sabine

“It’s you I love,” he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.” He walks to the door to the royal chambers, as though to end the conversation. “You probably guessed as much,” he says. “But just in case you didn’t.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“I wanted to say, I would rather have you for a little time than no time at all.
I will remember you perfectly. My memory will touch your skin, your lips. The memory will hurt, but it will be mine.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Midnight Lie

“Usually," Xiala said carefully, "when someone describes a man as harmless, he ends up being a villain.”
― Rebecca Roanhorse, Black Sun

“How were you supposed to change- in ways both big and small- when your family was always there to remind you of exactly the person you apparently signed an ironclad contract to be?”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Malibu Rising