Sumaira

“He glared down at her. “Yes. But you must not cry. I won’t get you any dresses if you cry.”
“I don’t normally cry.”
“You will never do it.”
“Well, I’m afraid I may sometimes,” she said apologetically. “Women need to cry.”
Lines formed between his brows. “How many times in a year?”“Maybe five or six,” she said, thinking about it. “But really, it’s usually a very small cry and not in front of anyone
At that, his scowl grew even darker. “I will permit you to cry four times a year. And you will do it when I am here.”
― Nalini Singh, Lord of the Abyss

“One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“The treacherous are ever distrustful.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Occasionally, very occasionally, say at four o’clock in the afternoon on a wet Sunday, she feels panic-stricken and almost breathless with loneliness. Once or twice she has been known to pick up the phone to check that it isn’t broken. Sometimes she thinks how nice it would be to be woken by a call in the night: ‘get in a taxi now’ or ‘I need to see you, we need to talk’. But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark novel – independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic.”
― David Nicholls, One Day