I Love The Quotes You Love

I love, love, love that Amazon now shows which passages from a book people most frequently highlight. It allows me to get inside my readers' heads and gives me an idea of what aspects of my novels are really resonating with you. Every day I check to see which quotes from Just One Night: The Stranger have made the top five spots

For quite some time the most frequently highlighted quote has been:

"When you're old, do you really want to look back at your life and realize that you were never young?"

So that suggests to me that a lot of my readers are indeed young. If you're not young that quote is either a given or a very depressing reminder of what you didn't do in your youth. That may sound harsh but, well there it is. So to all my youthful readers: As someone who isn't all that young anymore I can tell you that I don't regret the Saturday nights I spent dancing on the bar in New York or any of my other adventures during my college years. Have fun, not just because you can but because in ten years you won't want to do the stuff you want to do right now but you WILL want the memories.

Another quote that's been getting highlighted a lot:

"Drinking is for the moon," she would say as she poured her wine. "Darkness hides our smaller sins. But the sun isn't so forgiving. Light requires the innocence of sobriety."

Okay, I TOTALLY love that this is being highlighted because to me it says: you like my style! It's true that regardless of whether you're talking about drinking or other "sinning" it's easier to do it in the actual or metaphorical darkness then under the scrutiny that light invites. But you already know that. That's why the wisdom of the above quote really takes second place to the manner in which I wrote it. I'm honestly not trying to pat myself on the back here, but I wrote this book in a kind of lyrical style and you're into it! At the risk of sounding incredibly unlyrical, that rocks my world!

And then there's:

We choose our religion, our politics, our philosophies, and we see the world in a way that fits within those chosen confines. And if certain glaring facts don't fit neatly into our belief systems, we just ignore them or see them differently. We make them fit even if it means we have to squeeze them into completely unnatural shapes.

If I could choose one quote from The Stranger that completely holds true in a real, worldwide context it's this one. I don't care how many hard facts you have on your side, if those facts don't work to support others' world view they'll simply dismiss the facts as an anomaly or they'll find some bizarre way to explain them away. And if you don't think you're doing the same thing, you're wrong. We ALL do it. It's a fascinating part of being human and if we didn't have this part of ourselves we wouldn't have religion (which, depending on your perspective, might be a bad thing), we'd be much more difficult to organize and more difficult to lead. And let's face it, sometimes we need to be organized as a group behind a cause or objective and we need leaders. On the flip-side, if this wasn't part of human nature congress would probably get a lot more accomplished. But good or bad we can't escape this part of ourselves. But I do think we should be aware of it (after all, there are times when we should follow and there are times when we should question our leaders) which is why I'm so thrilled to see that you're highlighting this passage. Thank you.

Okay, off my soapbox and onto the next quote:

People say there is nothing more wonderful than having your dreams come true. But some dreams were meant to stay dreams. Sometimes when our dream life sneaks into our waking world, it causes a chemical reaction. And when that happens, everything explodes.

Well thank God you're highlighting that because as much as I love the other, more philosophical quotes this one is basically the essence of the whole story. In The Stranger Kasie wanted Mr. Dade to be her "dream" so to speak. Just one night in Vegas that would sort of fade into a fantasy. But when he enters her life in a much more real way, even injecting himself into her professional life and thereby the life she's building with her boyfriend...well things start exploding and she's got to find a way to deal with it.

But lest we stray too far away from your lust for philosophy, the last most-frequently-highlighted-passage is this:

Yin and yang weren't dualities but simply complementary opposites: the feminine and the masculine, the passive and the active, the unseen and the manifest, the moon and the sun. And it all had to tie together within a greater whole to be part of a compelling and vitalizing system.

Well aren't ya'll a bunch of high-minded intellectuals! Next time someone tries to look down their nose at you for choosing to read erotica or genre fiction instead of "serious" literary fiction show them this quote and explain that some of us can get our sexy on while still keeping our brains engaged. Guess the "Literary Elitists" aren't able to handle that kinda complexity.

Then whack them upside the head with their Faulkner novel for good measure.

Just sayin.


P.S: Be sure to tell me if there are quotes that you love from this book or from So Much For My Happy Ending or from my Sophie books that have really resonated with you! I'd love to know!