Warcross (Warcross, #1)

by Marie Lu

He laughed too often and fell in love too quickly and drank too freely.

Death has a terrible habit of cutting straight through every careful line you’ve drawn between your present and your future.

Every locked door has a key.

Everyone has a different way of escaping the dark stillness of their mind. This, I learned, was mine.

and gradually, I drift off into sleep, surrounded by ghosts.

But sometimes, people kick you to the ground at recess because they think the shape of your eyes is funny. They lunge at you because they see a vulnerable body. Or a different skin color. Or a difficult name. They think that you won’t hit back—that you’ll just lower your eyes and hide. And sometimes, to protect yourself, to make it go away, you do. But sometimes, you find yourself standing in exactly the right position, wielding exactly the right weapon to hit back. So I hit. I hit fast and hard and furious. I hit with nothing but the language whispered between circuits and wire, the language that can bring people to their knees. And in spite of everything, I’d do it all over again.

It is hard to describe loss to someone who has never experienced it, impossible to explain all the ways it changes you. But for those who have, not a single word is needed.

When you refuse to ask for help, it tells others that they also shouldn’t ask for help from you.

She was so beautiful. But beauty can make people forgive a thousand cruelties.