the wrong way the moment it left my lips. “That’s not what I meant,” I said

Nothing hurts more than loving the wrong man.

In a group of football fans, the one who knows the least is the most likely to be the armchair quarterback, prosecuting the coach for calling the wrong play and preaching about a better playbook.

there is no such thing as individual achievement. A quarterback throws an interception and it might be his own fault; but it might also be the fault of the receiver who ran the wrong route, or the blocker who allowed him to be hit as he threw. Twenty-two players are involved in every football play. To value precisely the activity of any one of them, i

You can’t steal something that belongs to you,

Like a whisper turning into a shout. Like colors filling an empty canvas. Like a song coming to life under my fingertips.

I stared at him, the boy who’d been my constant, my refuge, my home for so long. But he’d also deserted me when I’d needed him the most. And then he’d treated me like I was an afterthought instead of the love of his life.

And maybe that’s what love really was—not just filling a void, but building something beautiful out of the empty places. He’d become my world, my everything, the person who made me feel safe in a way I never thought I’d feel again. In his arms, I knew I wasn’t alone anymore. And I was ready, achingly ready, to start my happily ever after…with him.

We were about to pop open a casket and steal a ring off a dead woman’s finger. If that didn’t scream “secret society,” I didn’t know what did.

You and I both know this was inevitable, the kind of inevitable that gets tattooed on your skin until the day you die. I’m not going to be your rebound, Casey Larsen. I’m your end game.

Sometimes it hurt being this close to her because all I wanted was for her to be mine. I wanted to latch myself onto her and stitch her to my side so we were never apart. That sounded creepy, but I obviously meant it in the most obsessed, deranged, love-struck way, of course.

Gray’s right,” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. “I wanted you from the moment I saw you. I couldn’t get you out of my head.

I’d never thought of myself as having an addictive personality, but it was official. I was addicted to Casey Larsen.

Football is easy if you’re crazy as hell.” —Bo Jackson

It has a tracker in there,” he said proudly. “Because best friends stalk each other.

Obviously I never met your brother, but I feel like I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of who he was from what you’ve told me. And the kind of guy who loves his sister like that…he’d never be okay with a man treating her badly—his best friend or not.” I opened my mouth to object. To say that maybe I hadn’t taken enough time to listen to Gray. Maybe he needed help with a drinking problem, and I’d turned my back on him when he needed me the most. Maybe I hadn’t been a good enough girlfriend… It was like she could read my mind. “You are not responsible for a man’s bad behavior, Casey. Now repeat that for me, right the fuck now.” “I am not responsible for a man’s bad behavior,” I repeated obediently.

The Davis family had a curse. Or at least they liked to think that they did. Our male family members tended to be one look and that’s all kind of people. When they found “the one,” that was it. I hadn’t believed that it was true—it couldn’t be true. Holy shit.

Every little thing about her was under my skin, from that shy smile to the way her eyes told me everything she was feeling. Fuck. I couldn’t think of anything else that mattered anymore. Everything I did was a means to an end to make her happy, to help build this thing I wanted more than anything else. Every step I took was light, charged, like I had a live wire running through me. I wanted to text her already, just to keep some connection going, as if being with her for hours today wasn’t enough.

This had been my second trial. Fuck.

How could life continue on when Ben wasn’t here? The world hadn’t stopped like mine had. It just kept moving, indifferent to the gaping hole his absence had left.

They sat quietly for a few minutes. Finally, Alex said, “So Ben, right now I like baseball because I just caught one. Why do you like baseball so much?” “I don’t like baseball. I love baseball.” “That’s pretty obvious, but why?” Ben looked at his brother and shook his head thoughtfully. “It’s different than any other sport. It’s like life. The only way you can appreciate it is slowly. The drama of the game builds as each inning goes by. Sure, it’s great seeing your team hit a home run in the first inning, but it’s even better to see one in the ninth inning, especially when your team is down and you win because of it. The entire season is like that too, the same kind of pace from game one until the World Series. It’s not about any individual play, although that’s important. It’s not the home run itself. It’s the drama that precedes the home run, maybe a whole game that’s turned around and changed by it. You can’t appreciate baseball if all you watch are the highlight reels or all you see is one inning or one play. I’m not the first to say this, but baseball is life.” Alex smiled at his brother. “Look, I play basketball and I’ve played it my whole life, but frankly, when you watch a professional game, in my opinion the defense is almost nonexistent and the only thing good about it is the last couple of minutes,” Ben said. “You don’t get that in baseball. The drama of baseball is in every moment of the game, it builds until the last out. Baseball is all about the whole game.” “What about football?” asked Alex. “That has drama. The game is played over sixty minutes. I find it a whole lot more exciting than baseball.” “It’s not the same thing. It has many of the same elements when you look at the basics of it. They both have athleticism, strategy, and tactics, but it’s different. I’ll bet you find it exciting because of its ferocity. The violence is what turns me off about football. Don’t get me wrong, you still have to be able to think to play the game, but at the end of the day football is about violence—linemen trying to kill each other, the defensive guys trying to kill the quarterback, the receiver. The violence overshadows the thinking. I’ve seen games where the fans actually cheered when a visiting player was injured.” “Yeah, welcome to Philly.” Alex smiled. “Fair enough, but I bet it’s the same in any city,” Ben said. “Baseball isn’t about violence. Look, I know it has violence. God must love the catchers. I don’t know how they survive a two-hundred-pound base runner sliding into home, cleats first, and many second basemen have been hurt trying to put a man out at second. But that’s not what the game is about. It’s just a part of it, like life. “If I had to summarize the difference between baseball and football, football is about war; baseball is about life. In football you have two armies clashing, over and over again. They keep at it until one side overwhelms the other. Baseball is different. It’s about going out and working hard and having little victories and defeats along the way and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Hopefully you win, but even if you don’t you keep coming back every day. It’s like when you drive a truck, cut hair, sell buttons and zippers, or do advertising. It’s the same thing for all of us. It’s day-in and day-out work, and you hope at the end of the year you’ve won more than you’ve lost. If I want violence all I have to do is open the paper and read about Korea, or close my eyes and think about Okinawa. I get inspired by baseball to come back every day and try harder and if I work as hard as I can, and have a little luck, I get rewarded for it.

I opened my mouth to argue, until I realized I had that confusing, warm feeling inside me again. The idea that he was so obsessed with me that he wanted to watch me when he was out of the house was…hot. Psycho, but hot. Fuck. I needed a therapist.

This win…” He paused, almost like he was gathering the right words. “It’s for someone special. My soulmate’s brother, Ben Larsen. A man I never got to meet, but wish I had. I respect him immensely, and I know he’s watching out for her and us, wherever he is.

I was also becoming more and more convinced that…I liked this. I actually liked this twisted game of control. To see the depths he’d go to keep me.