Elena

“One should be patient with saints, I suppose. Though the trouble with being patient,” she said, “is that, generally speaking, there’s no one to see you doing it.”
― Susanna Clarke, The Wood at Midwinter

“Lillian sounds like she’s more nice than she is kind. Does that make sense? Niceness is good manners, and stopping to give someone directions, and smiling at the overworked cashier at the supermarket. These are all good things, but they have nothing to do with what’s underneath. Niceness is all about what we do when other people are looking. Kindness, on the other hand, runs deep. Kindness is what happens when no one’s looking.”
― Sangu Mandanna, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

“Danger rarely wore a monstrous face and a wielded a pitchfork. No, danger came most often in the form of nice people whose niceness only went so deep, who saved their niceness for people exactly like them, who believed they were more deserving of power and respect than anyone who was a little bit different.”
― Sangu Mandanna, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

“Assassins are a monstrous breed. Either they attack when you are at your worst, or they are having a go at you on your birthday. I have never known a more dishonourable profession.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands