Top 50 Emma Lord Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Go make the most out of it, because every day is a chance to begin again.”

— Emma Lord

2. “I can see it too. That I don’t belong here. That even after all this time and everything I’ve done, the things I’ve pressed and organized and pushed into myself to fit into this place, home is still somewhere a thousand miles away. Farther than that, even. Because that version of home doesn’t exist anymore.”

— Emma Lord

3. “But sometimes even shouting into a void feels better than just staring into it.”

— Emma Lord

4. “A “place to sit” ends up being Washington Square Park, where we find a bench and Oliver lays out his sandwich and I pop open my seltzer.”

— Emma Lord

5. “Because I drink coffee like a real New Yorker and you drink tea like the American Revolution never happened.”

— Emma Lord

6. “I wish more than anything I could ask him something now. I was prepared to lose him, maybe. But I wasn’t prepared for what happens after the losing.”

— Emma Lord

7. “This moment of recognition reflected back at me in her face. It’s not even something I can see, but something I feel. It’s not my mom and my dad or my brothers. It’s me. My own confusion, my own fear. She could look like a stranger to me, and I’d still feel it as plainly.”

— Emma Lord

8. “The day ends with a shine already on the memory of it. It reminds me of the way Mom would, once a year, let me and Paige play hooky from school – she’d drive us all the way there and then just past the school and keep driving, and we’d get pancakes at IHOP or take pictures on the bridge or drive into Belle Meade and stare at all the mansions. A stolen day. The kind of day that ends too fast but stays with you much longer.”

— Emma Lord

9. “She turns her head so slowly to look at me that for a moment I am stricken with the weird unfamiliarity of being seen – no, not seen. Recognized. It’s rare enough someone knows I’m me and not Ethan without getting a good look at me. It’s straight up weird when someone can tell without fully turning around. The only person I know who can do that is Grandma Belly – my parents still mix us up so frequently that there’s about a 50 percent chance I am Ethan, and someone switched us along the way.”

— Emma Lord

10. “You can’t just casually tell someone you carry caramel sauce around and walk away like thats a normal thing.”

— Emma Lord

11. “It’s not going to make the slightest difference... But sometimes even shouting into a void feels better than just staring into it.”

— Emma Lord

12. “A stolen day. The kind of day that ends too fast but stays with you much longer.”

— Emma Lord

13. “I want to love and be loved without ever having to wonder if it’s conditional. I want a life that is sometimes just my own, without feeling like I’m responsible for anyone or anyone is burdened with being responsible for me. I want back what I lost – at least however much of it I can still get.”

— Emma Lord

14. “I don’t want this. But the problem is I do, and I don’t, and my feelings are still way too tangled for me to be able to say I don’t want to spend my whole future in this place when I also can’t imagine a future without it. It’s dumb, but I wish for a stupid, childish second I could just stay like this forever.”

— Emma Lord

15. “I’ve just assumed there were certain directions my life was going to take. The safe kind. The kind everyone else was taking, and I plowed through with a vengeance. It hasn’t been easy, but it hasn’t been brave either. The idea of actually straying from it is either thrilling or terrifying, the two feelings swallowing each other and spitting each other back out before I can settle on one.”

— Emma Lord

16. “For these heart-stuttering, breathtaking moments when you realize that if you carve us all down to our barest parts, we’re all the same.”

— Emma Lord

17. “I was prepared to lose him, maybe. But I wasn’t prepared for what happens after the losing.”

— Emma Lord

18. “Even when I am at my worst he knows exactly what to say to soften my edges, still looks at me like I am something precious to him.”

— Emma Lord

19. “You can’t just casually tell someone you carry caramel sauce around and walk away like that’s a normal thing,” I call at her retreating back. “What other emergency dessert condiments do you have stashed in your bag?”

— Emma Lord

20. “Love makes you do things you thought you never would.”

— Emma Lord

21. “I’m a perfectionist, through and through, and even at five, I had no interest in embarrassing myself.”

— Emma Lord

22. “It’s a relief, having her back, just as much as it was a relief not to be talking to her.”

— Emma Lord

23. “There’s a ghost of a smirk on Pepper’s face, but she’s so close, I can hear it more than I can see it. “Pepper and Jack,” she corrects me. Then her eyes light up. “Pepperjack.”

— Emma Lord

24. “What I can’t let go of is the way I tried just now to tell my mum my world was falling apart, and she left.”

— Emma Lord

25. “This may have started with a war, but whatever it is now, there isn’t an end in sight – not as long as we’re both still winning.”

— Emma Lord

26. “Oh.” I’m suddenly so hungry I could have taken one of those sheet cakes we delivered to the face. “Wanna go to Big League Burger?”

— Emma Lord

27. “There’s nothing quite as awkward as living in a shadow that is quite literally the same shape as yours.”

— Emma Lord

28. “I breathe in the sticky warmth of the air, the pine and the electricity and the ache of something deeper than I can name, knowing that no view I can capture will ever compare to this feeling – seeing it through my eyes while seeing it through his, letting us both bleed into a world where those two things can be the same.”

— Emma Lord

29. “How can a person even know who they are if they don’t know what they want?”

— Emma Lord

30. “Well, couldn’t, really – the deli was packed to the gills again, with a line so far out the door that when Grandma Belly saw it from the window of the apartment, she asked if people were waiting to get raptured. “They’re here for your grilled cheese,” I told her. She fixed me with a look, crossing a leg on the massive armchair she spent most of her time in and raising a single eyebrow at me. “Not unless you changed my secret ingredient to cocaine, they’re not.”

— Emma Lord

31. “If you learn to capture a feeling, it’ll always be louder than words.”

— Emma Lord

32. “But even then, my laugh at Oliver’s text lingers in the back of my throat the rest of the way home – and for the first time in the history of ever, I fall asleep looking forward to seeing him the next day.”

— Emma Lord

33. “Anything worth doing starts with a mess.”

— Emma Lord

34. “Either because of Jack’s awkward charm or because the two of us make quite the pathetic pair, the bus driver rolls her eyes and opens the door. We’re still stumbling as we pile on, trying and failing not to crash into each other as the bus starts back up again, until Jack practically falls half into my lap when we finally find two spare seats.”

— Emma Lord

35. “You’re... you’re a forever kind of person to me. You always have been.”

— Emma Lord

36. “My back is turned, so I see the smirk on Chloe’s and Elliot’s faces and figure out Oliver is approaching before I even hear the footsteps behind me. “Hey, Ollie,” says Chloe cheekily. Elliot snickers. He and Chloe have formed tight ranks among the underclassmen at Cornelia, which unfortunately for Oliver means that Elliot is constantly giving Chloe ammo to tease him.”

— Emma Lord

37. “Approximately eighteen hours after my kiss with Jack Campbell – my kiss with Jack Campbell – I am sitting at a card table with Pooja in the front entrance of the school behind our veritable army of baked goods, overanalyzing the situation to such an absurd degree, it is now less of a kiss and more of an FBI investigation.”

— Emma Lord

38. “So how do you talk to your crushes?” Chloe asks, hot on my heels. “Pfft.” I wave a dismissive hand, flipping my hair over my shoulder. “That I can’t help you with. I can confidently say I’ve never had the time.” But even then, my laugh at Oliver’s text lingers in the back of my throat the rest of the way home – and for the first time in the history of ever, I fall asleep looking forward to seeing him the next day.”

— Emma Lord

39. “It feels like there’s a fire in every corner of my brain, and instead of putting any of them out, I’m just frozen and watching it spread across the room.”

— Emma Lord

40. “It was my life, not theirs. I new what I wanted. And that’s lucky enough by itself – not a lot of people do.”

— Emma Lord

41. “These are the things that tether me, the things I’ve always been and just assumed would always be. What she’s saying right now feels a lot like permission to leave it behind, and it scares me every bit as much as it relieves me.”

— Emma Lord

42. “I don’t hate you, Millie,” Oliver exclaims, throwing up his hands in a very un-Oliver-like gesture. It appears that after all these years, I’ve finally found his last nerve. If it weren’t so insulting, it’s be kind of fun to watch. “I’m just exhausted by you.”

— Emma Lord

43. “Oliver nods, and so do I, even though I’m not sure what we’re nodding about – whether it’s an acknowledgment of the secret I asked him to keep or the secret I suspect we are both keeping.”

— Emma Lord

44. “Like I finally get the sentiment behind all those sappy power ballads, where the music in them actually comes from: not from some burst of creative genius or some big, sweeping feeling. But from the moments in between. The sneaky ones. The ones where you look up at someone and your heart understands something before the rest of you does.”

— Emma Lord

45. “It is, in fact, a life-size cutout of all three Schuyler sisters from Hamilton, mid-snap.”

— Emma Lord

46. “Are you a witch?” I ask, reaching in and taking a bite of one. It’s like Monster Cake, the Sequel – freaking Christmas in my mouth. I already want more before I’ve even managed to chew.”

— Emma Lord

47. “I won’t think any less of you if you break it.”

— Emma Lord

48. “I’m gonna miss you, too.” One of the regular shift workers shows up early for the club’s opening and nudges past us. Oliver steps back and so do I, and before I can say anything, we’re interrupted by “Seventeen” by MARINA blasting from the dance floor. Oliver nods, and so do I, even though I’m not sure what we’re nodding about – whether it’s an acknowledgment of the secret I asked him to keep or the secret I suspect we are both keeping.”

— Emma Lord

49. “But Chloe is practically tipping over like a teapot with excitement. “I heard the valedictorian last year snapped over a grilled cheese recipe and started working at a deli – ” Teddy waves his hand at Chloe. “She’s fine. She’s at Columbia. But she makes a mean blondie, if you’re into desserts.”

— Emma Lord

50. “It’s weird, how you have no idea how far you’ve come until suddenly you can’t find the way back.”

— Emma Lord