optophobe

“If she suddenly threw herself in a river or off a building or into traffic, there would be plenty of warning signs to point to. Did she seem depressed? She was distant. She didn’t make many friends. She was struggling in her classes. All true. But would it have mattered if she’d been someone else? If she’d been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she’d been a straight-A student, they would have said she’d been eaten alive by her perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House

“I am the thing in the dark.”
― Krystal Sutherland, House of Hollow

“Why are you so beautiful, do you think? So hungry? So able to bend the wills of those around you? You are like the death flowers that grow rampant in your wake: lovely to look at, intoxicating even, but get too close and you will soon learn that there is something rank beneath. That’s what beauty often is, in nature. A warning. A disguise.”
― Krystal Sutherland, House of Hollow

“I am a daughter of Lethe, and the wolves are at the door.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House