S.M. Fielden

“Declan said, "Without your monsters we'd be dead. Are they -"
Ronan shook the water bottle. "They're in here." He handed the bottle to Matthew, who pulled out of his embrace to sit on the bed and study it. "There you go, kid, don't say I never gave you anything."
Declan snatched the bottle away from Matthew. "It's like giving a gun to a toddler. Do you know what these things do?”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“Declan Lynch knew he was boring.

He'd worked very hard to be that way, after all. It was a magic trick he didn't expect any prize from but survival, even as he looked at other lives and imagined them his. He didn't fool himself. He knew what he was allowed to do and to want and to put in his life.

He knew Jordan Hennessy didn't belong.

But still, when he came back from the National Gallery of Art to his empty town house, he closed the door behind him and for a moment he just leaned against it, eyes closed, pretending—no, not even pretending. He just didn't think. For one second of one minute of the day, he didn't run the probabilities and worst-case scenarios and possibilities and consequences. For one second of one minute of the day, he just let himself feel.

There it was:

Happiness.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“Intimacy was allowed as long as it revealed nothing truthful. Which wasn’t very intimate at all.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“There's such thing as an emotional cost,” Adam said. “Investing in someone else's survival isn't free, and some people's emotional banks are already overdrawn.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk