Slow Burn Quotes

“We were fools.”

“You were children. Was there no one to protect you?”

“Was there anyone to protect you?”

“My father. My mother. They would have done anything to keep me from being stolen.”

“And they would have been mowed down by slavers.”

“Then I guess I was lucky I didn’t have to see that.”

How could she still look at the world that way? “Sold into a brothel at age fourteen and you count yourself lucky.”

“They loved me. They love me. I believe that.” He saw her draw closer in the mirror. Her black hair was an ink splash against the white tile walls. She paused behind him. “You protected me, Kaz.”

“The fact that you’re bleeding through your bandages tells me otherwise.”

She glanced down. A red blossom of blood had spread on the bandage tied around her shoulder. She tugged awkwardly at the strip of towel. “I need Nina to fix this one.”

He didn’t mean to say it. He meant to let her go. “I can help you.”

Her gaze snapped to his in the mirror, wary as if gauging an opponent. I can help you. They were the first words she’d spoken to him, standing in the parlor of the Menagerie, draped in purple silk, eyes lined in kohl. She had helped him. And she’d nearly destroyed him. Maybe he should let her finish the job.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“While not unappetizing, the food was too spicy. Not to mention, there were things on her plate that she didn’t recognize and was not prepared to eat.”
― Alyssa Hall, And Then I Heard the Quiet

“I can feel her pulse through our linked hands, steady and strong—matching mine.”
― Tricia Newlan, Echoes of One Night: Forbidden Love Romance

“Madame, I think you’ll be a great tour guide. Lead on.”
― Laurie Loveman, Memories

“Walking beside him, I catch the scent of his cologne... woodsy and clean—and my senses go into overdrive.”
― Tricia Newlan, Never Did I Dream: A Second Chance Off- Limits Romance

“She remembered the first time she’d seen him at the Menagerie. He paid Tante Heleen for information—stock tips, political pillow talk, anything the Menagerie’s clients blabbed about when drunk or giddy on bliss. He never visited Heleen’s girls, though plenty would have been happy to take him up to their rooms. They claimed he gave them the shivers, that his hands were permanently stained with blood beneath those black gloves, but she’d recognized the eagerness in their voices and the way they tracked him with their eyes.

One night, as he’d passed her in the parlor, she’d done a foolish thing, a reckless thing. “I can help you,” she’d whispered. He’d glanced at her, then proceeded on his way as if she’d said nothing at all. The next morning, she’d been called to Tante Heleen’s parlor. She’d been sure another beating was coming or worse, but instead Kaz Brekker had been standing there, leaning on his crow-head cane, waiting to change her life.

“I can help you,” she said now.

“Help me with what?”

She couldn’t remember. There was something she was supposed to tell him. It didn’t matter anymore.

“Talk to me, Wraith.”

“You came back for me.”

“I protect my investments.”

Investments. “I’m glad I’m bleeding all over your shirt.”

“I’ll put it on your tab.”

Now she remembered. He owed her an apology. “Say you’re sorry.”

“For what?”

“Just say it.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“You're not scared of me? he murmured.
Maybe not, she whispered.
What if this is a mistake? he asked.
What if this is right? she countered.”
― Navreet Sran, Diamonds and Stones

“Evil doesn't hide in the dark. It sits across from you at dinner, asks how you're doing, and means it.”
― CK ColdWell

“In that moment, in the darkness, the world would not see him starting to grasp for something he hadn’t wanted in years.”
― juvon l. wolf, Warriors Gift: A Dark Motorcycle Romance

“Arnie Sebold had officially cinched the definition of a small-town, small-minded, sexist, mine-is-better-thinking asshat.”
― Christine Miles

“It’s not like he saw anything that would make it truly scandalous.”
― Christine Miles

“If you like the way Alfred Hitchcock built suspense—
letting unease creep in quietly—
THE DOOR might be your kind of read.”
― Eric Brown, THE DOOR: It's not locked. It's waiting.

“He remembered his palm against Flora’s warm cheek. He remembered their breaths joining together in such closeness that had almost been intoxicating. The rush of it—the pomegranate that had swathed his mind for a fleeting moment before she shoved him away—the memory had replayed itself in all of his dreams.”
― Sandra Zor, Fire & Flower

“The city doesn't kill you with a bullet. It kills you with (silence—one) breath at a time.”
― Harun Or Rashid, The Blue Ring's Shadow: The Fall of Kane: Book One of The Duskfort Series

“The city doesn't kill you with a bullet. It kills you with silence—one breath at a time.”
― Harun Or Rashid, The Blue Ring's Shadow: The Fall of Kane: Book One of The Duskfort Series

“Some people don’t crash into your life… they quietly become the part you can’t imagine living without.”
― Rosemary Zaouk, Spilled Coffee and Stolen Hearts

“The kettle is warm. It knew you were coming.”
― MW Newson, Ash & Hollow: A Raven and Sparrow Novel

“What look? The one that says I want to be inside you so badly I can barely think straight?”
― Carly Robyn, Fire and Ice

“She went to Rome to forget her ex. Instead, she opened the wrong car door”
― Sasha Clark, The Elegant Stranger: A Steamy Billionaire in Disguise Romance of Lies, Luxury, and One Unforgettable Week in Italy

“Some things cannot be acquired. They can only be entered”
― Sasha Clark, The Vintage Husband: A Fake Marriage Billionaire Romance with a Secret Heir and a Single Father

“Most people I encounter know who I am before they speak to me. It arranges the conversation in a certain way. You spoke to me before you saw me”
― Sasha Clark, The Elegant Stranger: A Steamy Billionaire in Disguise Romance of Lies, Luxury, and One Unforgettable Week in Italy

“Human governance did not fail. It was outpaced.”
― Michael Talbot, Threadborn Echo

“He watched me walk away.
Not the way people watch someone leave. The other way. The way that means they're already thinking about what comes next.”
― Sasha Clark, No Notes: A Sharp, Witty Romance with Forced Proximity, Charged Silence, and Feelings Neither of Them Have Words For

“Sometimes things are exactly what they seem.”
― Juvon L. Wolf, Warriors Gift: A Dark Motorcycle Romance

“Even without our personal speeches to trigger dissent - needless to say, the ones we gave in District 11 were edited out before the event was broadcast - you can feel something in the air, the rolling boil of a pot about to run over. Not everywhere. Some crowds have the weary-cattle feel that I know District 12 usually projects at the victors' ceremonies. But in others - particularly 8, 4, and 3 - there is a genuine elation in the faces of the people at the sight of us, and under the elation, fury. When they chant my name, it is more of a cry for vengeance than a cheer. When the Peacekeepers move in to quiet an unruly crowd, it presses back instead of retreating. And I know that there's nothing I could ever do to change this. No show of love, however believable, will turn this tide. If my holding out those berries was an act of temporary insanity, then these people will embrace insanity too.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“It was really a shark’s smile, Silas thought. All sharp and deadly. Not that he would mind getting bitten. He had terrible survival instincts.”
― T.E. Forest, The Third Wish

“Then he walked onto my stage.
That's where the record skips.”
― Megan Elvrum, Musical Awakening

“Why did you have to pull a Bingley and Jane on them? They could’ve been good for each other, maybe even fallen in love—”
“Are we suddenly back in English class?” he asks, sounding bored. “Because I thought we were talking about real life.”
“What do you know about real life?”
“What do you know about falling in love?”
― Romina Garber, The Last Vampire

“You are precious to me.”
― Opal Reyne

“No one's and the man who had become nobody. Two people who found each other. And could no longer let go.”
― Ruslana Pidsadiuk, No One's