Bitterblue (Graceling Realm, #3)

by Kristin Cashore

How could she forget the rape of her own mind?

Some of these buildings looked as if they’d been cannibalized for their wood.

Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into the river while no one’s looking and then rescue him.

Omg 😂😂

I’m so small that my husband won’t be able to find me in the bed. And when he does, he’ll discover that my breasts are uneven and I’m shaped like an eggplant.

My mother was so pretty. Is an eggplant ever pretty?

She had an imagination, and she wasn’t shy of her own body; she’d made discoveries.

“To catch them between the pages,”

“and trap them before they disappear.”

People had used to dress up in bright clothing, decorate their faces with paint, and, traditionally, kiss everybody.

History of queerness in Monsea

slightly drunk with departing sleep and with the sense that she wasn’t entirely attached to the earth.

Bitterblue loved Katsa and Po with a love as big as the earth. But she knew what it was like to be lost on the edges of their love for each other.

“No,” Teddy repeated. “Not now. Unfortunately, Ander is a psychopath. Saf has the most bizarre taste, Sparks, present company excluded, of course, and I really cannot warn you strongly enough against getting involved, but what good will it do?”

It was not fair that she should find herself doubting, at times, how well she’d ever known her mother.

“Don’t be an ass. He’s actually been quite unwell.”

Every configuration of people is an entirely new universe unto itself.”

She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was like a prison cell.

I can’t explain the practice to you, Lady Queen. I wonder if it’s meant to be punishment for something one can’t forgive oneself for. Or an external expression, Lady Queen, of an internal pain? Or perhaps it’s a way to realize that you actually do want to stay alive.”

“He raped this library and all other libraries, and I couldn’t stop him.

something like the world’s most miserable clump of seaweed.