The Villain Quotes

“The thing is, you can't really rely on love. Which is why I intend to offer you something far more consistent. Commitment, friendship and loyalty. I promise to give you my protection, no matter the price. I will never turn our back on us. We will fall in and out of love many times, but I promise to always find my way back to you. To put us back together even when the temptation to break things off is too much. And when loves feels far away..."

He presses his forehead to mine, his lips moving over mine.

"I will bring it right back to our doorstep.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“But what are villains, my dear wife, if not misunderstood heroes?”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“Listen to me. The two most important decisions in our lives are not ours to make. Our creation and our death. We don’t choose to be born, and we don’t choose when or how we die. But everything in-between? That’s our jurisdiction. We can fill in the blanks as we please.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“You drive a hard bargain. Welcome to the dark side, Persephone. Leave your heart at the door.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“I wish you’d fall in love with me so hard you won’t be able to think about anything else. To eat. To breathe.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“The angel on my shoulder was…well, currently duct-taped and gagged in the devil’s trunk.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“I may have saved you from a bleeding heart, but your bleeding heart saved me.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“Peopling was by far more exhausting than running a marathon.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“Hate is just love with fear and jealousy thrown into the mix.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“He took my hand in his. Such a simple gesture, yet it felt as though he plucked the stars from the sky for me.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“We are not Hades and Persephone, Flower Girl. Never were. I didn't drag you down a dark path.You pulled me into the light. Helpless, I followed. Blindly, I got burned. I am Icarus. I love you as he loved the sun. Too close. Too hard. Too fast.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“But his ears were small, like my wife’s, and he had that look—the look that could make empires fall—that only Persephone Penrose had ever managed to hone. A look that disarmed me.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“…will break every bone in his body and reassemble him to look like a Picasso painting if he as much as touches a hair on her head…”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“I died. The end.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“I love you, but I love me, too. And I deserve more than you’ve given me.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“She smiled. I died a little inside.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“You need a hug.” I frowned. “And a shrink. Not in that order.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“Maybe something got stuck in his teeth." Hunter tapped his cards against the table. "Like, you know, feelings or something."

"Zip it." I warned.

"No. They're right. You're beaming." Sam frowned at me in abhorrence. "It's disgusting. People are trying to eat here." He dropped his sandwich onto his plate.

"Leave him alone. I think is cute." Hunter took a pull of his beer. "Kill caught a case of the feels, and there's no vaccine for what he's experiencing.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“Love is overrated, not to mention fickle. It comes and goes. You can’t build a foundation on it. Mutual interests and alliance are a different story.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“Feelings did not interest me unless I found a way to exploit them.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“You're handsome when flustered."

"I swear, Persephone, I'm going to relocate you to your precious Namibia if you don't stop grating on my nerves."

"So now I annoy you constantly." Her blue eyes shone. "That's one, steady emotion. Twenty-six more to go!”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“The Fitzpatricks have enough fuck-you money to build a dick-shaped statue the size of Lady Liberty.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“In the words of Joe Exotic, I am never going to recover from this. Cillian holding my hair while he is making me puke.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“the pigs called—they wanted their chauvinism back.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“I’m going to grab a front-row seat when you finally realize you are not the soulless bastard you think you are.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“She scooted next to me, wrapped in a gown that clung to her curves like I would if I wasn’t a hundred and one shades of messed up.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“I know women are fond of battery-operated devices, but they’re never as good as the real thing.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“She wanted to marry you! Stipulations and assholery included. Now my question is this—how did you manage to lose her? How did you let the only girl you’ve ever loved just…go?'

'I don’t—'

'Of course you do!' He smashed my head against the dirt. I twisted, grabbing him by the shirt and rolling him over, switching our positions so I was on top of him now.

'You fool, anyone with a pair of working eyes could see you’re crazy about her. You couldn’t look Persephone in the eye like a six-year-old for as long as you’ve known her. You couldn’t bring yourself to attend her goddamn wedding. You’ve had it bad for her from the moment you saw her. You let her go because of your stupid insecurities. Because you are so convinced you’re Hades, doomed, dark, and unredeemable, you haven’t even bothered to read the myth all the way.'

He reached to wrap his fingers around my throat, pressing, draining the oxygen out of me.

'Persephone!' He clasped harder.

'Loved!' He shook me by the neck.

'Hades!'”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“I win—I pay your debt, and in return, you hop off the Cillian is Satan train. If my wife wants to ride it, she’ll buy her own ticket and travel solo.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain

“(...) But you're not fooling anyone. Your marriage isn't real."

"Ours wasn't, either. In the spirit of being candid, I, too, have a confession to make. You were always nothing more than a distraction. It was always Kill. You were on borrowed time. But Cillian? Cillian is my forever.”
― L.J. Shen, The Villain