lillian horton

“She runs her hands over her hipbones and her ribs, stark even under her nightgown, and she thinks about how crazy she was not to appreciate it. How stupid she was all her life not to eat the French Fries and vanilla Cokes. As if her slimness and beauty were the most valuable things she could ever own.”
― Julie Cohen, Louis & Louise

“But this is useless speculation, anyway: we can't decide that one thing happening control everything else in out life. Every choice is the result of other choices, which are a result of choices before that. We can't control what bodies we're born with or how people treat us because of them. Maybe the world is similarly out of our control. Small forces, large ones, one choice leading to another, a machine of causation beyond understand.”
― Julie Cohen, Louis & Louise

“Most of us can hide our greatest hurts and longings. It’s how we survive each day. We pretend the pain isn’t there, that we are made of scars instead of wounds.”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

“There had been a time when words had been the only place he could find solace. No book ever lost patience with him or told him to sit still. When his tutors had thrown up their hands in frustration, it was the library that had taught Nikolai military history, strategy, chemistry, astronomy. Each spine had been an open door away whispering, Come in, come in. Here is the land you’ve never seen before. Here is a place to hide when you’re frightened, to play when you’re bored, to rest when the world seems unkind.”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars