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the small QUOTES

the small QUOTES

1 " He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion as he was with everything else. It was in the way he'd put his hand on the small of my back, for instance, or how he'd smile at me when I said something that surprised him. Once I might have wanted more, but I'd come around to his way of thinking in the time we'd been together. And we were together, all the time. So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know. "

― Sarah Dessen , The Truth About Forever

2 " Do you know what I see in you now? The usual aura. A steady golden yellow, healthy and strong, with spikes of purple here and there. But when I do this. . . .”He rested a hand on my hip, and my whole body tensed up. That hand moved around my hip, slipping under my shirt to rest on the small of my back. My skin burned where he touched me, and the places that were untouched longed for that heat.. The colors deepen, it burns more intensely, the purple increases. Why? Why, Sydney?” He used that hand on me to pull me closer. “Why do you react that way if I don’t mean anything to you?” There was a desperation in his voice, and it was legitimate. "

3 " The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it's the small things that count. Everyone's so busy waiting in the Waiting Place. If we stopped to remember that there's such a thing as a Purina Tower and a view like this, we'd all be happier. "

― Jennifer Niven , All the Bright Places

4 " Her hand holding his for a dozen paces. His, resting on the small of her back for a moment. Touches that had no real purpose but to say I’m here and We are together still. "

― Veronica Rossi , Under the Never Sky (Under the Never Sky, #1)

5 " His tender tone turned her heart over. She obliged, tilting her head back slightly and looking up at him in the firelit darkness. When he bent his head and his mouth met hers, she gave a little sigh, her lips parting slightly in surprise and expectation. He kissed her with the same sure decisiveness with which he did everything else, his mouth trailing to her cheek and chin and ear, returning again and again to her mouth and lingering there, his breath mingling with her own.

She felt adrift in small, sharp bursts of pleasure. Was this how a man was suppose to kiss a woman? Tenderly... firmly... repeatedly? His fingers fanned through her hair till the pins gave way and wayward locks spilled like black ribbon to the small of her back. In answer, her arms circled his neck, bringing him nearer, every kiss sweeter and surer than the one before. Soon they were lost in a haze of sighs and murmurs and caresses. "

― Laura Frantz , The Colonel's Lady

6 " For really it was the refinement of civilized cruelty, this spick, span, and ingenious affair of shining leather and gleaming steel, which hoisted you and tilted you and fitted reassuringly into the small of your back and cupped your head tenderly between padded cushions. It ensured for you a more complete muscular relaxation than any armchair that you could buy for your own home: but it left your tormented nerves without even the solace of a counter-irritant. In the old days the victim's attention had at least been distracted by an ache in the back, a crick in the neck, pins and needles in the legs, and the uneasy tickling of plush under the palm. But now, too efficiently suspended between heaven and earth, you were at liberty to concentrate on hell. "

― , Mrs. Miniver

7 " The intruders spoke no words as they rushed in. Five boys carrying baseball bats and tire irons. They wore an assortment of Halloween masks and stocking masks.
But Derek knew who they were.
“No! No!” he cried.
All five boys wore bulky shooter’s earmuffs. They couldn’t hear him. But more importantly, they couldn’t hear Jill.
One of the boys stayed in the doorway. He was in charge. A runty kid named Hank. The stocking pulled down over his face smashed his features into Play-Doh, but it could only be Hank.
One of the boys, fat but fast-moving and wearing an Easter Bunny mask, stepped to Derek and hit him in the stomach with his aluminum baseball bat.
Derek dropped to his knees.
Another boy grabbed Jill. He put his hand over her mouth. Someone produced a roll of duct tape.
Jill screamed. Derek tried to stand, but the blow to his stomach had winded him. He tried to stand up, but the fat boy pushed him back down.
“Don’t be stupid, Derek. We’re not after you.”
The duct tape went around and around Jill’s mouth. They worked by flashlight. Derek could see Jill’s eyes, wild with terror. Pleading silently with her big brother to save her.
When her mouth was sealed, the thugs pulled off their shooter’s earmuffs.
Hank stepped forward. “Derek, Derek, Derek,” Hank said, shaking his head slowly, regretfully. “You know better than this.”
“Leave her alone,” Derek managed to gasp, clutching his stomach, fighting the urge to vomit.
“She’s a freak,” Hank said.
“She’s my little sister. This is our home.”
“She’s a freak,” Hank said. “And this house is east of First Avenue. This is a no-freak zone.”
“Man, come on,” Derek pleaded. “She’s not hurting anyone.”
“It’s not about that,” a boy named Turk said. He had a weak leg, a limp that made it impossible not to recognize him. “Freaks with freaks, normals with normals. That’s the way it has to be.”
“All she does is—”
Hank’s slap stung. “Shut up. Traitor. A normal who stands up for a freak gets treated like a freak. Is that what you want?”
“Besides,” the fat boy said with a giggle, “we’re taking it easy on her. We were going to fix her so she could never sing again. Or talk. If you know what I mean.”
He pulled a knife from a sheath in the small of his back. “Do you, Derek? Do you understand?”
Derek’s resistance died.
“The Leader showed mercy,” Turk said. “But the Leader isn’t weak. So this freak either goes west, over the border right now. Or…” He let the threat hang there.
Jill’s tears flowed freely. She could barely breathe because her nose was running. Derek could see that by the way she sucked tape into her mouth, trying for air. She would suffocate if they didn’t let her go soon.
“Let me at least get her doll. "

― Michael Grant , Lies (Gone, #3)

8 " Sir always had a thing for calves. They were soft and smooth, like all skin on a woman. But the calf flesh was backed by muscle, so there was a firmness you wouldn't find at the hips, say, or in the small of the back. But it wasn't boney like the front of the leg. No, the calf was pretty much the closest thing to the perfection of breast tissue you could touch on a woman without getting your hand slapped away. "

― Joshua Edward Smith , Duality (Entropy, #2)

9 " There was old sex in the room and loneliness, and expectation, of something without a shape or name. I remember that yearning, and was never the same as the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back, or out back, in the parking lot, or in the television room with the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh. We yearned for the future How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability? "

― Margaret Atwood , The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)

10 " I remember loving pencils. I was fond of paper. I loved the small of textbooks. I loved the way the light from a desk lamp was bright on a page. I loved the smell of fresh-cut grass. It was a thing everybody loved, but there was no shame in being that much like everybody else, in sharing that. "

― Frederick Barthelme , Elroy Nights

11 " Though the world was hazy, all I could think about was love. And how I'd never had it. How I would never understand what it felt like to fall asleep knowing another person was thinking of you. I would never have someone touch the small of my back as they steered me through a crowd. I would never know the contour of someone's face off-by-heart, and yet not be bored with it. And, as I sank to the grey, chewing-gum stained carpet, all I could think was how sad that was. "

― Holly Bourne

12 " Neely McIntire," I said, clamping a sweaty hand behind her neck. " Friendship be damned!" Hayden yanked me forward. I had time to make a very girly sound before his lips began to move furiously over mine. His touch left behind the tingle of cinnamon gum. One of his hands slowly slid down and pressed into the small of my back. For a second, I thought the sun had washed over me. But this heat cuddled around me, pushing its way through my clothes. " Stmmmmp," I tried to say around his lips. My knees wobbled as he wound his fingers into the curls at my neck, holding my face firmly against his. " No." The hot pressure of his hand increased. A rumbling protest came from his throat when I dug my nails into his collarbones. " Lemme go," I managed to gasp when he kissed the corner of my mouth. " No," he whispered. His voice became a yielding puff of smoke. It slipped into my ears and coaxed something familiar from the broken depths. The urge to fight drained away. This wisp of memory warmed me, relaxed tensed muscles, but tightened other places. My fists uncurled and gripped his shoulders. " Why are you doing this?" " I want you to come back to me, Neely," he said, wrapping his arms around my waist to press our hips together. Fiery lips caressed my face and neck. " I know you're in there somewhere. Come back, come back, come back," he whispered between kisses. "

