Top 160 Jay Crownover Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “You found your family tree, Rowdy, and the branches are stronger and sturdier than most people with blood relatives have.”

— Jay Crownover

52. “I really, really like that even though we both know you deserve so much better, I’m the one you want.”

— Jay Crownover

53. “It’s not about saving them after they’re lost. It’s about getting to them before they lose their way in the first place.”

— Jay Crownover

54. “You’re the best bad decision I ever made, and you are, by far, my favorite story to tell.”

— Jay Crownover

55. “I’ve heard you say my name in a lot of ways, Salem. Gotta say hearing you say it in bed when I’m about to eat you up is probably my favorite to date.”

— Jay Crownover

56. “You want to go down in flames, I guess that’s your call, but I’m not going to watch you burn.”

— Jay Crownover

57. “Some people screw up, and then some people are screw-ups.”

— Jay Crownover

58. “This Ayden deserves to be happy, regardless of what the future holds, and this Ayden is the one who has to decide why she is settling for milk and cookies when what she really wants is edible body paint and furry handcuffs.”

— Jay Crownover

59. “You should take the time to find something real that interests you, Cable. You should find the thing that keeps your mind occupied and soothes you when all those cravings and demons rise to the surface. If you have something that matters to focus on, then it won’t be as easy for your bad habits to clamor for your free time.”

— Jay Crownover

60. “Saint, hurting is how you know it’s real. If he didn’t matter, if he was just some guy, even back then it wouldn’t have lasted with you the way it has. You can’t run from feeling things, even if some of those things are awful, because love opens you up to experiencing emotions you haven’t ever felt before.”

— Jay Crownover

61. “Love isn’t logical or reasonable. Our hearts make no sense.”

— Jay Crownover

62. “Sure. She’s classy, elegant, made of sturdy stuff, expensive as hell to keep running and keep pretty. She’s only good to me if I’m good to her, so obviously she’s a girl.”

— Jay Crownover

63. “I would rather be broke and do something I love, than be wealthy working a nine-to-five job any day.”

— Jay Crownover

64. “We might have been on the outside looking in at our own families and our own lives, but at least we could stand outside together.”

— Jay Crownover

65. “And then you opened your mouth. All that love, all that loyalty, all the innocence, even though life had kicked you around time and time again, and all I wanted to do was let some of that sweetness and light touch me. I’ve never had very clean hands, but the first time I touched you, that first gasp out of that perfect mouth, the first time I thrust into you, God, Dovie, you made me feel like I was the king in a land of second chances.” I was stunned.”

— Jay Crownover

66. “Loving someone you want to make your own has a different feeling, a different power than the love you have for family. It’s different and the chains that bind it can be unbreakable.”

— Jay Crownover

67. “I never claimed to be an angel and even the devil could only play with fire for so long before he gave in to unholy temptation and danced in the flames.”

— Jay Crownover

68. “I can’t live my life waiting for it not to hurt before I start existing again.”

— Jay Crownover

69. “Body art isn’t a contest. The only person that has to like it is the person stuck with it for the rest of their life. As long as you love it when you see it, that’s all that matters.”

— Jay Crownover

70. “After everything the past has tried to bury us under, we owe it to ourselves to be brave, to do more than float.”

— Jay Crownover

71. “Stop trying to be something you aren’t and just let her love you.”

— Jay Crownover

72. “I hated to admit it, but he was all sorts of sexy felon. God, what was wrong with me? That kiss had made me stupid.”

— Jay Crownover

73. “I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know what he was doing to me, but there was no doubt he made my day better by simply being.”

— Jay Crownover

74. “It’s like being in love with a loaded weapon and you’re the safety.”

— Jay Crownover

75. “She called me her devil and I called her my everything. We clung to each other, sweaty, spent, and forever entwined. My starved heart and soul were gorged to the point of overflowing and every battle I’d ever fought felt like it had been nothing if this was my victory, being here with her.”

