Manfred

“Damen felt Laurent start shaking against him, and realised that, silently, helplessly, he was laughing.
There came the sound of at least two more sets of footsteps striding into the room, greeted with: 'Here he is. We found him fucking this derelict, disguised as the tavern prostitute.'
'This is the tavern prostitute. You idiot, the Prince of Vere is so celibate I doubt he even touches himself once every ten years. You. We're looking for two men. One was a barbarian soldier, a giant animal. The other was blond. Not like this boy. Attractive.'
'There was a blond lord's pet downstairs,' said Volo. 'Brained like a pea and easy to hoodwink. I don't think he was the Prince.'
'I wouldn't call him blond. More like mousy. And he wasn't that attractive,' said the boy, sulkily.
The shaking, progressively, had worsened.
'Stop enjoying yourself,' Damen murmured. 'We're going to be killed, any minute.'
'Giant animal,' said Laurent.
'Stop it.”
― S.U. Pacat, Captive Prince: Volume Two

“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“There was a clearing in the middle of the woods. It tasted of lightning and magic.
Of claw and fang.
And in the middle of this clearing sat a man who had once been a boy.
A boy who I had loved.
Then a monster had come to town with murder on his mind and tore a hole in our heads and hearts.
The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes.
The monster was gone now.
And so was the boy. Because a man had taken his place.”
― T.J. Klune, Wolfsong

“Time is a slippery thing: lose hold of it once, and its string might sail out of your hands forever.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See