#nathaniel

All those other summers and those other kisses and everything else we shared, my dad choosing some random lake in some random town to stay in one year, the fights and the screw ups that helped us learn and gave us experiences with other people. They were all meant to happen, and our paths were supposed to cross over and over again. Until we found that point, the bright star in the summer sky that would be ours forever. ↗

— Nyrae Dawn

#nathaniel #summer-four #experience

Dating is probably the most fraught human interaction there is. You're sizing people up to see if they're worth your time and attention, and they're doing the same to you. It's meritocracy applied to personal life, but there's no accountability. We submit ourselves to these intimate inspections and simultaneously inflict them on others and try to keep our psyches intact - to keep from becoming cold and callous - and we hope that at the end of it we wind up happier than our grandparents, who didn't spend this vast period of their lives, these prime years, so thoroughly alone, coldly and explicitly anatomized again and again. ↗

— Adelle Waldman

#love #the-love-affairs-of-nathaniel-p #dating

Six minutes isn’t sex,” I hear him saying as my eyes crash shut. “Six minutes is a boiled egg. ↗

— Sophie Kinsella

#nathaniel #samantha-sweeting #sex #funny

Trying to imagine E. M. Forster, who found Ulysses indecorous, at a London performance of Lenny Bruce—to which in fact he was once taken. Trying to imagine the same for a time-transported Nathaniel Hawthorne—who during his first visit to Europe was even shocked by the profusion of naked statues. ↗

— David Markson

#lenny-bruce #m-forster #nathaniel-hawthorne #norms #puritanism

There was no doubt about it. I was falling for my stepbrother. Long term this would likely result in my ending up on a tacky daytime talk show with other people who had an unnatural love for their relatives. ↗

— Eileen Cook

#nathaniel #love

I need to hear the words of this book—its truth, forgiveness, hope—as much as anybody.” Nathaniel looked up with an apologetic smile. “I know I’m no great orator. But I ask you to bear with me as I fumble through this new duty. ↗

— Julie Klassen

#fairbourne-hall #nathaniel-upchurchiel #forgiveness

Forgive me. It was stupid of me to think you might need company, when clearly all you required was that decanter.” “It was not stupid. It was very kind. Quite soft, actually. A very warm, womanly gesture. I am touched.” He smiled softly. “However, if you truly want to help, if you really want to distract me, there are better ways. When I saw that dress, I dared hope you had realized that. ↗

— Madeline Hunter

#nathaniel #witty #forgiveness

I love you, Margaret Macy. And there is something I need to ask you. Something I’ve asked twice before and am nearly afraid to ask again. The Scriptures say let our yes be yes and our no be no, but I pray, in your case, your no may have changed . . . ?” Margaret leaned forward and kissed him firmly, warmly, on the lips. Then she smiled at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “Yes, it most definitely has. ↗

— Julie Klassen

#margaret-macy #marriage-proposal #nathaniel-upchurch #change