Rachel

“I barely noticed loneliness anymore; it was my normal condition, by necessity if not by nature. After today’s stresses, though, it weighed on me more than usual. Orma knew everything about me, but he was a dragon. On a good day, he was friend enough. On a bad day, running into his inadequacy was like tripping up the stairs. It hurt, but it felt like my own fault. Still, he was all I had.”
― Rachel Hartman, Seraphina

“She was blond, slim, and pouty, which would have given me three good reasons to dislike her even if she’d been a sweet lass who spent her free time tending sick hedgehogs.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Whispering Skull

“I could only get on at all by taking “nature” into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but demanding after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw of ordinary human virtue.”
― Henry James, The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction

“Do not reveal your skill with a blade. Do not reveal your mastery over glamour. Do not reveal all that you can do. Little did Prince Dain know that my real skill lies in pissing people off.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince