Quotes From "Landline" By Rainbow Rowell

You don't know when you're twenty-three. You don't know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there. You can't see all the ways you're going to get tangled, how you're going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten - in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems. She didn't know at twenty-three. Rainbow Rowell

She thought of ... the way he never made made her feel crazy, even when she was acting crazy, and never made her feel like a failure, even when she was failing. Rainbow Rowell

God, had it really been that long? It had. Nineteen years since Georgie stumbled across Seth in the Spoon offices, seventeen years since she first noticed Neal, fourteen since she married him, standing beside a row of lilac trees in his parents' back yard. Georgie never thought she'd be old enough to talk about life in big, decade-long chunks like this. It's not that she'd thought she was going to die before now, she'd just never imagined it would feel this way, the heaviness of the proportions. Twenty years with the same dream, seventeen with the same man. Pretty soon she'd have been with Neal longer than she'd been without him. She'd know herself as his wife better than she'd ever known herself as anyone else. It felt like too much, not too much have, just too much to contemplate. Commitments like boulders that were too heavy to carry. Fourteen years since their wedding, fifteen years since Neal tried to drive away from her, fifteen since he drove back. Seventeen since she first saw him, saw something in him that she couldn't look away from. Rainbow Rowell

Even fifteen hundred miles away, even on the phone, Georgie was more alive than anything else in his life. He felt his cheeks warm just thinking about seeing her again. That's what Georgie did to him, she pulled the blood to the surface of his skin. She acted on him, tidally. She made him feel like things were happening, like life was happening, and even if he was miserable sometimes, he wasn't going to sleep through it. He ran his hand over his pocket. The ring was still there. It had been there since he left the nursing home. His great aunt had pressed it into Neal's hands. 'I don't need this anymore, I never really needed it, but Harold liked to see it on my finger. It was a family ring, ' she said. 'It should stay in the family.' Neal made up his mind as soon as he saw it. The future was going to happen, even if he wasn’t ready for it. Even if he was never ready for it. At least he could make sure he was with the right person. Wasn’t that the point of life? To find someone to share it with? And if you got that part right, how far wrong could you go? If you were standing next to the person you loved more than everything else, wasn’t everything else just scenery?. Rainbow Rowell

At the end of the day -- after work, after trying to spend some sort of meaningful time with Alice and Noomi --Georgie was usually too tired to make things right with Neal before they fell asleep. So things stayed wrong. Rainbow Rowell

Things didn't go bad between Georgie and Neal. Things were always bad -- and always good. Their marriage was like a set of scales constantly balancing itself. And then, at some point, when neither of them was paying attention, they'd tipped so far over into bad, they'd settled there. Now only an enormous amount of good would shift them back. An impossible amount of good. Rainbow Rowell

I love you. I love you both so much."" To the moon and back?" Alice asked." Oh my God, " Georgie said, "so much farther. Rainbow Rowell

She could have just told him about the magic phone. Full disclosure. Then they could have solved it together. They could have Sherlocked and Watsoned from both ends of the timeline Rainbow Rowell

Neal huffed. Frustrated. "I hate that you thought I wouldn't call-- I hate that everything is so tentative between us right now. When did everything get so tentative? Rainbow Rowell

If this was just a dream she wished she could have it every night. Neal not quite whispering sweet somethings into her ear. Rainbow Rowell

You are very kind, " he said. "Very wrong, but very kind. Rainbow Rowell

I'm extra-good at wanting things. I want things until I feel sort of sick about them. I want enough for two normal people, at least. Rainbow Rowell

She could have just told him about the magic phone. Full disclosure. Then they could have solved it together. They could have Sherlocked and Watsoned from both endsof the timeline. Rainbow Rowell

She was pretty sure Seth had practiced all his facial expressions and gestures in front of a mirror, and worked out which ones made him look like a cross between an Abercrombie model and a kitten. Rainbow Rowell

Kids took a fathomless amount of time and energy... And they took it first. They had right of first refusal on everything you had to offer. p220 Rainbow Rowell

She knew Neal loved her. Good for him for realizing it wasn't enough to make him happy. That was very mature of him. He was probably saving them both a lot of heartache. Rainbow Rowell

He didn't laugh when he thought something was funny--he laughed when he was happy. Rainbow Rowell

Georgie, ' he said. Then he kissed her. That was it, really. That was when she added Neal to the list of things she wanted and needed and was bound to have someday. That's when she decided that Neal was the person who was going to drive on those overnight trips. And Neal was the one who is going to sit next to her at the Emmys. He kissed her like he was drawing a perfectly straight line. He kissed her in India ink. That's when Georgie decided, during that cocksure kiss, that Neal was what she needed to be happy. Rainbow Rowell

Comedy writers don't join fraternities.'' Don't pigeon hole me, Georgie, I'm infinite. Rainbow Rowell

Even if you break with me and crush my heart, I'm never getting back together with Dawn. I know that the world isn't flat now, I'm not going back. Rainbow Rowell

I know the world is flat now, I'm not going back. Rainbow Rowell

She started dialing his cell, then hung up and tried the landline -- maybe Margaret was a better bet to pick up; their parents' generation still felt morally obligated to answer phones. Rainbow Rowell

These rotary dials were like meditation, they forced you to slow down and concentrate. If you polled the next number too soon, you had to start over from the top. Rainbow Rowell

When I wake up on Sunday Mornings - late, you always let me sleep in - I come looking for you, and you're in the backyard with dirt on your knees and two little girls spinning around you in perfect orbit. And you put their hair in pigtails and you let them wear whatever madness they want, and Alice planted a fruit cocktail tree and Noomi ate a butterfly, and they look like me because they're round and golden, but they glow for you. Rainbow Rowell

The snow came up to the top of Georgie's calves - she had to lift her feet high to make any progress. Her ears and eyelids were freezing... God, she'd never even been able to imagine this much cold before. How could people live someplace that so obviously didn't want them? Rainbow Rowell

My life is like an O Henry story....the funniest girl in the world and the boy who never laughs. Rainbow Rowell

If they'd given her a proper time machine, she probably would have used it to cuddle with him. Let somebody else kill Hitler. Rainbow Rowell

How'd you know he was the one?"" I didn't know. I don't think either of us knew." Heather rolled her eyes. "Neal knew – he proposed to you."" It's not like that, " Georgie said. "You'll see. It's more like you meet someone, and you fall in love, and you hope that that person is the one – and then at some point, you have to put down your chips. You just have to make a commitment and hope that you're right. Rainbow Rowell