Rouge Quotes

“You were such a lonely little girl, weren't you? Whispering to grass. Befriending sticks. Dreaming yourself into movies and books. Every screen, every page, like a door to another world, remember?”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“The only journey that matters in the end, Daughter of Noelle.” “Retinol?” I whisper. “The soul. A journey of the soul, of course.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“If she did ask, I would say it was grief. The deepest grief. I know she would accept that as an answer. No one knows what’s inside grief. Anything at all can be there.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Didn't you envy? Didn't you want? A mirror is only a mirror, Belle. It only ever reflects back what we desire and long for”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“There was a space there, too, like the one between me and Mother. Like the one between me and everyone forever after. There has been a space between me and everything ever since you turned to smoke. There has been a wall of glass.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Thank god, I tell myself. Which god, I don't know. Between Mother's and Father's gods, I picture a wide black space full of stars. That's the space I whisper up to. Maybe there's a god there too. My own”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“It's the hour when all the shop mannequins conspire to look menacing. When they all appear to be smirking a little. The mannequins always reminded me of mother. Flawless, white, smiling.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Death,” she says, “is just another door, Daughter, we must remember. Your mother,” she sighs, “was making such progress. A shame to lose her. But she did go the way of roses.” She smiles sadly. “Surely that’s a consolation.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Without the sun, what’s the moon? Just a rock in the outer dark. Its illumination just a trick. Just a trick from the sun’s light, which it steals. And that’s what Beauty is too.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“What I smell is the word forbidden, red and sharp and bittersweet, rising up like crushed roses under the bed.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“There was never anything to fear. Which is a little disappointing, frankly. Maybe I wanted to be obliterated.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“She used to tell you fairy tales at night, remember? Once upon a time. When you were a sad, dreamy little girl. Each night you lay in your princess bed, surrounded by your glassy-eyed dolls, waiting for her like a wish”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“He kisses me on the lips. Just once. So light, like a touch of a touch. This time it doesn’t burn. It burns, yes, but not in a bad way. It’s like that wrong heaven of stars up there are all in my body now. Little dots of fiery light. But it doesn’t feel wrong anymore. It feels exactly right. Just like the right heaven.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Crack running through his voice like a crack in a glass. Eyes still on my eyes. A sorrow there, fathoms deep. His sorrow or mine? I'm drowning in it like dark water”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“The roses are swaying gently around me in an ocean breeze. I can smell them from here. I can hear the waves and I can hear the chimes making a lovely music. I’m smiling at myself with my very red lips. I’m telling myself it’s time to go.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Envy is when you hate someone because they have something you want, she said simply”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Thank god, I tell myself. Which god, I don’t know. Between Mother’s and Father’s gods, I picture a wide black space full of stars. That’s the space I whisper up to. Maybe there’s a god there, too. My own.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Tom, please! Please take me away from here. Please save me. I can’t stay.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“She’s with me here in the glass, though. She loves this morning’s ridicule that we’re doing together.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Mother's lawyer. When I was younger, he reminded me a little of a perverted Rumpelstiltskin. I'd watch him ogle Mother. Take her all in with a twinkly eyed delight I found obscene, like she was a bowl of bright, erotic candy”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“She looks so lonely. Lovely.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“I watched her soul close its eyes inside her body as she stared at the screen.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Mother will carry me in the red wave, and in the wave, we’ll talk. I’ll ask her, Why did you leave me? I’ll tell her a lot of things seem to be leaving me, even myself. But I’m glowing, just like you did.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“All about to be sold by Tad. Handsome young Tad, who has no idea of death or loss.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Belle?” Just then our bedroom door opens. And we both scream, Mother and I.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“We? She must not see that I’m with you, Mother. She must not see you in the shop glass or she must think we’re one and the same. We look so much like each other today, it’s true. Esther doesn’t seem to see very well. Completely immune to the abomination in the window display.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“The cut of his face and the cut of his dark suit and the cut of his shadows. The scar’s jagged shape gleaming in the bloody sunset.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“Sounds like soon is now.”
― Mona Awad, Rouge

“I mean, we all have our dark days. Very dark days, sometimes. When our demons come out to play. No one lives entirely in the light, right?”
― Mona Awad, Rouge