Sabaa

“I have sung of death and of life, of joy and of pain. I have sung of life after death. And I have sung of the women, the women in the shadows. I have sung of the forgotten, the ignored, the untold. I have picked up the old stories and I have shaken them until the hidden women appear in plain sight. I have celebrated them in song because they have waited long enough. Just as I promised him: this was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of all of them. A war does not ignore half the people whose lives it touches. So why do we?”
― Natalie Haynes, A Thousand Ships

“But this is the women's war, just as much as it is the men's, and the poet will look upon their pain--the pain of the women who have always been relegated to the edges of the story, victims of men, survivors of men, slaves of men--and he will tell it, or he will tell nothing at all. They have waited long enough for their turn.”
― Natalie Haynes, A Thousand Ships

“People were intrinsically selfish, and many hated the idea of a woman in charge of the Institute. They would not put themselves at risk for her. Only a few weeks ago he would have said the same thing about himself. Now, knowing Charlotte, he realized to his surprise, the idea of risking himself for her seemed an honor, as it would be to most Englishmen to risk themselves for the queen.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“You are a Lightwood," Cecily said. "You stayed because you were loyal to your family name. It is not cowardice."

"Wasn't it? Is loyalty still a commendable quality when it is misdirected?"

Cecily opened her mouth, then closed it again. Gabriel was looking for her, his eyes shining in the moonlight. He seemed genuinely desperate to hear her answer. She wondered if he had anyone else to talk to. She could see how it might be terrifying to take one's moral qualms to Gideon; he seemed so staunch, as if he never questioned himself in his life and would not understand those who did.

"I think," she said, choosing her words with care, "that any good impulse can be twisted into something evil. Look at the Magister. He does what he does because he hates the Shadowhunters, out of loyalty to his parents, who cared for him, and who were killed. It is not beyond the realm of understanding. And yet nothing excuses the result. I think when we make choices-for each choice is individual of the choices we have made before-we must examine not only our reasons for making them but what result they will have, and whether good people will be hurt by our decisions.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess