Joy Lyon

“I wrote a letter to you when I was in the capital. So stupid, to put it all in writing. Every thing I’d done. The information I passed to Tensen. The way I worked against the empire. What I felt. My father read it. He gave it to the emperor.” She was weeping. “And I know, I know that it hurt him, that I broke something, that he felt it break. Maybe I wasn’t me anymore, to him. Do you understand? Not his daughter. Not anyone he knew. Just a lying stranger. But how could he? Why couldn’t he love me most? Or enough. Why couldn’t he love me enough to choose me over his rules?”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Kiss

“The only thing I'm certain about right now is that after this moment, I will never be the same. I know, by the way his romance is like a magnetic pull on my heart, that if he ever hurts me again, I'll be far from just fine. I'll be broken.”
― Colleen Hoover

“He didn’t smile. He cupped her face with both hands. An emotion tugged at his expression, a dark awe, the kind saved for a wild storm that rends the sky but doesn’t ravage your existence, doesn’t destroy every thing you love. The one that lets you feel saved.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Kiss

“Soldiers and children do as they're told. Children grow out of it, but soldiers just die.”
― Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods & Monsters