Tessa

“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.”
― Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

“What is power without someone to wield it over?”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

“Louis's reign was one of largely unrealized potential. The king of France was born with every advantage. He was diligently educated and admired.The first three decades of his life were spent in the protective care of an extremely competent mother, who bequeathed him the largest, strongest, most stable kingdom in Europe. The depth of anguish that resulted from his first crusade, and his obvious desire to redeem himself through good works, was so poignant that his subjects generously forgave him the disaster and shame. The world respected his suffering and looked to him as a moral compass. For a brief, exalted period he made good on the principles he so piously espoused. He made peace with his neighbors, fed the poor, dispensed justice to the best of his ability. He built the exquisite Sainte-Chapelle. But in the end he used all of that trust, goodwill, and deference not to improve his subjects' well-being about which he professed to care so much, but as an excuse to lead them to a ghastly, fetid plain in Tunisia with the intent of annihilating an alien culture for the greater glory of God.”
― Nancy Goldstone

“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein