Melanie > Books: read-in-2017‎ (130)

“It’s been three years. Three years since he walked out of my house and never came back. Three years since I’ve so much as heard his voice. Three ye

“It’s been three years. Three years since he walked out of my house and never came back. Three years since I’ve so much as heard his voice. Three years since I’ve been pining for a boy who was never even mine.”

“Before the end, you will pluck snowdrops at midwinter, die by your own choosing, and weep for a nightingale.”

“That's the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?”

“From nothing we become men and women who write poems and wage wars and conceive of futures both wondrous and terrifying.”

“But for a society built on exploitation, there is no greater threat than having no one left to oppress.”

“Sarai was seventeen years old, a goddess and a girl. Half her blood was human, but it counted for nothing. She was blue. She was godspawn. She was anathema. She was young. She was lovely. She was afraid.”

“We knew this day would come. We tried to warn the others. It was obvious either the sha

“We knew this day would come. We tried to warn the others. It was obvious either the sharp rate of our technological advancement would lead to the robot singularity claiming lordship over all, or that the fairies would finally grow tired of our reckless destruction of the natural world and take it back from us.”

“We were always on your side. Unfortunately, half of the authors in this anthology chose poorly, but the other half always knew you would emerge triumphant.”

“You’re not the white knight in this picture. You’re the villain!”

“You may have lost your family, but you’re not alone anymore, Ella. You’re a Royal now.”

“The heavens grant us only one life, but through books, we live a thousand.”

“The heavens grant us only one life, but through books, we live a thousand.”

“The choice between looking plain and pretty isn’t really a choice at all. But any fool knows looking dangerous is preferable to both.”

“So much wealth held in so few palms. A kingdom of the blind, built on the backs of the bruised and the broken.”

“That's the power of words; twenty six little letters can paint a whole universe”

“Words are where most change begins.”

“Honor is dead. But I'll see what I can do.”

“Expectation. That is the true soul of art. If you can give a man more than he expects, then he will laud you his entire life. If you can create an air of anticipation and feed it properly, you will succeed.”

“Love is worth it. It is worth any hardship, it is worth illness. It is worth injury. It is wor

“Love is worth it. It is worth any hardship, it is worth illness. It is worth injury. It is worth isolation. It is even worth death. For life without love is only a shadow of life.”

“Because the Writ tells us, girl. Because the Order reminds us. The devils are real, and they are terrible, and we must be ever vigilant for their return.”

“That’s what love should be, sure as stone, as running water. Sure as the bite of winter and spring blossoms. Sure even when it was impossible. Even when they were both girls.”

“No. It is a person you love. Not a name. Not a she or a he. A person in all their shining glory. There is a thing in us, Heloise. A seed. It makes us who we are. It is our core. That is the thing we love. It alone exists. It alone is holy. It has no home, no name. It is neither male nor female. It is greater than that.”

“Never be sorry for loving, Heloise. No matter who it is, no matter how it is done, no matter how the person you love receives it. Love is the greatest thing a person can do. Most go their entire lives knowing only ritual and obligation, mistaking it for love.”

“Once upon a time there was a beautiful queen who thought words were stronger than a

“Once upon a time there was a beautiful queen who thought words were stronger than anything. She used them to win love and money and gifts. She used them to carry her across the world.”

“You would think after numerous attacks of grief the human body would be unable to process any more sadness. But our hearts have an annoying amount of endurance.”

“If you’re to be mine, I need all of you to be mine, because all of me is yours.”

“It started out as a dirty little secret, something to amuse myself wit

“It started out as a dirty little secret, something to amuse myself with. I lived a boring existence—work, home, bed . . . and Gavin was a distraction. Maybe I should have left it there, but I hadn’t.”

“And every morning, promptly at ten to eight, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sinful strolled inside and ordered a double shot of espresso to go.”

“Gavin Kingsley
President
Forbidden Desires”

“In that moment, I knew this wouldn’t be casual, knew I wouldn’t walk away from this in one piece.”

“Ships kept on disappearing. Since the start of man’s relationship with the sea, ships kep

“Ships kept on disappearing. Since the start of man’s relationship with the sea, ships kept on disappearing. So assume the mermaids have never forgotten about us. We wrote them off as legends as soon as they were no longer knocking on our front door.”

“Are mermaids real? Yes. Are mermaids friendly? No.”

“When someone kills an American citizen, we don’t say, ‘Oh well, we killed one of theirs last week; we’re calling it even,’” she said. “We declare war. We sweep civilizations off the face of the globe. They won’t care that they started it. They’re only going to care who finishes it, and to be honest, I’m not sure it’s going to be us.”

“It was beautiful, in its own terrible way. So many monsters are.”

“You cannot have my pa

“You cannot have my pain”

“To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.”

“The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.”

“Life breaks us, Teft. Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.”

“A demon as knitting outside the hospital.”

“A demon as knitting outside the hospital.”

“This must be why the demon took their hearts. Because it was the only way a human might survive this—by hollowing themselves out.”

“The Queen of the Ravens was the Celtic goddess of war. A terrifying, wrathful woman who reveled in evil. She was known as the Triad. Woman with three parts. The woman named Morgan. The Raven Shifter. The Goddess of War.”

“The five of us have known one another for eons. We’re not quite brothers, but close enough; soldiers, warriors, even a criminal or two. Assigned as guards between the worlds. For Morgan.”

“Did the Bloodprint represent deliverance or deception?”

“Did the Bloodprint represent deliverance or deception?”

“We do what we always do with slave-chains—we break them.”

“A man, a child, and two women braving a Talisman redoubt. To capture the stone of heaven. Symbol of the Eternal Blue Sky.”

“A fool’s first and biggest weakness is thinking he doesn’t have one”

“A fool’s first and biggest weakness is thinking he doesn’t have one”

“It takes more strength and will to be kind than it does to indulge in anger or hate.”

“It only takes two acts of real fucking depravity to make a reputation.” Sebastian counted off on his thumb and forefinger. “The first to get everyone’s attention and the second to show you were serious the first time.”

“Stay away from the bees.”

“The energy flows over me, fills me, and none of it feels tainted, contaminated by the darkness of my mother’s mistakes.”

“If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I’d have said magic is impossible. Irrational. Just considering its existence in this world is insane. But I saw bees crawl out of a man’s mouth. I saw him change faces like pages of a book.”

“I endured two centuries of horrors, and maybe it was all so I could be here with you. If my unnatural existence means nothing else, it means this. I get to be here, now, with you.”