Top 160 Jay Crownover Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “She was going to be my downfall. She was going to be my corruption and my vice. She was going to be my addiction and my compulsion and I was still going to fall headlong into her knowing the landing was going to be rough for both of us.”

— Jay Crownover

52. “Addiction takes and takes and keeps on taking. It’s the most greedy and selfish thing in the entire world.”

— Jay Crownover

53. “There were days when all I wanted was a hug and for someone to tell me that it would all be worth it in the end. Every grin, every pat on the back, every thumbs-up and unwavering positive reinforcement I handed off to others, there were days when I longed to know that the universe would turn that back around on me and I would finally be rewarded with the simple dreams that I had nurtured for so long.”

— Jay Crownover

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

— Jay Crownover

55. “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

56. “No one is perfect, Jet. We all have things that have happened, that are going to happen that make us who we are, and maybe you need to look past all the superficial stuff you see when you look at this girl and see what’s underneath.”

— Jay Crownover

57. “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

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

— Jay Crownover

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

— Jay Crownover

60. “You make me want to vomit, and you’re lucky we’re in a public place or there’s a really good chance I would be punching you repeatedly in the face right now.”

— Jay Crownover

61. “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

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

— Jay Crownover

63. “There’s always a first girl, Rowdy, but there is also the girl that is going to come after her until you get to the last girl. The last girl is the one that really matters.”

— Jay Crownover

64. “No one had ever given me any idea on how to handle it when the right one came along, but you weren’t the right one for him.”

— Jay Crownover

65. “You found your family tree, Rowdy, and the branches are stronger and sturdier than most people with blood relatives have.”

— Jay Crownover

66. “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

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

— Jay Crownover

68. “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

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

— Jay Crownover

70. “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

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

— Jay Crownover

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

— Jay Crownover

73. “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

74. “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

75. “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

76. “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

77. “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

78. “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

79. “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

80. “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

81. “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

82. “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

83. “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

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

— Jay Crownover

85. “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

86. “Bad decisions did lead to great stories and, in my case, great love. I’d make every single crappy choice and foolish error again if it meant I would end up exactly where I was right now. Every mistake was a piece of me, a part of my story, and without each of them there was no way I would be starting my own happy-ever-after in his perfect, stormy, blue-gray eyes.”

— Jay Crownover

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

— Jay Crownover

88. “I’m not giving you his number because he’s mine and if you get anywhere near him I swear to God the thing I do to you will be chronicled on Investigation Discovery for years to come.”

— Jay Crownover

89. “That boy is sprung on you and he is a nice guy. A superhot, supersexy nice guy. Do you know how rare that is? He’s like a goddamn unicorn.”

— Jay Crownover

90. “It might have taken me a long-ass time to figure out the difference between first love and real love, but, Salem, there is nothing more real than what I feel for you.”

— Jay Crownover

91. “It was hard to trust someone enough to let them all the way in when I didn’t think they deserved to be there. -Cora.”

— Jay Crownover

92. “I’m dying to know all about this mystical creature that got you to act human for once.”

— Jay Crownover

93. “Fighting for everything made fighting for the things that actually mattered get lost in the noise and lose their significance.”

— Jay Crownover

94. “It’s how we deal with the things that hurt us most that defines us.”

— Jay Crownover

95. “Even if the trophy is gone, you still won it and that victory lasts forever.”

— Jay Crownover

96. “Every time I can’t seem to figure out where I’m going lately I always end up where you are.”

— Jay Crownover

97. “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

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

— Jay Crownover

99. “Right now, I needed to be the man I tried so hard not to be in order to be someone worthy of the girl I was trying to save. I.”

— Jay Crownover

100. “That’s insanity. No other girl is going to come along and distract him. He is absolutely focused on you. We are not interchangeable objects, LEGO pieces that click together just because the parts fit. If he is telling you he wants you, then no one else is going to do. If you can’t believe what he’s telling you because of whatever your ordeal in the past is, pay attention to what he’s showing you. Actions always speak louder than words.”

— Jay Crownover