Denise Baker

“Life, he realize, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it's in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

“Most people have two lives. One is the life we carry on in the open where everyone can see it. It’s who we are to our family, friends, and even strangers. In this life we are part of the real world. It’s our day-to-day life, our normal life.

We also have another life, one that we have on the inside, out of sight. It’s like a reflection of normal life, only with everything we feel and think and dream of and want to do added to it. Sometimes people close to us sense that life, or we trust them enough to share bits of it with them, but mostly we live it alone. That’s our inner life, our personal life.

When we have to hide who we are inside from everyone in our real life, then we start living a third life. A secret life. And no matter how careful we are, it’s what happens in the secret life that can ruin all the others.”
― Lynn Viehl, Dead of Night

“I behave myself, but it doesn’t mean I’m not interested. Being faithful to my commitments doesn’t mean thoughts don’t cross my mind or that I’m foolish enough to believe I’m not capable.”
― patricia cornwell, The Bone Bed

“Matthias was in the dark. And it wasn’t the kind of dark that came with a room that didn’t have any lights on or when you were walking around at night in the country. This was not even the kind you got when you shut your eyes and wrapped your head in a blanket.

This was the one that seeped in through your skin and filled the spaces between your molecules, the one that polluted your flesh into a permanent state of rotting, the one that wiped clean your past and your future, suspending you in a choking, adhesive solution of sorrow and despair.

He was not alone in this horrible prison.

As he writhed in the weightless void, others did the same, their voices mixing with his own as pleas escaped from cracked lips and the endless begging for mercy rose and fell like the breathing of a great beast. From time to time, he was chosen for special attention, clawed monsters with fanged maws latching on, yanking and pulling. The wounds they imparted always healed as quickly as they were wrought, providing an ever-fresh canvas for their masticating artwork.

Time had no meaning; nor did age. And he knew he was never getting out.

This was his due.

This was his eternal payment for the way he had lived his life: He had earned this place in Hell through his sins upon the earth, and yet still, he argued the unfairness to the others he was trapped with. Tough debate, though. There was little on the good side to support his bid for freedom; more to the point, nobody was listening.”
― J.R. Ward, Rapture