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I don’t want to feel anything for you, Dante” “God, Tess. I don’t want to feel anything for you either.
Sep 24, 2025
Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?
Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't it Tess?
Aside from John Grisham, there isn't really anybody besides Tess that I've truly gotten into. But, I do like them. When I have more time to read, I will absolutely look for some more authors. It's just about finding a world and a character that you're intrigued by.
It was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity
I want to kiss you again, Tess.” “Why?” He chuckled, low under his breath. “Why? Because you’re beautiful, and because I want you. And I think you want me too.
Well...can't be any more dangerous than your crazy hospital break-in yeah?"-Tess (pg 59)
It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.
Times like this, with the wind moving the grass and curling around her like a huge cool hand, Tess felt the world as a second presence, as another person, as if the wind and the grass had voices of their own and she could hear them talking.
Tess had said that the river was liable to wash the palace and the city and the whole kingdom off the rocks, and then there would finally be peace in the world. "Peace in the world," Brigan repeated musingly when Fire told him. "I suppose she's right. That would bring peace to the world. But it's not likely to happen, so I suppose we'll have to keep blundering on and making a mess of it." "Oh," Fire said, "well put. We'll have to pass that on to the governor so he can use it in his speech when they dedicate the new bridge.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.
Tess," I say. "I'm going to head down to the water.I'll be back in a minute." "You sure you can make it by yourself?" she asks. "I'll be fine." I smile. "If you see me floating unconscious out to sea,though-by all means,come and get me.
Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a novel that I have read over and over and over again. Tess is a pure child who has an inner glow none of the others in the book possess. They reject her because she is different, and they try in every possible manner to destroy her, because they are jealous. It is an extraordinary love story.
Meanwhile, the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever. The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her pain. She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly -the thought of the world's concern at her situation- was found on an illusion. She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself.
She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself. To all humankind besides Tess was only a passing thought. Even to friends she was no more than a frequently passing thought.
That was enterprising," Will sounded nearly impressed. Nate smiled. Tess shot him a furious look. "Don't look pleased with yourself. When Will says 'enterprising' he means 'morally deficient.'" "No, I mean enterprising," said Will. "When I mean morally deficient, I say, 'Now, that's something I would have done'.
Vlad hated doing the paperwork as much as he did when a human employee quit, which was why they'd both made a promise not to eat quitters just to avoid the paperwork. As Tess had pointed out, eating the staff was bad for marale and made it so much harder to find new employees.
He closed his eyes. “I’m so tired, Tess,” he said. “I only wanted pleasant dreams for once.” “That is not the way to get them, Will,” she said softly. “You cannot buy or drug or dream your way out of pain.
My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.
Tess?” A soft voice at the door; she looked up and saw Will there, silhouetted in the light from the corridor.
Tess was my first experience of a woman who had inhabited her weirdness, moved into the areas of herself that made her distinct from those around her, and learned how to display them proudly.
Tess realized one of the great modern dating sadnesses: everyone is so used to the comforting glow of the computer screen that no one can go so far as to say "good morning" in public without being liquored up.
I can't help but think that it's an unfortunate custom to name children after people who come to sticky ends. Even if they are fictional characters, it doesn't bode well for the poor things. There are too many Judes and Tesses and Clarissas and Cordelias around. If we must name our children after literary figures then we should search out happy ones, although it's true they are much harder to find.
Bye, Tess. haunt me if you like. I don't mind.
[...] Tess and I are a good match. She understands intimately where I came from. She can cheer me up on my darkest days. It's as if she came perfectly happy home instead of what Kaede just told me. I feel a relaxing warmth at the thought, realizing suddenly how much I'm anticipating meeting up with Tess again. Where she goes, I go, and vice versa. Peas in a pod. Then there's June. Even the thought of her name makes it hard for me to breathe. I'm almost embarrassed by my reaction. Are June and I a good match? No. It's the first word to pop into my mind. And yet, still.
Bless thy simplicity, Tess
she was just…beaming at me, and I thought she’d won the lottery or something, her smile was that big. I asked what happened, and she said…” Park swallowed again. “She said, ‘You’re here.”’ He blinked at Tess. “‘You’re here.’ That’s all it was. That big goofy smile just because I was there. Nobody ever smiled like that at me before.
Tess, Tess, Tessa. Was there ever a more beautiful sound than your name? To speak it aloud makes my heart ring like a bell. Strange to imagine that, isn’t it—a heart ringing? But when you touch me, that is what it is like, as if my heart is ringing in my chest and the sound shivers down my veins and splinters my bones with joy.
[...] "I recall what you said to me once," Will went on. "That words have the power to change us. Your words have changed me, Tess; they have made me a better man than I would have been otherwise. Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die -
He frames my face with his hands as he says, "Tess. Only you could be brave enough to die with me. But I want you to live for me." We kiss, as desperate as though we were drowning. When our lips part, Alec says, "Forgive me.
Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?" "Yes." "All like ours?" "I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted." "Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?" "A blighted one.
Marry me," he said. "Marry me, Tess. Marry me and be Tessa Herondale. Or be Tessa Gray, or be whatever you wish to call yourself, but marry me and stay with me and never leave me, for I cannot bear another day of my life to go by that does not have you in it.
Then he crouches down behind it, motions for Tess and me to sit down, and begins unbuttoning his vest. I blush scarlet and thank every god in the world for the darkness surrounding us. “I’m not cold and I’m not bleeding,” I say to him. “Keep your clothes on.” The boy looks at me. I would’ve expected his bright eyes to look dimmer in the night, but instead they seem to reflect the light coming from the windows above us. He’s amused. “Who said anything about you , sweetheart?
Let truth be told - women do as a rule live through such humiliations, and regain their spirits, and again look about them with an interested eye. While there's life there's hope is a connviction not so entirely unknown to the "betrayed" as some amiable theorists would have us believe.
IT WAS TESS who told me about the crowd going to the all-night dance. We'd been school friends. We'd picked mushrooms and pretended to have seen a big ship. She had got married since I went away; it was a made match, a man from the midlands, a Donal, who had worked in a garage but took to farming, out all day, draining fields and callows so that he could till them and sow corn.
...the figure near at hand suffers on such occasions, because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honored, in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.
I'm here, Tess. I'm right here, holding your hand. Adam's here, too, he's sitting on the other side of the bed. And Cal. Mum's on her way, she'll be just a minute. We all love you, Tessa. We're all right here with you.
Intensely moving but never sentimental, Academy Street is a profound meditation on what Faulkner called 'the human heart in conflict with itself'. In Tess Lohan, Mary Costello has created one of the most fully realized characters in contemporary fiction. What a marvel of a book.
Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks.
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