Cora

“Some part of me has always looked for how I brought these things on myself. (...) And if I could figure out where I went wrong, they wouldn't call me stupid or throw things or strike me.

There had to be a reason for it. That made it something I could control. Something I could hope to stop.

It's the worst kind of relief for someone to say it was never in my control.”
― Margaret Owen, Little Thieves

“What if magic is just a word for power beyond our understanding, like the gods possess?”
― Samantha Shannon, A Day of Fallen Night

“It felt like a puzzle, mostly put together but with a piece missing, waiting to be filled. There were plenty of pieces to fill it- gay, straight, bisexual- but none fit quite right. Sometimes I thought I could make one fit if I pressed hard enough, but it would never lie flat.
The word asexual took the puzzle piece and turned it, letting it click into place where before it'd been better to just leave the space empty. I wasn't broken. I wasn't empty. I wasn't nothing at all. Just a little differently shaped.”
― Amanda DeWitt, Aces Wild: A Heist

“Some people need to call others evil, so they can seem pure and righteous in comparison, or to purge contempt they hold in secret for themselves.”
― Samantha Shannon, A Day of Fallen Night