Khadija ☕︎

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I took a breath. “Your highness—”
“Nikolai,” he corrected. “But I’ve also been known to answer to ‘sweetheart’ or ‘handsome.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?...

'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.”
― William Shakespeare

“A lock is like a woman,” he’d said blearily. “You have to seduce it into giving up its secrets.” He was one of Per Haskell’s old cronies, happy to talk about better days and big scams, especially if it meant he didn’t have to do much work. And that was exactly the kind of muddled wisdom these old cadgers loved to spout. Sure, a lock was like a woman. It was also like a man and anyone or anything else—if you wanted to understand it, you had to take it apart and see how it worked. If you wanted to master it, you had to learn it so well you could put it back together.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom