Sara’s Reviews > Nocturna > Status Update

"'Forget history. Forget legacy,' she said, and she wished she'd spent more time taking her own advice. She should've lived her life instead of running from the past. 'If what you actually want to do is rule, gods help you, then just accept that your kingdom is a giant cesspool of shit like everywhere else. Then you won't be afraid to take risks and make it better. And then maybe you'll fix some things.'"

"Her mother had always told her that keeping one's softness in the face of a world that was tough and callous was a strength unto itself. It struck her that her mother would've liked Alfie very much."

"This decision was going to be his either way. He would depend on no drink or no person to hold him accountable. He would have to trust that who he was was enough to withstand this."

"These jagged pieces fought within him each day, but they formed him all the same, and he would need all of himself to get through this moment."

"For months, he'd been torn between anger and hunger for vengeance, and the opposite pull begging him to let go of that anger, to move forward. Each side came with its own brand of shame that brought the flask to his lips to quiet it all."

"I know the difference between 'could' and 'will'. Those words spell the difference between a good man and a bad one. The light and the dark. I know which one you turn to."

"The rich are born rich and die richer, the rest of us die early."

"He hadn't seen her as something to bend into whatever shape would better serve him.
He'd seen her as a person. A person who had said no."

"People with one face, one story, have weaknesses, vulnerabilities, things to exploit and dangle over their heads. But to be no one was to have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. That was tree freedom, plain and simple."

"'Don't kid yourself,' she said, challenge written in every line of her face. 'I didn't make you small; you were small to begin with.'"