Gail

“Beauty always made a target of its possessor. Every other human quality was hidden easily enough --- intelligence, talent, selfishness, even madness --- but beauty could not be concealed.

"Do you ever wish you didn't look the way you did?" Anita asked.

"All the time," Misery said. "I hate the way I look."

[...]

"No, I didn't mean like that. I just meant---"

"Having to be afraid," Eliza said.

"Yeah."

No need to say more. No need to describe all the things you had to do to keep the eyes away. No need to discuss how hard it was to get the attention of the person you wanted attention from without being seen as desperate for everyone's attention. No need to catalog all the walls you had to put up; not just the walls that protected you from physical danger --- though there were plenty of those, too --- but the walls you had to build around your heart. They said no man was an island, and Anita figured that was probably true. But women were; they had to be. And even if someone bothered to sail over ad disembark, he'd soon discover that there was always a castle at the center of the island, surrounded by a deep moat, with a rickety drawbridge and archers manning the battlements and a big pot of oil poised above the gate, ready to boil alive anyone who dared to cross the threshold.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“...One thing you learn when you've lived as long as I have-people aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I'm pleased to be in the light.”
― Neal Shusterman, Unwind