MissLisbeth

“She cut herself off and started over, in a familiar way: she always reminds people not to explain when they’re trying to ask forgiveness, not to offer excuses until they’re invited.”
― Naomi Novik, The Golden Enclaves

“She was theirs; they were hers. The love of monsters was uncomplicated.”
― T. Kingfisher, Thornhedge

“I think,” Hoa says slowly, “that if you love someone, you don’t get to choose how they love you back.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“Until you got here,” he rasps, “all this place had ever been was a reminder of the ways I was a disappointment, and now you’re here, and—I don’t know. I feel like I’m okay. So if you’re the ‘wrong kind of woman,’ then I’m the wrong kind of man.”

I can see all of the shades of him at once. Quiet, unfocused boy. Precocious, resentful preteen. Broody high schooler desperate to get out. Sharp-edged man trying to fit himself back into a place he never belonged to begin with.

That’s the thing about being an adult standing beside your childhood race car bed. Time collapses, and instead of the version of you you’ve built from scratch, you’re all the hackneyed drafts that came before, all at once.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers