Top 200 Kennedy Ryan Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “However imperfect she appears to some, she is ours, and we already love her deeply and will treasure any time we have with her.”

— Kennedy Ryan

152. “What if she gave me to you?” I bend to whisper over her lips. “What if I’m your gris gris now?”

— Kennedy Ryan

153. “We all know you’re a gifted athlete, August. Don’t just show off. Show us you can lead.”

— Kennedy Ryan

154. “I’m learning that to love and be loved is a perfectly healthy desire, unless we believe that relationship is somehow supposed to make us feel worthy or fulfilled. There’s so much pressure not to be alone that sometimes it makes you feel like as a single person you don’t have as much identity. It compels us to search for that person who will make us feel whole.”

— Kennedy Ryan

155. “Nothing against fake lashes. I just don’t like it when the woman blinking them is fake, too.”

— Kennedy Ryan

156. “There is no place, no spot on the continuum of time that could have hidden this man from me.”

— Kennedy Ryan

157. “Everyone falls for Banner. Whether they feel like she’s the daughter they never had, like Karen does, or like she’s the best thing that ever happened to their business, like that blowhard Cal Bagley. Or that she’s the only girl for them, like Zo does. Too bad about Zo because she’s actually the only girl for me. He’ll find someone else. I have faith in him.”

— Kennedy Ryan

158. “When are we ever done working on ourselves? I believe wholeness is not a destination, but a lifetime process. Something that instead of waiting for, you could be living for.”

— Kennedy Ryan

159. “Funny how the words he doesn’t say can sting more than the ones he does.”

— Kennedy Ryan

160. “What?” I ask, smiling back involuntarily. “Your laugh,” he says. “I want to make you laugh like that every day.”

— Kennedy Ryan

161. “A woman is free if she lives by her own standards and creates her own destiny.” – Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, philanthropist, activist.”

— Kennedy Ryan

162. “I look at her, cataloging her features one by one and realizing the most fascinating thing about this girl isn’t visible to the naked eye.”

— Kennedy Ryan

163. “Say it again.” He advances deeper into the room until he stands right in front of me. “I need to hear it again.” “I love you,” I say, my voice sober and honest. “I think I have for a long time.” He cups my cheek and kisses my hair. “Me, too,” he says, the look in his eyes belying the casual tone of his voice. “Since senior year, to be exact.”

— Kennedy Ryan

164. “Mama always said waiting for sunsets was like waiting for a miracle you knew would come,” he says, his voice graveled with the emotion in his eyes. “How happy she must be to know I finally found mine.”

— Kennedy Ryan

165. “But now and for the rest of my life, Kai is the living, breathing address that is my home. She’s my entire damn zip code. In.”

— Kennedy Ryan

166. “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

167. “Emotion tells you about love, but hard times prove it. How can you know something is great unless it’s tested? Until then, it’s just an assumption. It’s a question, but life has a way of answering.”

— Kennedy Ryan

168. “I plan to ease in, take my time, but as soon as my cock gets that first taste, I surrender to a force that is almost centripetal, drawing me in deeper. I plunge into the tight clutch of her body. She folds around me as I enter. When I withdraw, there’s a reluctant letting go. With every thrust, she takes more of me. Her body is the call, and mine is the response.”

— Kennedy Ryan

169. “I want my love to be the most extravagant gift I ever give you,” he whispers, his voice deep and reverent. “I want it to be outrageously unconditional. I want it to overflow and spill into every crevice of your life, every corner of your heart because that’s what you do for me. You overwhelm me, Hendrix.”

— Kennedy Ryan

170. “A miracle you can count on.”

— Kennedy Ryan

171. “I told her I am the love of my life. I have learned to love myself without judgment or condition. It’s the only way I have enough love for everyone who needs it – to love myself.”

— Kennedy Ryan

172. “It’s us admitting to the universe we don’t have all the answers. Too often religion says yes, I do have all the answers, and if you don’t like them, you can’t sit at my table. So we have all these tables. Too many tables, and not enough love.”

— Kennedy Ryan

173. “He’s also sharp. I’d know immediately if someone wanted my girl, and I could be wrong, but I think Zo is sharp enough to at least suspect I want his. Only I don’t think of Banner as his. Banner was taken from me.”

— Kennedy Ryan

174. “That,” she says, “is an irreversible outcome. Divorce may or may not be. Broken relationships may or may not be. You may never repair those completely, but you’re still here to try. Do you recognize what an amazing gift that is? To still be here to try?”

— Kennedy Ryan

175. “When other people are as outraged and as curious about those problems as black people are,” he says. “Then maybe we can solve them together.”

— Kennedy Ryan

176. “I got serious the last few years about my outside reflecting the confident, powerful woman I was on the inside.”

— Kennedy Ryan

177. “I know exactly what I want.” He bends and leaves featherlight kisses on my lips. “I want another chance with you, Banner. The chance that was taken from us. I want to make love to you with the lights on.”

— Kennedy Ryan

178. “That, my beautiful girl,” she’d said, smiling, “is your crown. Your pride. Your self-esteem. The glory of knowing who you are, and that it’s enough. No one has to tell a queen to wear her crown.”

— Kennedy Ryan

179. “Breathe out the lies. That it was your fault. That you failed. That you are what they said you were. Breathe in truth. You are pure. You are enough. You are strong.”

— Kennedy Ryan

180. “He’s dictating my heartbeat, governing my pulse, holding my next breath cupped in his hands.”

— Kennedy Ryan

181. “I know I said my compass spins.” Emotion makes it hard to get the words out. “But not with you.”

— Kennedy Ryan

182. “That’s the part of depression people don’t consider, that at times it physically hurts.”

— Kennedy Ryan

183. “She loves an undeserving man. It’s a sorrow most women experience at some point in their lives, whether it’s a father who neglects or a son who forgets or a husband who betrays. These men let us down and we pull ourselves back up, hopefully with the help of other women who love us in ways that heal.”

— Kennedy Ryan

184. “Don’t you feel how connected we are?” I ask. “If I break your heart, I break mine.” A sweet smile spreads over her lips and she nods.”

— Kennedy Ryan

185. “Every time I’m near her I want to pour accelerant all over my anger so it burns us both to ash.”

— Kennedy Ryan

186. “No.” I want to take her with him just yards away.”

— Kennedy Ryan

187. “The right one won’t ask you to give up your dreams, but will care just as much as you do about them.”

— Kennedy Ryan

188. “I know it’s unreasonable because I met her no more than an hour ago. We’ve had one conversation. Some people leave an impression. Lennix Moon Hunter has left more than an impression. She’s left her mark on me. And it’s shaped like a star.”

— Kennedy Ryan

189. “What if he decides someday the one thing he really wants, really needs is the one thing I can never be?”

— Kennedy Ryan

190. “Extraordinary wants no parts of normal.”

— Kennedy Ryan

191. “I don’t give a damn about odds,” she says. “Odds don’t tell me what I can’t do. Odds just tell me how hard I’ll have to work to get what I want. Don’t allow anyone to make you feel less.”

— Kennedy Ryan

192. “Thank you, MiMi.” I blink at my tears with my head tucked into her long, silver braid. “I feel so weak sometimes, and you make me feel strong.”

— Kennedy Ryan

193. “I guess I wanted to let you know that when you are ready to spend time with someone else,” he says, “I’d like to be someone.”

— Kennedy Ryan

194. “Damn, my head hurts. That’s what happens when Jolly the Big Ass Giant elbows you in the head.”

— Kennedy Ryan

195. “I want you to find someone you love more than your art.”

— Kennedy Ryan

196. “There are so many ways to break a woman’s heart. Her children. Her lover. Her body when it betrays her. Life is clever that way, devising plans for our demise from the moment we’re born. Death by a million heartbreaks, a thousand regrets, a hundred goodbyes.”

— Kennedy Ryan

197. “You’re not asking the wrong question. Is it the most important question, though?”

— Kennedy Ryan

198. “If therapy has taught me anything, it’s that you run from your pain in a circle.”

— Kennedy Ryan

199. “She’s not someone you banished with therapy and meds. She is you. You cannot dissociate from her. Until you reconcile that, you won’t find true peace. Until you have compassion for her instead of judgment, you cannot fully heal.”

— Kennedy Ryan

200. “What should be foreign feels familiar.”

— Kennedy Ryan