20 Oct
2026
Original quotes by Jonathan Anthony Burkett from Friends 2 Lovers Volume 4: Hidden in Plain Sight, taken word for word from the book. No spoilers. Share any of them with the credit “— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Friends 2 Lovers.”
“She didn't say amen. She never could on this one. It always felt like closing a door.”
“I gave her away because I wanted her to have something better than what I had in me right then.”
“Nobody gave me the book on a day like this.”
“She had come home alive. That was the part she held on to.”
“He wants me scared and quiet. He wants me hiding it. That's what he's counting on.”
“I went to the police first. And then I called my husband.”
— Kelly
“It was the only time all day his head got still.”
“Most people in your position hide it. … I used to”
— ASA Castillo / Kelly
“A smiling man would have been easier to hate.”
“Good lawyers were like good cornermen. You paid them so you didn't have to explain.”
“He stood in the garage in the broken glass and listened to his wife calm his children down from being afraid of him.”
“So here it is. Get help or get out.”
“I want you to learn how to not hit things. From somebody who knows the difference.”
“You don't have to like it. You don't have to understand it. You just have to show up.”
“But every plan has a date on it.”
“In this one life that we live, you have to still put yourself first sometimes.”
“I want a woman who's been in a room she couldn't get out of, and got out.”
“Kelly would talk when Kelly was ready. Latoya had learned that the hard way.”
“Fair's fair, … She shot him first.”
— Evette
“He had never once raised his hand to her or his voice.”
“That's a man arguing with himself. Let him finish the argument.”
“You don't hit anything you can't apologize to.”
“You can't apologize to a little girl who watched her daddy put his fist through a wall. Not really. She'll say okay, Daddy. But she'll remember.”
“Anybody can hit. A champion decides.”
“That boy talks because he's looking for the door into your head.”
“Anthony made me, … Charles raised me.”
— Claude
“That's the best woman God ever made”
“Don't ask the provider, son, ask the carrier.”
“He told himself all the things a man tells himself when he has already decided to keep a secret and wants to believe he hasn't.”
“You did all right, Mrs. Richards. You did all right by her.”
— Ms. Odom
“I realized I've been telling everybody I'm fine for six months and I'm not fine.”
“Did you have a choice that didn't end with you hurt?”
“I just want you to carry the question home. Put it somewhere you'll see it.”
“I'd already done that once and it took something out of me I didn't get back.”
“You don't have to win for me to stay.”
“Well, He gave you that boy back, didn't He? Hush.”
— Lynn James
“She was a very patient woman now. She had not always been.”
“You fight the man in front of you and you think about the man after him. That's how champions think.”
“Make a man lean toward you and he starts to believe you have something he needs.”
“You didn't have to hide from people. You just had to be the thing they expected to see.”
“Same man. Nobody had looked.”
“I just needed to know I didn't throw her into the dark.”
“You're the strongest person I know. That's what scares me.”
“Whatever it costs you to tell it, it costs more to keep it.”
“Truth was I was protecting me.”
“Tonight it's only yours if you let it be.”
“Most men who keep secrets tell themselves they're carrying something so somebody else won't have to.”
“You were wrong, and you love her, and both of those are true at the same time.”
“Don't give it to her to fix anything. Give it to her because you bought it for her. Let her decide what it means.”
“The second thing is I love you, … That's not to cancel out the first thing. They're just both true.”
“Boy like that needs a place to put it. You don't give him a place, the street gives him one.”
“Because you deserve one apology from me that isn't for an audience.”
“Fighting is when you can't stop. Boxing is when you know how to.”
“It got a little easier every time and it never got easy.”
“I'm not a perfect woman. I'm not even a good one, most days. But I have never in my life loved anything the way I love her”
“That's the only power I've got with him. That I get to tell it.”
— Kelly
“I just want her to know that somebody gave her up because she loved her, not because she didn't.”
“He had grown up in a house where anger was the furniture.”
“I don't care what I come from. I care where my kids come from. They come from me. So I got to be somebody they can come from.”
“Nobody did that for you. You decided.”
— Kelly
“In this one life that we live, I don't want to waste it.”
“So I'm choosing you. Again.”
“From just being friends to lovers— … —to whatever's next”
“Thank you for her. Thank you for another chance. Help me deserve it this year.”
“Kelly didn't say amen. She just held him tighter, and that was the same thing.”
“Some men were just built to trust.”
“He's figured out that nobody asks a coach where he came from.”
— Detective Arnold
“No, … Charles would've gone through those ropes.”
— Detective Arnold
“Cars are just cars until they're not.”
“Tell me when you're ready, … But tell me.”
“She had learned the hard way when to ask questions and when to just move.”
“You got a lot of reasons not to trust anybody named anything.”
— Clinton
“It's not a mistake. It's a decision. There's a difference.”
“I failed you. I'll carry that till I die, and I deserve to. But I'm not going to fail her.”
“It was true. It's not true now.”
“If he comes to this house, … you call me. And then we both decide.”
