Aqsa

“After, in the torchlight, he wondered at the marks on me, the red around my neck, and the purple on my arms and chest where he had gripped me. He rubbed at them, as though they were stains, not bruises. “The color is perfect,” he said, “look.” And he held up the mirror so I could see. “You make the rarest canvas, love.”
― Madeline Miller, Galatea

“Pain seems inevitable. Or expected. We accept it, I think, as something unavoidable, and happiness is a gift hanging just out of reach; a privilege only a few of us are lucky enough to have. But it’s not. It’s right there, all around us, if we just have the courage to reach our hands into the dark, and take it. Take it. Hold on. And never let go.”
― Emma Scott, Endless Possibility

“O goddess, if this is a dream, let me still sleep.”
― Madeline Miller, Galatea

“How is Paphos, my love?”
“Fine,” he said. Just that ugly, nothing word.”
― Madeline Miller, Galatea