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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #nathan
I need to hear the words of this book—its truth, forgiveness, hope—as much as anybody.” Nathaniel looked up with an apologetic smile. “I know I’m no great orator. But I ask you to bear with me as I fumble through this new duty. ↗
Forgive me. It was stupid of me to think you might need company, when clearly all you required was that decanter.” “It was not stupid. It was very kind. Quite soft, actually. A very warm, womanly gesture. I am touched.” He smiled softly. “However, if you truly want to help, if you really want to distract me, there are better ways. When I saw that dress, I dared hope you had realized that. ↗
I love you, Margaret Macy. And there is something I need to ask you. Something I’ve asked twice before and am nearly afraid to ask again. The Scriptures say let our yes be yes and our no be no, but I pray, in your case, your no may have changed . . . ?” Margaret leaned forward and kissed him firmly, warmly, on the lips. Then she smiled at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “Yes, it most definitely has. ↗
#margaret-macy #marriage-proposal #nathaniel-upchurch #change
All those other summers and those other kisses and everything else we shared, my dad choosing some random lake in some random town to stay in one year, the fights and the screw ups that helped us learn and gave us experiences with other people. They were all meant to happen, and our paths were supposed to cross over and over again. Until we found that point, the bright star in the summer sky that would be ours forever. ↗
Nathan kept trying to reassure him. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. Not to you. You can forget it, if you’d rather.” Matt listened to Nathan’s heartbeat, fast and light like a deer flashing through sunshine and shadow. “Listen, Nathan…” Nathan was silent, but Matt could feel the immediate tension down his spine. “I loved Rachel with all my heart. You’re right, nothing changes that. But—I never wanted her the way I want you.” Nathan slid out from under him, rolled over. His face was different, grave but sort of lit from within in a way that gave Matt a funny pain in his chest. ↗
He wouldn’t spend another standing in the darkness, hot and sick and shaking inside with a confused mess of feelings that weren’t worth analyzing. That he shouldn’t have felt anyway. With Rachel gone it was like balancing on the edge of a cliff—and all the little wildflowers, the netting of grass and roots that kept the cliff from sliding into the sea below, were gone. It was just Matt standing there looking down, waiting to fall. Even Rachel’s memory, the sweet recollection of all they had built, all they had shared, was no longer strong enough to fight gravity. From the moment he had looked across the wet grass and seen Nathan Doyle standing in the shadow of a stone saber-toothed tiger, something had changed inside him. Something battened down had torn free, like a sail taking its first deep breath of sea air. It terrified him. And at the same time it exhilarated him. Which terrified him all the more. ↗
Dating is probably the most fraught human interaction there is. You're sizing people up to see if they're worth your time and attention, and they're doing the same to you. It's meritocracy applied to personal life, but there's no accountability. We submit ourselves to these intimate inspections and simultaneously inflict them on others and try to keep our psyches intact - to keep from becoming cold and callous - and we hope that at the end of it we wind up happier than our grandparents, who didn't spend this vast period of their lives, these prime years, so thoroughly alone, coldly and explicitly anatomized again and again. ↗
According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking. ↗