— Claude
“Then he'll be the only man who ever got close enough to try”
— Latoya
“She walked out the way she had walked into every hard room of her life, with her back straight and her chin up”
“Family business sometimes walks in the front door without knocking.”
“I have been saying yes to men my whole life, and not one of them ever asked me what I wanted.”
“I've been done before. I know how to be done.”
“A person who rings once at midnight and waits isn't dangerous. A person who rings once at midnight and waits is scared.”
“He doesn't get your face today.”
“You don't owe anybody your eyes on it.”
“For knowing what you can carry, … I never did.”
— Claude
“Corner pieces got the most frosting.”
“He's offering me my silence for my daughter.”
— Kelly
“So you go out there and you fight the fight that's in front of you. Not the one in your head.”
“Every fight was the one in your head. That was the whole problem.”
“You could hit him with everything you had, and he got up and looked at you like he was disappointed you didn't have more.”
“You're the greatest I'll ever fight, … You hear me? Ever.”
— Devin
“But I want the best man to win, and I need you to be the best man.”
“Turns out most of the punches I was eating, I was asking for.”
“Your temper lives in there, son. It feeds on what you're hiding. You want it to starve, open the door.”
“Sometimes the most loving thing a man can do is stay in his seat and take it.”
“Because as long as you were the one apologizing, I got to be the one who forgave.”
“Like getting hit and not being allowed to hit back.”
— Claude
“I'm not leaving, and you're not leaving. We're just going to sit here and be miserable for a minute.”
“Saying yes to stay alive is not yes.”
“It felt like taking off a coat she had been wearing indoors for two years.”
“We don't keep score anymore, … We keep each other.”
“Not one more boy grows up thinking a man is what he breaks.”
“He didn't feel angry anymore. He felt tired for both of them.”
“Get up, Claude. You're not done.”
“Get up, man, … Your son's watching.”
— Claude
“Teach me how to be his dad, … without being mine.”
“That's what you do when somebody falls down. You help them up.”
“She had been small for him once, to survive. She was not going to be small for him again.”
“Then I'll tell the world first.”
“Her story is her career now.”
“They'll walk out on lies. They'll walk out on boring. They don't walk out on that.”
— Celeste Grant
“I am not afraid of what he shows you. Because whatever he shows the world, it will only show what he did.”
“Your silence belongs to you. You don't have to sell it. Not to him. Not to anybody.”
“In this one life that we live, we only get to tell our own story once. I'm telling mine.”
“I'm not a victim tonight, Detective.”
— Kelly
“I can't fix this one, baby, … I won't.”
— Celeste
“A man could only carry so many secrets in one jacket.”
“Men who laughed the day before a fight thought it was already over.”
“Then I hold him, … That's all. I hold him till somebody with a badge gets there.”
— Claude
“Whatever that cost, you paid it for my wife. So now it's ours.”
“I made money before I had a son. I didn't have much else.”
“I'm not hiding her. I did enough hiding in my life.”
“Whatever you find back there, … you come back to me the same man who walked out.”
“Better man, … That's the deal, right?”
— Claude
“Tonight she just sat in the front row and refused to live in it.”
“It felt more like a muscle she had been clenching since 2014 letting go, one fiber at a time.”
“the two voices he had heard every day of his life telling him the same thing: you can do it.”
“It wasn't courage. It was older than courage.”
“Thinking was for the gym.”
“Any fool can swing, son. Takes a man to know when not to.”
“No, … I'm not you. That's the whole point.”
— Claude
“It's not me. It was never me. It's just proof of what you did.”
“You won your title, … I just poured out some water.”
— Clinton
“She had held her daughter, she had saved her, and she had given her back because she chose to.”
“I held her, and the world didn't end.”
“He couldn't tell whether he felt free or only lighter.”
“It was just a room, and that helped more than she expected.”
“You are in this room, not that one.”
“Two faces, Kelly thought. And they're both lies.”
“I didn't choose it. I chose to survive it. Those are not the same thing.”
“I told my mother what I needed to believe to stay alive”
“I'm not her proof. I'm the worst thing in this story besides him.”
— Colin
“It wasn't forgiveness. It was closer to respect, and it hurt more.”
“A rescue you pay for is not a rescue. It's a trap with a smile on it.”
“That's all a trial is. It's four rounds. You don't have to win them. You just have to stay on your feet and keep your hands down.”
“Then decide every morning.”
“He didn't get my voice.”
“I just want it on the record that I'm not afraid of him anymore, and I'm not ashamed.”
“That's the last knife he's got. Don't you pick it up.”
“Good behavior, … First time anybody ever bet on that.”
— Colin
“I don't forgive you. But I'm done carrying you.”
“I don't want to wait one more day to ask her to carry something good.”
“It took me a long time to become a man I'd want to name a child after”
“The ones God gave us, and the ones we chose.”
“Kelly turned twenty-four under a sky full of stars that somebody had hung by hand.”
“He said if the wedding was going to be on your birthday, then the sky had better look like your birthday.”
— Myra
“She wanted the whole world, and she wanted it on her own two feet.”
“To a man who is family because he chose to be”
“I'm doing the next best thing, which is staying out of trouble.”
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