Mehreen Mahida

“I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire.
And then I was a careless fool, and I fell in love with you anyway. When you rang me at truly shocking hours of the night, I loved you. When you kissed me in disgusting public toilets and pouted in hotel bars and made me happy in ways in which it had never even occurred to me that a mangled-up, locked-up person like me could be happy, I loved you.
And then, inexplicably, you had the absolute audacity to love me back. Can you believe it?
Sometimes, even now, I still can't.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“Emifal firdaant. May death claim me first.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm

“How much pain exists in the world because we cannot get past what has been done to us, because we insist on inflicting pain right back?”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm