In This Iron Ground Quotes

“He was too old to cry about this. Sometimes, he felt like life had weathered him into a shape beyond his years. Others, it was like he was stuck at ten years old, with fears that belonged to another age.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“To maintain balance in the world, in your life, you must know your true value. Not the value you feel. The value that is. And accept nothing less but something of equal value from others. If you consistently accept less than what you are from others, you will fool yourself into believing you are less. Your life will not find balance that way.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“He’d been alone. Alone, alone, alone. He’d look at the stars and think to the universe, you are infinite. And I am alone.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“There’s an old, Native American parable. It explains how everybody has two wolves constantly fighting inside each of us. The negative wolf—the wolf that tells you that you’re bad, you can’t do it, you’re a failure. And the positive wolf, which tells you, you can do it. You are worthy. You are loved. The wolf that wins is, very simply, the one you feed. When you indulge one of the wolves, leave it to go unchallenged, agree with it, don’t seek out evidence to oppose it, you feed it, and it grows stronger.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“There was something about children and animals liking you that felt especially honest.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“He imagined having a home to go to at the end of the day where he could rest. It was like a lump in his throat, the idea of going home. Home. Where his worst worry would be what’s for dinner. Where he’d be able to go to his room and lay on his bed without being afraid of it, where he’d be able to go online or play video games and then do his homework at his own pace, where he’d be safe, where he’d be lov—”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“He was so powerless. Over his past, his life, his emotions, his thoughts. It had been too unbearable, waiting for it to change, to get better, to…what, what? Fix itself? When things had only gone from bad to worse? It had been too big. He couldn’t imagine a reality in which that bad-apple darkness was gone and he was still himself. And that was the crux of it, really.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“Sometimes, Damien felt like he didn’t have the energy to get to the next sip of the oasis. That he didn’t have it in him to keep walking in that scorching solitude, the hatred he could feel, inside and out. It peeled his skin away, leaving him calloused and blank.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“It's not about what people can do, but what they're willing to do”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“It is a full moon night. The moonlight is soft and silver. You are in an open field, and everything glows around you. The silky grass comes up to your waist, swaying in the breeze like the waves of the sea. You stroke your hand across it slowly, its greens and its silvers, the soft strands of it against your palm. You take a deep breath. Deep, deep. You let it out slowly. Your lungs fill with the scent of the night. The rich earth, the fresh air, the smell of the forest. You take another deep breath. You let it out slowly. With each breath, you can feel yourself filling with moonlight. It is casting its kind glow on all the shadows inside. You take another deep breath. You let it out slowly. You walk forwards. The grass and dirt are soft beneath your bare feet. You wade through the grass. Everything is calm but filled with life. With the tranquil energy of the moonlight. You look around. This place is yours. You belong to it as it belongs to you. You are safe here. You take another deep breath. You let it out slowly. As you look around you realize—you are part of this land. You are the moonlight that streams down. You are the grass that sways. You are the leaves that murmur. You are the earth and you are the air. You are no more and no less than it. You have been filling yourself up with problems and fears. With I shoulds and shouldn’ts. But here, you see how simple it really is. You are the force of the raging river, the might of a mountain, the strength of a tree. You do not expect more or less from them than what they are. Their existence is enough. So is yours. You are a creature of the moonlight. You are a creature of the earth. You let yourself be with that feeling. With that knowledge. That power. That at the most fundamental of levels, you are the same as the earth around you. You are another creature, free to live in balance with itself and the world. You have no duty here. You are not that important. You are important enough to let yourself live. Let yourself be. You take another deep breath. You let it out slowly. You fill yourself with moonlight. With the calm it brings. The peace. All the pieces of you that have been rattled through the day are settled at night. You take a deep breath. You let it out”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“His breath harshened further, even when he tried to squeeze his chest closed to not make noise. He almost wished somebody would come in and tell him off, some proof that he was real, the emptiness around him so deep and heavy it seemed to have its own gravitational pull, ripping him apart.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“He barely listened, clawing at his arms under his long-sleeved shirt. He hadn’t been scratching his arms for months, since he had met the Salgados, but now he couldn’t seem to stop. He concentrated on the feel of his nails raking the soft underside of his arm, peeling the skin away again and again. The pain was like an anchor, but instead of helping him stay afloat it was pulling him under. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He looked up and his reflection stared back at him, bloodless and lost. He was trying to wash away the dots of blood all over his arms, but instead stood numbly, rubbing incessantly at the lines of red. The colour looked alien within the relentless white of the school bathroom. “Damien,”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“Calvin had always gotten to him. Everything had always gotten to him, was getting to him, one thing after another, and another, and another, and he was suffocating. Nobody could see, was even bothering to look, and the divide between what he felt and what everybody saw was killing him.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground

“It doesn’t work like that. Just ’cause you can hurt someone doesn’t mean you’re more likely to do it. People’ll find ways to hurt others if they want to. Not having super strength and speed isn’t gonna stop them, and having super strength and speed isn’t gonna cause it. Your mom said that being a werewolf isn’t a curse, or a disease. It doesn’t affect your…soul. Your morals. That’s what decides if you hurt someone.”
― Marina Vivancos, In This Iron Ground