Allison

“In his comfortable coffin, face veiled in dark silk, eyes open or closed, Pan Loudermilk lies waiting, a player from a tribe never stilled so much as gathered, potential as potent as a knife in the scabbard, a poem in the mind, a wind that rises as a breeze in the tropics, later to lash the wintry coastline, and smash its boats and sailors on the shore. Or perhaps that is purest make-believe, as a puppet is only a tool, made of wood, and wool, and wire. As we are blood, and fancy, and bites of bone and dream.”
― Kathe Koja, Under the Poppy

“The fella had wandered over to where I could totally see him, face on, in decent light, and how he looked—well, it ain’t easy for me to say out loud.

He’s the kind of fella that if he was to make it to the top based only on his looks you’d still have to say he deserved it. Hoodoo sculptors and horny witches knitted that boy, put his bone and sinew in the most fabulous order. Dark-haired, green-eyed, with face bones delicate and dramatic both. If your ex had his lips you’d still be married. His size was somewhat smallish, but he was otherwise for certain the most beautiful boy I ever had seen. I’m afraid “beautiful” is the only word I can make work here, and I’m not bent or nothin’, but beautiful is the truth.”
― Daniel Woodrell, Tomato Red

“You have always been dazzling - the life of every party, the glamour girl who dances until dawn."

"Well, I am. But I'm dancing on broken glass. I'm Miss Havisham's wedding cake, Kit. A frothy, expensive, mice-eaten confection. I'm the Sphinx's nose, the fallen Colossus. I'm a beautiful ruin, and it's time that has done the deed.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Spear of Summer Grass

“There was a door, but it was terribly bashful, so Auri politely pretended not to see it.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Slow Regard of Silent Things