— Jay Crownover

76. “How can things begin if you’re already planning the ending? Doesn’t seem fair.” His breath was warm and tingled the skin at the side of my neck. “You’re right. It doesn’t, so since the beginning is where things usually seem perfect and the ending is always tragic, why don’t we just skip to the middle? There’re good things in the middle.”

— Jay Crownover

77. “There are probably a million and one regrets I have, and if they are going to be between us here or in bed, then let’s just stop it now, because I’m not going to do combat over my past when my future is finally starting to be something I want to invest in.”

— Jay Crownover

78. “My girl always jumped. It was one of the things I now realized I loved most about her.”

— Jay Crownover

79. “You poked the bear, Tink, so you better hope someone can put him in a cage.”

— Jay Crownover

80. “Well, there it was. If a perfect stranger could plainly see after only five minutes of watching us together that it was always going to be a battle to keep things with him on the level, what chance did I have of making anything between us work? With that depressing thought I went back to assisted suicide and tried to cheer myself up.”

— Jay Crownover

81. “I never wanted to be anyone’s first or their last. I just wanted to be a moment they would think about with fondness and a smile.”

— Jay Crownover

82. “Good people usually have a reason for doing bad things.”

— Jay Crownover

83. “She might be a problem solver but I was Mr. Fixit. I didn’t break things, I repaired them.”

— Jay Crownover

84. “I call my dad ‘Admiral Ass Hat,’ he doesn’t really think it’s funny.”

— Jay Crownover

85. “It felt like he was trying to make it so I would never be able to kiss anyone else in my life without having to compare it to this moment.”

— Jay Crownover

86. “I think on the journey to finding the love we crave, the love we truly deserve, the first stop has to be the love we have for ourselves. That’s a love that can never be lost and can only grow and get stronger the more it is fostered and developed. Appreciate who you are. Love what makes you different.”

— Jay Crownover

87. “A guy has needs, but so does a girl. She just needs the right person to make her hot enough to ask for them to be met.”

— Jay Crownover

88. “You know home isn’t really about what color your couch is or what you hang on the wall... Home is about knowing you are in the right place with the right people.”

— Jay Crownover

89. “Easy is very forgettable, my friend, complicated and difficult stays with you forever. Believe me, I married it.”

— Jay Crownover

90. “I don’t have much... but I want to give all to you.”

— Jay Crownover

91. “You can’t deny that there is something there between us when we get close to one another that is completely unprofessional. I want your help, Sayer, but I want you, too.”

— Jay Crownover

92. “It’s not like most guys are going to pass muster with the Terrible Trio anyway. They’re a hundred times worse than a dad with a shotgun.”

— Jay Crownover

93. “I told him if he pulled my tuition I would gladly get a job as a stripper to pay my way through med school, and he hadn’t liked it one bit.”

— Jay Crownover

94. “If the guy across from me was a cherry-red Ferrari, then I was a rusted-out and battered John Deere tractor in comparison.”

— Jay Crownover

95. “Love doesn’t go away because the person it’s attached to has changed. It simply changes with them.”

— Jay Crownover

96. “I see death and tragedy all the time and nothing makes it worse than when it’s totally senseless. All she needed was some niceness, some basic human kindness, and she wouldn’t be on her way to the morgue and her parents wouldn’t be devastated. It’s heartbreaking and so senseless.”

— Jay Crownover

97. “Love isn’t something you can negotiate, Nash. When it happens, it becomes everything.”

— Jay Crownover

98. “I was the least easygoing and carefree person on the planet. I was a storm cloud that ruined picnics, not something full of warmth and light. “I.”

— Jay Crownover

99. “Ass in the chair, Soldier.”

— Jay Crownover

100. “When you find someone, someone who gets you, who understand you, it’s worth fighting for. The last thing you want to do is be five years down the road and look back and wonder what could have happened. Trust me, that kind of regret that kind of what-if, can gnaw on your soul until there is nothing left.”

— Jay Crownover