Stephanie Medeiros

“Fie remembered the first time she’d held Phoenix fire. She hadn’t wanted to burn the world down; she’d wanted the world to know she could.”
― Margaret Owen, The Merciful Crow

“Pa says change always has a price.” Fie stared at dawn’s edge in the eastern sky. “That even Phoenixes need ashes to rise.”
― Margaret Owen, The Merciful Crow

“The world doesn't stop spinning because you're sad, and that's good; if it did, people would go around breaking hearts like they were sheets of maple sugar, just to keep the world exactly where it is. They'd make it out like it was a good thing, a few crying children in exchange for a peace that never falters or fades. We can be sad and we can be hurt and we can even be killed, but the world keeps turning, and the things we're supposed to do keep needing to be done.”
― Seanan McGuire, Come Tumbling Down

“I am no longer scared of being a woman — it doesn’t make me any less a man. I am both. I am neither. I am only myself.”
― Jordanna Max Brodsky, The Wolf in the Whale