vale > vale's Quotes

“Dear Thisbe,
I wish there weren’t a wall.
Love, Pyramus”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“It’s not the world that’s cruel. It’s the people in it.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Foxhole Court

“This,” Neil flicked his finger to indicate the two of them, “isn’t worthless.”
“There is no ‘this’. This is nothing.”
“And I am nothing,” Neil prompted. When Andrew gestured confirmation, Neil said, “And as you’ve always said, you want nothing.”
Andrew stared stone-faced back at him.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“I hate you,” Andrew said casually. He took a last long drag from his cigarette and flicked it off the roof. “You were supposed to be a side effect of the drugs.”
“I’m not a hallucination,” Neil said, nonplussed.
“You are a pipe dream,” Andrew said.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“Fight because you don't know how to die quietly. Win because you don't know how to lose. This king's ruled long enough—it's time to tear his castle down.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“Who said 'please' that made you hate the word so much?"
Andrew gazed at him in silence for a minute. "I did.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“Andrew dug a finger in Neil's cheek and forcibly turned his head away. "Don't look at me like that. I am not your answer, and you sure as fuck aren't mine.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“Remember this feeling. This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Foxhole Court

“He was their family. They were his. They were worth every cut and bruise and scream.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Raven King

“Neil thought about Renee's bruised knuckles, Dan's fierce spirit, and Allison holding her ground on the court a week after Seth's death. He thought about his mother standing unflinching in the face of his father's violent anger and her ruthlessly leaving bodies in their wake. He felt compelled to say, "Some of the strongest people I've known are women.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Raven King

“I didn't think I was a personal problem. You hate me, remember?" "Every inch of you," Andrew said. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you." The world tilted a little bit sideways. Neil dug his shoes harder into the floor so he wouldn't fall over. "You like me." "I hate you," Andrew corrected him, but Neil barely heard him.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“I am a bad person trying very hard to be a good person.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Raven King

“Yes or no?"
"It's always yes with you."
"Except when it's no."
"If you have to keep asking because—I'll answer it as many times as you ask. But this is always going to be yes."
"Don't 'always' me."
"Don't ask for the truth if you're just going to dilute it.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“Andrew kissed him like this was a fight with their lives on the line, like his world stopped and started with Neil’s mouth.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“Now that number was gone, covered up by the jet-black image of a chess piece. Neil's knowledge of chess was hazy at best, but he knew for sure that wasn't a king. "You did it," Neil said, too stunned to manage anything else. "Let Riko be King," Kevin said, with the exaggerated enunciation of the thoroughly sloshed. "Most coveted, most protected. He'll sacrifice every piece he has to protect his throne. Whatever. Me?" Kevin gestured again, meaning to indicate himself but too drunk to get his hand higher than his waist. "I'm going to be the deadliest piece on the board." "Queen," Andrew said somewhere behind Neil.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“Ninety percent of the time the very sight of you makes me want to commit murder. I think about carving the skin from your body and hanging it out as a warning to every other fool who thinks he can stand in my way."
"What about the other ten?”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“Your parents are dead, you are not fine, and nothing is going to be okay. This is not news to you. But from now until May you are still Neil Josten and I am still the man who said he would keep you alive.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Raven King

“If it means losing you, then no”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“I'm tired of being nothing."
"You are a Fox. You are always going to be nothing. I hate you."
"Nine percent of the time you don't."
"Nine percent of the time I don't want to kill you. I always hate you."
"Every time you say that I believe you a little less."
"No one asked you.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“It sounded like a dream; it tasted like damnation.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Foxhole Court

“Time was nothing. Seconds were days, were years, were the breaths that caught between their mouths and the bite of Neil's fingernails against his palms, the scrape of teeth against his lower lip and the warm slide of a tongue against his.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“repeat after me:
you owe
no one
your forgiveness.

- except maybe yourself.”
― Amanda Lovelace, The Princess Saves Herself in This One

“I'm broken in two, the message said. In two, it was the only thought I could keep, sitting in my seat, how losing a person could make more of us, the living, make us two.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.”
― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“Maybe we pray on our knees because god only listens when we’re this close to the devil.”
― Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds