Izzy

“They say Shanghai stands tall like an emperor’s ugly daughter, its streets sprawling in a manner that only the limbs of a snarling princess could manage. It was not born this way. It used to be beautiful. They used to croon over it, examining the lines of its body and humming beneath their breath, nodding and deciding that it was well suited for children. Then this city mutilated itself with a wide, wide grin. It dragged a knife down its cheek and took the blade to its chest and now it worries not for finding suitors, but merely for running wild, drunk on the invulnerability of inherited power, well suited only for profit and feasting, dancing and whoring.
Now it may be ugly, but it is glorious.”
― Chloe Gong, These Violent Delights

“Perhaps that is why the Russians have come here, these flocks of exiles who fled the Bolshevik Revolution and even before that, when their home could no longer be a home. If you decided to run, you might as well keep running until you came to the edge of the world.
That is what this city is. The party at the end of the world.”
― Chloe Gong, These Violent Delights

“No, not depressed. They ruined that word for me. I think the worst feeling in the world is telling someone you’re in pain and hearing them say there’s no wound.”
― Lancali ., I Fell in Love With Hope

“Evil will have unleashed the fullness of itself at the point that it becomes convinced that it is not evil.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough