hannah

“Isn’t it nice,” the older lady said, leaning in so that only Penelope could hear her words, “to discover that we’re not exactly what we thought we were?”

And then she walked away, leaving Penelope wondering if maybe she wasn’t quite what she’d thought she was.

Maybe—just maybe—she was something a little bit more.”
― Julia Quinn, Romancing Mister Bridgerton

“They let the silence stand then . . . not uneasily, just taking a moment to breathe in time, to listen to the noises around them. How pleasant, Jane thought, to be silent for a few moments. Normally noise overtook her life—normally she sought it, finding silence solitary and confining—suffocating. But how pleasant to be silent with someone.”
― Kate Noble, The Summer of You

“I inherited this country when I was only a child, Nahuseresh. I have held it. I have fought down rebellious barons. I've fought Sounis to keep the land on this side of the mountains. I have killed men and watched them hang. I've seen them tortured to keep this country safe and mine. How did you think I did this if I was a fool with cow eyes for any handsome man with gold in his purse?”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“He is not here for anything he has done. He has always known that, but now he knows it with a difference. At meals, in the showers, up and down the stairs, in the evening, just before everyone is locked in again, he looks at the others, he listens: what have they done? Not much. To do much is to have the power to place these people where they are, and keep them where they are. These captive men are the hidden price for a hidden lie: the righteous must be able to locate the damned. To do much is to have the power and the necessity to dictate to the damned.”
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk