Brava, Valentine Quotes
"Time stands still when people are happy. The ticking of real time resumes as soon as the rings are exchanged—for all of us."
"You just never know. Not one of us, not even the bride, saw this day coming."
"It’s a bad idea to close the book before 'The End.' You just never know."
"Life is a vale of tears that leaves you lonely and bereft."
"We appear completely nuts to outsiders. How about last night at the rehearsal dinner? Mom got up to give a toast and started sobbing and made it all about her childhood."
"I know how you feel—you think I’m a screw-up, in life and work. How would you like to feel judged all the time?"
"The triumph of love over nuclear annihilation."
"What the hell can I do? Club it with a shoe?" - Dad
"You might be going home, but you will never leave me." - Gianluca
"I don’t know, Dutch. Think of something." - Mom
"The patterns June cut yesterday lie neatly on the table, layers of tissue paper and fabric pinned together without a bump or a gather."
"There’s an incentive program for small business in New York State—they’re taking applications for loans right now."
"No harm in trying to make you feel better." - June
"I never place a cup of coffee on a bare table. I respect wood grains. Always a coaster."
"The anticipation of sex is often more thrilling than the reality." - June
"You have to show up every single day and produce. It’s not easy." - June
"Love is built in a series of small realizations."
"The only urgent thing in life is the pursuit of love."
"I’m thirty-four years old, and no one has ever written me a love letter."
"You nurture people—and we need you to. But you don’t think about yourself enough."
"You wouldn’t wear the same clothes every day, would you?"
"Surroundings matter, and change keeps you fresh, young, and on your toes."
"Color therapy... yellow is conducive to healing."
"Our wills are updated like our dental records (and we are fanatical about teeth!)."
"Love builds in a series of small realizations."
"You have to choose. I’ve always had to look for trouble to find it, and the same goes for love."
"Creativity is all about the guts to try something new, somewhere new."
"I have a job to do, and I won’t rest until it’s done."
"I hope you had a restful flight, and that your room, with its balcony, pleases you. I know you like to sit outside at night, under the moon."
"Dear God. My heart is pounding. I think I’m having a stroke."
"I spring off the bed like I’m tinsel that’s been shot out of a New Year’s party horn."
"My name, in Gianluca’s familiar script, is written on the tag."
"I am taking a swim at the pool by the mansion. Perhaps you would like to join me."
"It’s a bathing suit. A tasteful yet sexy black one-piece maillot, with a plunging V in the front and sheer black mesh panels on the sides."
"The pool reminds me of the lakes inside the Blue Grotto in Capri."
"I could be anywhere—we are anywhere, the corner of Hudson Street, or the platform of the train station in Forest Hills, or high on the cliffs of Anacapri when the moon is out—it doesn’t matter."
"I’m in the tower on the eleventh floor, looking out over the city."
"I almost skip through the mansion foyer and out the door to the gardens."
"His expression, his eyes, the color of the deepest night sky, so clear, say more than his letters ever could about how he feels about me."
"This is the difference between an impulsive woman and a wise man."
"I only know that my heart is broken without you—and maybe sometime, if you can forgive me, you might think about coming home."
"Marriages break up, and the excuse, at the heart of it, is ‘growing apart.’"
"I’m not happy, and maybe there are a million reasons why, but the truth is, I only need one to justify changing my life."
"You earn your future happiness when you fight for it."
"I miss conversations with grown-ups. I have them, but you know, I always feel like I’m cheating on my life."
"The definition of happiness is very personal."
"You are very lucky to have married a good man who loves you."
"I can’t believe her tone of voice. She is actually disappointed that I’m not having an affair with her husband."
"I’ve learned the basic laws of life in our shop—whoever ventures inside from the outside is responsible for the coffee run."
"I’ve gone from a banker to a cobbler’s assistant in nine months. I think it’s apparent I’m a prodigy."
"We marry who we marry, and then we have to cope."
"If there is a man to be trusted on the planet, it’s your husband."
"I don’t care about surroundings, or good food—unless we’re talking Mario Batali or Tom Colicchio, but they’re an anomaly."
"Our relationship may be as dead as the autumn leaves in the centerpiece, but the things I learned from him are very much alive."
"This is the goddamnest Thanksgiving I have ever spent."
"I’m not a marriage expert. But I have been friends with your husband since we were kids."
"Thank you for being Gram’s best friend, and then, when she moved away, you became mine."
"The photograph is pure June, caught in the vigor of youth. Her body was a work of art; her thigh muscles, down through the extension of her long and graceful calves, appear chiseled in granite."
"June would say, ‘Father, remember to pray for me, because I pray for you.’ This was the essence of this good woman, now in God’s hands."
"One must change in order to grow. That one must move through life, not stand still, but move with it…"
"You cannot throw away sixteen years of love and life with someone over a stupid mistake. You just can’t."
"Marriage is like working in a coal mine. You hack away in the dark, day after day, busting rock, and then all of a sudden, this little sliver of sunlight appears and you say to yourself, Oh, that’s what I’ve been waiting for—just a little light, just a little bit of hope—a sign, maybe, that will get me through."
"Just because I like my shoes to match my bag, that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. I have a mind."
"You can fall in love with someone, and believe in that person, but it doesn’t mean that you can build a life together."
"The very friends that advised me to kick Dutch out are remarried—and in some cases, unhappy in second marriages themselves."
"Only love can open someone up to the possibilities of living and creating art."
"Trust means I have someone who loves me and is on my side even when I fail, come up short, or do something rash."