Top 200 Kennedy Ryan Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 2 of 5

51. “When I thought of my husband, I didn’t dream in color, I dreamt in character.”

— Kennedy Ryan

52. “Besides, it’s the dreamers, the inventors and entrepreneurs who change the world the most. Gutenberg, Edison, Stephenson, Jobs – something about the present wasn’t good enough, so they made the future.” I almost choke on a jaded chuckle. “What do politicians make? They make war. They make profit off the misfortune of others. They make mistakes they won’t take responsibility for and decisions they never have to feel the impact of. No, thank you. Not for me.”

— Kennedy Ryan

53. “And it still isn’t enough. Anything that ended would never be enough for a love like ours. A love like ours is only satisfied by forever.”

— Kennedy Ryan

54. “I heard someone say once that when you try to fix people’s hurt, you’re controlling it instead of sitting with them and connecting.”

— Kennedy Ryan

55. “Age ain’t nothing but a number.” “Please let Aaliyah rest in peace.”

— Kennedy Ryan

56. “As much as she lights up a room, dancing, laughing from time to time, I’m beginning to see that just beneath the surface of Kai, there is as much shadow as there is shine.”

— Kennedy Ryan

57. “What’s true today won’t be in a hundred years. In ten years. It was held as fact that the Earth was flat until it was proven otherwise. It was true that women couldn’t vote a hundred years ago. But the Earth is round and now we vote. Now we speak and are heard. We re-made truth. We re-shaped fact.”

— Kennedy Ryan

58. “Iris is my constellation. She took the darkness as her cue to shine. It only made her brighter, stronger, and tonight, her hard-won glimmer lights up the sky.”

— Kennedy Ryan

59. “I will worship you,” I remind her, taking her hand and tracing the letters tattooed beneath her wedding band, linking our fingers, showing her the ink beneath mine. “Still?” she asks with a watery smile. “Yeah.” Always. Evermore. Even after. “Still.”

— Kennedy Ryan

60. “My beloved is mine and I am his. – Song of Solomon 2:16.”

— Kennedy Ryan

61. “I howl like a wounded animal, but there’s no one to rescue me. I am the dumb lamb that wandered from the fold, and I’ve stumbled into the razor teeth of a hunter’s trap.”

— Kennedy Ryan

62. “Art, specifically music, is a living thing,” he says. “It isn’t just absorbed by the people who hear it, but it absorbs them.”

— Kennedy Ryan

63. “And every time I make you smile, I feel like I’ve conquered the world.”

— Kennedy Ryan

64. “Life is a constellation of decisions, connected by coincidences and deliberations, painting pictures in the heavens. During the day, when things are brightest, we don’t see the stars, but they are there. It’s only in the contrast of night, when things are darkest, that the stars shine.”

— Kennedy Ryan

65. “Yes.” MiMi’s affirmation infuses the air with power. “Strength. Dignity. Courage. All these things belong to you. Take them back. Your soul is yours. Your heart is yours. Your body is yours. Yours to keep and yours to share.” Yours to keep and yours to share.”

— Kennedy Ryan

66. “In the end, we are just animals. Primitives driven by urges we barely understand but, with the right person, find ourselves slave to.”

— Kennedy Ryan

67. “What I’m saying is be unafraid to want it all and be disciplined enough to work hard to get it.”

— Kennedy Ryan

68. “He studies me a moment longer, and the intimacy and openness are almost too much, but I force myself not to look away. I’ve never been more vulnerable to anyone, and I’ve never trusted anyone else the way I trust Grip – with my life, with my heart.”

— Kennedy Ryan

69. “We feel the things we need to know instead of say them. With my chest pressed to his back, forgiveness, love, understanding, and tenderness transfer noiselessly between the layers of our clothes, an emotional osmosis through blood and bone, through hurt and fear.”

— Kennedy Ryan

70. “And if you’re lucky, you find people along the way who keep your feet on the ground – who remind you that real life matters, too.”

— Kennedy Ryan

71. “Give yourself permission to let it hurt, but allow yourself permission to let it heal.” Nikki Rowe, Once a Girl, Now a Woman.”

— Kennedy Ryan

72. “If you’ve heard shots as many times as we have, if you live with it, you know the sound a gun makes when it’s fired is a moan. The moan of a mother, a father, a daughter, or son losing someone they love.”

— Kennedy Ryan

73. “Then you have some tough decisions to make, and you should make them soon.” He bends to drop a soft kiss on my nose. “Because I won’t give up until you’re completely mine, Banner, and I won’t wait much longer.”

— Kennedy Ryan

74. “There’s a zone a shooter enters where the hoop feels closer and wider, like a woman spreading herself open and making it easy for you to slip in. You hear swoosh before the ball leaves your hands. It feels like you could close your eyes and make every shot – you’re that in tune with the net.”

— Kennedy Ryan

75. “I like the color of smart, the shade of funny, and sexy is my favorite hue.”

— Kennedy Ryan

76. “Are you looking at my butt?” I ask, waffling between flattered and offended. “Of course,” Jared replies as if I’m crazy for asking. “I actually wish you’d stop talking because I was literally committing your ass in those pants to memory, and you’re breaking my concentration.”

— Kennedy Ryan

77. “You signed up for me... And I signed up for you, whatever that means, wherever that takes us.”

— Kennedy Ryan

78. “Can you miss someone you’ve never had? Because I miss Iris. I can’t even share that with anyone because they’d think I was a lunatic. Obsessed. Fixated. I like to think of it as certain. Like when I’m in the zone, the game comes to me easily and I’m certain I’ll make every shot before the ball even leaves my hands – that’s how I feel about Iris. She’s a shot that hasn’t even left my hands, but I know will be nothing but net. I’m certain that if ever given the chance, it would be that way for us.”

— Kennedy Ryan

79. “No one has to tell a queen to wear her crown.”

— Kennedy Ryan

80. “But you have one more time to put your finger in my face and step to me.”

— Kennedy Ryan

81. “There is no before. There is no after. Now gives birth to forever. This moment may die, but this love never will. Time is not a line. It’s a circle, and we, August and Iris, we stand at the center.”

— Kennedy Ryan

82. “Life is indiscriminately seasoned, usually not sweet without some bitter. Usually not sun without some rain.”

— Kennedy Ryan

83. “There is no one else but you, my friend, my equal.” – Song of Solomon 5:2.”

— Kennedy Ryan

84. “We are artists,” she quotes softly, her eyes set on mine. “When there is no joy to be found, we have the power in our hands, the will of our souls, to make it.”

— Kennedy Ryan

85. “There’s something helpless about truly being in love, the kind of love they write songs about, that inspires poetry and launches ships and wreaks havoc. It leaves you slightly off balance, controlling when you mean to cherish, smothering when you mean to hold close.”

— Kennedy Ryan

86. “We just tiptoe around things, afraid we’ll offend or look ignorant, be misunderstood. Honesty is a risk few are willing to take.”

— Kennedy Ryan

87. “I touch my face and my fingers come away streaked with paint, smeared with pain and degradation.”

— Kennedy Ryan

88. “Your story is your most powerful weapon. We must use our hurts to help. I.”

— Kennedy Ryan

89. “I married a tsunami. You don’t try to control a woman like Lennix. You love her and let her wash over you.”

— Kennedy Ryan

90. “My mother’s story has no end. Her life was interrupted mid-sentence -a dangling participle. An infinite etcetera of dots, but no period.”

— Kennedy Ryan

91. “Don’t just act out of what you think is best for her. You’re not her parent. You’re not her father. Think about what will show her that you love her and understand her.”

— Kennedy Ryan

92. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone else, and I’m not giving you up once I have you. You better get used to that.”

— Kennedy Ryan

93. “If you were mine, Iris there would be no doubt what position you’d hold in my life. You’d be center. I’d play you at the five.”

— Kennedy Ryan

94. “Your dreams and ambitions got swallowed up when you had to follow Caleb,” I say, holding her eyes with mine. “I want you to know there’s someone who will follow you.”

— Kennedy Ryan

95. “Something can feel good, but not feel right.”

— Kennedy Ryan

96. “We both gave each other space to be misunderstood, because we really wanted to understand.”

— Kennedy Ryan

97. “It’s not an existential question of immortality, of living forever, but a challenge of numbered days and what we do with what we have. It’s not a string of todays that become yesterdays and aspire to tomorrow, but living like there is no guarantee. Living with an urgency to say what needs to be said, do what needs to be done. To no matter what, live with what you’ll leave behind in mind.”

— Kennedy Ryan

98. “Take them back. Your soul is yours. Your heart is yours. Your body is yours. Yours to keep and yours to share.”

— Kennedy Ryan

99. “Grief is a grind. It is the work of breathing and waking and rising and moving through a world that feels emptier. A gaping hole has been torn into your existence, and everyone around you just walks right past it like it’s not even there. But all you can do is stand and stare.”

— Kennedy Ryan

100. “No matter what happens, my heart and my soul, I give them to you. They’re yours to keep.” “Yours to keep,” I echo back to him, threading our fingers together. “The only thing that’s true, that’s real, is this, Pep.” He pulls my other hand over his heart, pressing his hand over mine. “So you don’t have to worry about losing me. You can’t lose me. My soul is lodged that deeply in yours. I’m completely yours.”

— Kennedy Ryan