Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom, #4)

by Tahereh Mafi

“When a man is on fire you don’t ask permission to extinguish him. I gather you will find your peace only once you’ve broken down his door.”

She wondered then what it might be like to be so freely enraged; to scream into the heavens and simply fly away.

reach for compassion when invited to anger, for the latter was deemed volatile and unproductive.

It would be simpler for him to lay down and die for her than to try to convey the enormity of all that he felt in her presence.

“Your king is repulsively humble, I've discovered.”

I feel I should confess to you now that I am not immune to grief. I am not hardened against the casual cruelty of this world.

true justice requires the retention of compassion.”

It is no less than a miracle that we bear witness to the unceasing savagery of injustice and still find the courage to smile.

“You’re a shite poet, are you?

repulsively humble?”

“Don’t be an ass.” “Ah, but you inspire me every day, sire,” he said, turning another page.

Every day was shades of anticipation and suffering; every day was a list of things to celebrate and mourn.

“The point, darling, is that extraordinary beauty has rarely spared a person from being stupid.”

The more she came to know him, the harder it was to behold him, for he was like the sea, unfathomable.

At times Cyrus felt so overwhelmed and abraded by the force of the world that he could hardly tolerate even the touch of morning dew, and this left him wretched even as it made him furious. It had occurred to him, at various moments in time, that were his feelings less fathomless he might’ve lived a simpler life.