29 Quotes by Roan Parrish

You were as much in prison as anyone I knew there, Colin. Only you created it for yourself. Your father paced out the cell and your brothers fit the bars and you turned the key in the lock and buried it somewhere only you know. And you stared at Daniel through the bars and cursed him for being able to walk out the door. But he’s not the one who did something wrong. All he did was save himself. And you can too. But you have to find that key and unlock the door.

No one had ever called him tough before. Told him to toughen up? Yes. To tough it out? Definitely. The thing was that he knew he was tough. He'd never told anyone, but sometimes at the end of the day, when he closed the door on the world and pulled a blanket over his head, he thought: You are so fucking tough. You just did hard shit all day. You are so brave for doing that.

Morgan and I had recognized each other right away. You could just tell when you met another person whose thick skin had been forged in the fire of difference.

Tattoos are the scars you can choose.

He’d never thought of sex as anything but physical pleasure, or sometimes, with certain people, as an expression of intimacy. The depth of Charlie’s feeling was moving. It was...humbling. It said: I am letting you affect me. I am letting you into the parts of me that I have never shared with anyone—not even myself.

Rye corrected himself. “I can absolutely imagine you choosing the desires of an imaginary future partner over your own.” It stung, the accuracy of that statement, delivered so gently, and with Rye’s hand on his cheek. As if Rye saw the truth of his home’s yearning—its nearly silent, beige-and-white cry into the darkness: Love me. I won’t assert myself. I am made of space for you. I have emptied myself of any identifiable desires so that yours may flourish.

He had sunk into his love for Corbin with the inevitability of gravity. At unexpected moments, he would see Corbin and be caught breathless at the insistence of his need. When Corbin reached for him, he felt that need like magnets finding their way close enough to snap together.

Alex left one hand on Corbin's shoulder and laid the other on Gareth's arm, shaking his head. In that moment, Corbin saw so clearly who Alex was. The man whose touch could gentle. The man whose presence soothed. The man who was so full up with weighty presence he had ballast to spare.His aunts had had a name for people like Alex. Kedge. The mooring that kept things from drifting off, kept them anchored to the here and now.

Like, you know that feeling," I try to explain, "where it's Sunday night and you have school or work the next morning but then it's a snow day and you don't have to go in? You feel like that.""I feel like a natural disaster?" he teases, but his gaze is intent."No," I say, forcing myself to say what I mean. "A relief. You feel like a huge relief."Rex's eyes go very soft. "You feel like a relief too, Daniel," he says.