Top 35 Elizabeth O'Roark Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “And Satan is my nickname for him, not Jonathan’s, but still an apt one. First, because he’s a plastic surgeon to the stars, which is exactly the kind of job you’d expect of Satan, were Satan for some reason unable to practice law.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

2. “I’d like to do plenty of things to him, but they mostly involve spit, and not in a sexy way.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

3. “I get the feeling all your knowledge of my homeland comes from reading books about nineteenth century orphans.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

4. “Home?” I murmur, glancing at him. “I didn’t know humans were allowed to jaunt back and forth over the River Styx like that.” His eyes raise to mine. His mouth twitches. “There’s a small toll. It’s really quite civilized.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

5. “Love is handing your fragile heart to someone else because you want him to have it, no matter what he’ll do in response.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

6. “I am crazy about you. I’m so crazy about you I seem to care very little about everything that mattered a month ago. Not my reputation. Not my job. Not my future. All that exists for me is the time we have left, and after that, honestly, I can’t imagine wanting to go on.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

7. “I know better than anyone alive that not everyone gets a happy ending. But at least I’m not handing mine away. At least I’m willing to fight for it.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

8. “I wish my husband would look at me the way he looks at you,” Linda whispers. “Like he could be completely content if he never had to look at anything else.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

9. “It feels like we’ve already waited forever. It’s like I’ve been missing you and craving you my entire life.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

10. “What will it take to keep you, Sarah? Name it, and if it’s in my power it’s yours.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

11. “Are you certain you’re a doctor?” I open my refrigerator, which is just as empty as I anticipated. I should have actually eaten at this morning’s brunch. “Like, was it a real medical school, or was it a strip mall with a handwritten sign out front that just said medical school?”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

12. “Don’t try to tell a man who’s waited ten years for you that you love him more.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

13. “I believed I loved him, I really did. And I guess I do love him, but not in the right way. I love him like a brother or a best friend. I just didn’t know, until Luke, that I was supposed to feel more.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

14. “Because,” I say, unable to meet his eyes, “everyone in your life seems to take something from you, and that’s not what friends do. I guess I’d rather be your friend.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

15. “I want the world to be a different place for the women who come after me. And the only way to make that happen is to ignore the fact that it isn’t different yet. But I’m so goddamned tired of staying silent just to get the things I deserve.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

16. “I am kissing Graham Tate. No. He is kissing me, and there’s nothing tentative about it. He kisses like a man who’s thought of nothing else for the past decade. As if he’s angry he ever had to wait. As if he resents me for pushing him this far.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

17. “I’ve been far from honorable for a long time,” I tell her. “And I’m not being honorable now either. I’m here because I love you. Because I’m so in love with you, I can’t see straight.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

18. “You look like something rare and wild,” he whispers, pushing the hair back from my cheek. My breath catches at the feel of his fingers on my skin. “Something they locked up in a cage. And I think you were so relieved to find a safe place to land you didn’t even realize it happened. I thought I could save you if I came here this summer, but even if someone opens the cage, you’ve got to be willing to fly away, too, Jules.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

19. “I want to marry you because you don’t wear enough clothing when you go out, and I want it to be my jacket you wear home at night. And because a part of me has wanted to marry you since the first time we spoke. You bring my entire world into color, and I don’t want to go back to the way it was.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

20. “She grins, wide-eyed. “I do. That’s why we’re perfect together. You never speak and I never shut up. You’re so lucky you found me.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

21. “Being attractive is the next best thing to a superpower. It’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, causing men to overlook my many other terrible qualities. And I have so, so many terrible qualities.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

22. “It’d just be a little over a year. You could ask me to wait. you could ask me right now and I’d do it. Gladly. But you’re not going to, are you?”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

23. “Are you... are you wearing my date’s dress?” he asks, horrified. The silver lining to having nothing left to lose is that... I have nothing left to lose. “Do you like it?” I whisper, raising nervous, hopeful eyes to him. “I disposed of her, just like you asked.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

24. “His gaze holds mine. “If it were an option,” he says, suddenly fierce, “I’d never be willing to share you.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

25. “I’ve been confusing comfort with happiness, apathy with freedom. Just like my parents, I’m missing my real life every single day by choosing things that are empty, by choosing to pretend.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

26. “I hang up, and Ben turns to me. “So who’s the lucky sixty-nine-year-old?” I roll my eyes. “Your dad.” He smirks. “My dad is dead.” “That,” I reply, “would explain why he’s been so pleasantly quiet in bed.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

27. “It’s going to be hard enough standing next to a bunch of actresses and models. I figured some makeup was necessary.” His eyes flicker over my face. “You’re prettier than any of them even without makeup,” he says gruffly.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

28. “There is no one for me but you. Not today and not a year from now.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

29. “Except spending a morning with Quinn was like being exposed to sunlight after an entire lifetime beneath fluorescent lights. I’m not sure, now, that I can be happy with less.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

30. “There’s also a sunrise hike,” she says. “The hotel provides a flashlight and map.” I can’t help it – my eyes meet Josh’s. The sunrise is kind of our thing now. He raises his brow as if to say Obviously, we’re doing it.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

31. “There is something about the two of us that seems to survive all things. Tragedy strikes and we wobble like bowling pins but return to our places, upright and beside each other.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

32. “That’s why you don’t give yourself to someone with whom there’s an expiration date; because you’re probably not getting all of yourself back when it ends.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

33. “Are you... are you wearing my date’s dress?” he asks, horrified.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

34. “You want to burn the whole world to ash, just to make sure every path she walks is cleared for her. I know the feeling.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

35. “But in the end it comes down to a simple truth, one that matters more than all of the other truths: I don’t want to exist in a world where he is not.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

36. “There are so many stupid, trivial things about the people we love. Things you never care about until they’re gone. And then all those things – the sound of a heavy tread at the side door, instant coffee, creaky knees heading upstairs – become things you miss, when they’re things you never knew you loved in the first place.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

37. “People talk about love like it’s peaceful, but it isn’t, at all. It’s turbulent and anxious. It’s euphoria and despair.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark

38. “This thing with us has been there since the beginning, and it’s never going away. You know that.”

— Elizabeth O'Roark