13 " She stared at him. Her head tipped to the side and she narrowed her eyes. “That’s the best you can come up with? What kind of platitude is that?”
“Give me a second. I can do better.” He lifted her hand, then reached for her other one. He pulled her close so they stood toe to toe. She shivered a little. He didn’t think it had much to do with the cold. Her arms were bare, but the evening was warm. “Everything happens for a reason. God works in mysterious ways. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
“You suck at this.” But she was smiling.
She was so achingly beautiful. He slid his hands up her arms to her elbows so they were closer still. And then she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and he forgot how to breathe.
He stood in the shadows, holding her in his arms, wanting to do the right thing and afraid he’d screw it all up. Her hands nestled the small of his back, thumbs hooked through his belt. Her lips brushed against the sensitive base of his throat. Awareness burned through every single spot her body came in contact with his. This was Danni, all grown up. He wanted one little taste. Just a bit.
So he kissed her. And, without a second’s hesitation, she kissed him back. The world around them rocked back on its heels.
Then some small noise interrupted—the sound of footsteps, passing too close. He lifted his head, not wanting any intrusion, and the moment ended as fast as it had begun. "

― Paula Altenburg , I'll Love You Forever

14 " Do you know what I see in you now? The usual aura. A steady golden yellow, healthy and strong, with spikes of purple here and there. But when I do this. . . .”He rested a hand on my hip, and my whole body tensed up. That hand moved around my hip, slipping under my shirt to rest on the small of my back. My skin burned where he touched me, and the places that were untouched longed for that "

15 " Elliot had always thought that touch was the most intimate way a man and a woman could connect. A kiss. A hand across the base of the neck or a brush of fingertips against the small of the back. But if his thundering heart gave any indication, the moment of honesty Wren had shared in that single look made the air crackle with tension, of the kind he'd never known before. "

― Kristy Cambron , The Illusionist's Apprentice

16 " Thank you,” she said.

He looked bemused. “For what?”

“For everything. For being amazing in bed and endlessly patient, for sacrificing the Savage Club for me and bringing me all the way around the world simply because you were worried about me, even though it meant you were probably going to spend your holidays alone. For the way you always put your hand on the small of my back to guide me across the street and the way you let me be in charge of the television remote control and the way you have never, not once, judged me or mistrusted me or made me feel small or unwanted.”

“Violet, sweetheart...” He blinked and she realized that he was close to tears.

Her Martin. Mr. Uptight. Mr. Repressed. "

― Sarah Mayberry , Her Best Worst Mistake (Elizabeth and Violet #2)

17 " Thane - She grasped my face in her hands and pulled me to her, pressing soft kisses on my lips. My arm slid around her waist, and my hand pressed against the small of her back until her body melded with mine. My tongue demanded entrance, and she opened to me, allowing me to taste her, tease her, devour her.
And in that moment, I claimed her as mine. "

― Suzannah Daniels , Vampire's Bane (Vampire's Bane, #1)

18 " We're lucky." He slipped his hand around her waist and splayed it in the small of her back. " Most couples have only one first kiss. We'll have two. "

19 " Happy birthday,” he whispered, his breath landing warm and suddenly close to my lips, making my insides flip. And just as quickly as he’d surprised me with the cake, he kissed me, one frosting-covered hand moving from my hair to the back of my neck, the other solid and warm in the small of my back, pressing us together, my chest against his ribs, my hip bones just below his, the tops of our bare summer legs hot and touching. I stopped breathing. My eyes were closed and his mouth tasted like marzipan flowers and clove cigarettes, and in ten seconds the whole of my life was wrapped up in that one kiss, that one wish, that one secret that would forever divide my life into two parts.
Up, down. Happy, sad. Shock, awe. Before, after.
In that single moment, Matt, formerly known as friend, became something else entirely.
I kissed him back. I forgot time. I forgot my feet. I forgot the people outside, waiting for us to rejoin the party. I forgot what happens when friends cross into this space. And if my lungs didn’t fill and my heart didn’t beat and my blood didn’t pump without my intervention, I would have forgotten about them, too.
I could have stayed like that all night, standing in front of the sink, Matt’s black apple hair brushing my cheeks, heart thumping, lucky and forgetful… "

― Sarah Ockler , Twenty Boy Summer

20 " Granny Weatherwax had a primal snore. It had never been tamed. No one had ever had to sleep next to it, to curb its wilder excesses by means of a kick, a prod in the small of the back, or a pillow used as a bludgeon. It had had years in a lonely bedroom to perfect the knark, the graaah, and the gnoc, gnoc, gnoc unimpeded by the nudges, jabs, and occasional attempts at murder that usually moderate the snore impulse over time "

― Terry Pratchett