Gretchen

“How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow. There can never be a time when you forget them, when you are not, in your heart, questing after something you cannot have, something you cannot even properly imagine, the lack of which will spoil your sleep and your day and your life, until you close your eyes for the final time, until your loved ones give you poison and sell you to anatomy, and even then you will die with a hole inside you, and you will wail and curse at a life ill-lived.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“Even in the Future the Story Begins with Once Upon a Time.”
― Marissa Meyer, Cinder

“Because he doesn't want girls who want him. Because he grew weary of desire and developed a taste for causing shame. Alex didn't know what lived in boys like Blake, beautiful boys who should be happy. Who wanted for nothing but still found things to take.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House

“We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already.”
― J.K. Rowling