Full Measures Quotes
"Running was hellish, but I’d already calculated how far I had to go to compensate for the Christmas fudge I’d be scarfing down during the rest of my visit home."
"Stepping on a Lego was a special degree of hell that only someone with a little brother could really understand."
"I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t drag the air into my lungs in a world that didn’t have my father in it anymore."
"Everything dropped from under me, and unmatched pain tore through every cell in my body, erupting in a sob I couldn’t keep contained."
"Dad was a believer that nothing bad happened to prepared people. He’d hate to know he’d been wrong."
"The way he’d cried when I left for college last year pretty much gave the kid free reign over my soul."
"This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I couldn’t hold her tight enough to make it stop."
"My father was a doctor. A doctor! Who the hell shoots a doctor?"
"No question pulled her from her stupor, no tug of her hand, no whisper of her name could bring her back to where I was desperate for her to be."
"How long would it be until I saw that light in his eyes again?"
"War was such a spiteful bitch; she took everything we loved and handed us back a folded flag in return, telling us the honor of their sacrifice was a just and equal payment."
"But what if tomorrow was just waiting around the corner, ready to pounce and bring me to a new low?"
"How was I supposed to take care of Mom without Dad? How was I going to do any of this when I wanted to curl up and deny it all?"
"Well, I’m your grandmother, and you will be going to school today."
"Your father died, not you. Go dress yourself, grab your backpack, and get to school."
"Sleep," she murmured. "I just want to sleep."
"I will go in this way, and find my own way out."
"He was needed, Ember. He saved a lot of lives."
"The fire you have within you is impossible to kill. The first breath you take when you’re free of all this, it will come roaring back. That’s what is so impossibly beautiful about you."
"You are the sexiest girl I’ve ever seen. Always have been."
"Grief, by its very nature, is designed to suck the life out of us because we are so willing to join our dead. It’s supposed to be this hard to figure out what to do next, but it’s that ‘next’ that makes us the living, and not our dead."
"Never apologize to me for something I wanted so badly I could practically taste you before we even left your house."
"I’m not going to let it be awkward. I want you too much for that."
"You’re so busy taking care of everyone else, you can’t see that someone needs to take care of you. So tell me what you need, and I’ll be that for you."
"You needed to feel alive. Your dad died, and I get that. It’s a pretty common reaction, really."
"You don’t need to apologize. If you need to talk, I’ll listen."
"I know we can fight for this. I won’t see her again, I swear. Once we get up to Boulder, everything will return to normal, I know it. I’m the only one for you."
"I’m not ready for anything. I just needed . . . I needed . . ."
"To feel alive."
"Everything she did was about my father, and now what does she have? She’s a train wreck."
"Because it means I have a part of you no one else does. Like my own little secret side of you."
"Just don’t forget to ask for help when you need it. Don’t carry this all on your own."
"His eyes sparkled with intensity, and I had to control every muscle to keep from diving for him and his offer of the bedroom."
"If by apologize, you mean nearly swallowing his tongue and debating if I should remove his pants with my hands or teeth?"
"Knowing my bedroom backs up to yours, that you’re only a wall away, lying in bed, makes that pretty fucking impossible."
"I kind of hoped they froze their assets off."
"If I could knock this out this morning, I had the rest of the weekend to indulge in my history reading."
"By the time the game was over, he’d scored one goal and had an assist for the win."
"The pain wasn’t lessening; it was still sharp at moments and dull at others, but it was sinking in my heart, making room for other things, too."
"She’d noticed something outside herself for real, no faking."
"It is the business of the living to keep on doing so."
"I wanted someone to hold me, to tell me it was going to be okay, to assure me that my life hadn’t ended with Dad’s."
"I shook the final droplets out of the glass and set it down on her nightstand. 'Yup. Now get your ass out of bed.'"
"But there was beauty in not knowing what was coming my way, in being unable to brace for impact."
"Because I’m masochistic enough to care about you, and someone has to, Ember."
"It’s not using if I want it. Besides, it’s just dancing, and I think that’s covered under the whatever-you-need clause of our unwritten contract."
"This was exactly what I needed, exactly who I needed. Josh."
"I’ve been dreaming of that for . . . A while."
"Not until you’re in my bed, Ember. Mine. No one else’s."
"God, I want you. But I’m not going to take your virginity in someone else’s bed during a damn party."
"I’m so much more screwed up than you could ever be."
"I couldn’t let it in, I couldn’t let the pieces fall. I still can’t."
"It just means you traded what we spent years building for sex. Just sex."
"What you call being perfect is actually me treading water with every ounce of strength I have so I don’t drown."
"What do you think, ladies? Should we bring Ember along to the party?"
"Why not? She looks like she needs to loosen up."
"Maybe I’m not quite ready to hear about how fucking perfect Riley is, and how you’ve forgiven him and worked it all out."
"You want to talk? Fine. I’ll give you five minutes once I have enough alcohol in my system to hear it."
"Everything I want is wrapped up in you, Ember."
"Because everything I want is wrapped up in you, Ember."
"This is where I live. Everything else is just breathing to get by."
"Plans change, you adjust the sails and go with it."
"I’m in love with you, Josh Walker. Take. Me. Home."
"Men with asses like his shouldn’t be allowed near the female population."
"Just in the wrong place at the wrong time, baby. But I guess it led me to you, so it’s more like the right place at the right time."
"I could make you come every hour of every day just to see your face when you climax."
"You are everything, and I’m not going to let you walk away over a uniform."
"I’ve wanted you since I was eighteen, but I was never good enough, not for someone like you."
"Thank you for getting me through losing my dad. Thank you for protecting April and loving Gus."
"My heart stopped as he shot . . . and made it!"
"Everything I had wanted to say to him—my pride and my happiness too—was there for him to see."
"You were in my head the whole game. You’re in my heart every minute I’m awake. I love you December Howard."
"I swallowed back the pain, refusing to let the tears come. I couldn’t spend my entire life crying, there had to be a stopping point."
"I have missed Josh; I still miss him every day, but I have to be okay alone before I can ever be with someone else."
"Love isn’t something you throw away lightly."
"Thank you for being here, for taking care of everything when I couldn’t."
"Yes, I was angry! I was jealous that Chloe Rose held it together for her kids, but you couldn’t manage to get out of bed!"
"I can’t live in fear of a doorbell. I won’t ever open a door to that again."
"Love isn’t strong enough for what I feel for you, Josh Walker."
"Most people don’t get to experience real love, and we did."
"Love is precious, Ember, and it doesn’t come around very often."
"Live, baby. Laugh, cry, scream, and love. Realize that every moment you have is worth every drop of sweat and tears you can give it."
"Always remember that I love you, and have since the moment you were on your way to us."
"You weren’t born to be confined to a roadmap."