Valerie Hoffmann

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Someone else’s choice doesn’t change who you are.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“The delicate thing that had grown between them had never had a right to exist.”
― C.S. Pacat, Kings Rising

“I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire.
And then I was a careless fool, and I fell in love with you anyway. When you rang me at truly shocking hours of the night, I loved you. When you kissed me in disgusting public toilets and pouted in hotel bars and made me happy in ways in which it had never even occurred to me that a mangled-up, locked-up person like me could be happy, I loved you.
And then, inexplicably, you had the absolute audacity to love me back. Can you believe it?
Sometimes, even now, I still can't.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue