Lorriane Florentine

“I can't wait for him to visit me again. He's just so handsome, don't you think?" she asked.
I paused. "Yeah, he's cute."
"Come on, America! You have to have noticed those eyes and his voice..."
"Except when he laughs!" Just remembering Maxon's laugh had me grinning. It was cute but awkward. He pushed his breaths out, and then made a jagged noise when he inhaled, almost like another laugh in itself.
"Yes, okay, he does have a funny laugh, but it's cute."
"Sure, if you like the lovable sound of an asthma attack in your ear every time you tell a joke."
Marlee lost it and doubled over in laughter.
"All right, all right," she said, coming up for air. "You have to think there's something attractive about him."
I opened my mouth and shut it two or three times. I was tempted to take another jab at Maxon, but I didn't want Marlee to see him in a negative light. So I thought about it.
What was attractive about Maxon?
"Well, when he lets his guard down, he's okay. Like when he just talks without checking his words or you catch him just looking at something like...like he's really looking for the beauty in it."
Marlee smiled, and I knew she'd seen that in him, too.
"And I like that he seems genuinely involved when he's there, you know? Like even though he's got a country to run and a thousand things to do, it's like he forgets it all when he's with you. He just dedicates himself to what's right in front of him. I like that.
"And...well, don't tell anyone this, but his arms. I like his arms."
I blushed at the end. Stupid...why hadn't I just stuck to the general good things about his personality? Luckily, Marlee was happy to pick up the conversation.
"Yes! You can really feel them under those thick suits, can't you? He must be incredibly strong." Marlee gushed.
"I wonder why. I mean, what's the point of him being that strong? He does deskwork. It's weird."
"Maybe he likes to flex in front of the mirror," Marlee said, making a face and flexing her own tiny arms.
"Ha, ha! I bet that's it. I dare you to ask him!"
"No way!”
― Kiera Cass, The Selection

“Fynn, I love you.' When Anna said that, every word was shattered with the fullness of meaning she packed into it. Her 'I' was a totality. Whatever this 'I' was for Anna it was packed tight with being. Like the light that didn't fray, Anna's 'I' didn't fray either; it was pure and all of one piece. Her use of the word 'love' was not sentimental or mushy, it was impelling and full of courage and encouragement. For Anna, 'love' meant the recognition of perfectibility in another. Anna 'saw' a person in every part. Anna 'saw' a 'you'. Now that is something to experience, to be seen as a 'you', clearly and definitely, with no parts hidden. Wonderful and frightening. I'd always understood that it was Mister God who saw you clearly and in your entirety but then all Anna's efforts were directed to being like Mister God, so perhaps the trick is catching if only you try hard enough.”
― Fynn

“No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.”
― William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

“Oh you would have loved him. My Wilber was all heart. And farts. That man couldn’t walk five steps without tooting.” She gave a soft giggle in memory. “I do miss that. Not the farts so much, just… the little things.”
― Lucian Bane, White Knight Dom Academy: The Beginning