Lauren DeStefano, Sever
28 quotes
"I see an ocean that’s spilled out of a wineglass, its body clear and sparkling and folding over itself. I see a ribbon of sand."
"This time as we ascend, I watch the world sinking below us. I watch the way the city fades into sand that gets washed by the ocean."
"It taught that there are three versions of things: the one I see in my mind, and the one that carries onto the paper, and then what it ultimately becomes."
"She's been conned, ruined, left for dead, and she's not going to forgive any of it. She will soldier on, if only out of spite."
"I don't dare touch her. Loss is a knowledge I'm sorry to have. Perhaps the only thing worse than experiencing it, is watching it replay anew in someone else--all the awful stages picking up like a chorus that has to be sung."
"He looks at me, and I don't know what he sees. I used to think it was Rose. But she's not here with us now, in this room. It's just him and me, and the books. I feel like our lives are in those books. I feel like all the words on the pages are for us."
"It's quiet for a while, and then Rowan says; "We could talk now. We're alone out here. No walls.""There are always walls." I say."
"And so ends his rush from his greatest act of rebellion. He understands that no matter where he runs or how high he flies, he will always have to come home."
"This is the real Madame. I can see why she hides herself in accents and gems and exotic perfumes. I can see why she's grown to hate anything to do with love. She isn't evil or corrupt the way that Vaughn is. She's broken. Only broken."
"I think he's beginning to understand, and understanding is a horrible thing."
"She’s a commodity in a sea of broken girls."
"There is a silence so great that I can hear the ice crystals cracking and falling from eyelashes of girls who will never blink again."
"We were his disposable things. Brought to him like cattle. Stripped of what made us sisters or daughters or children. There was nothing that he could take from us—our genes, our bones, our wombs—that would ever satisfy him. There was no other way that we would be free."
"I think humans have always been desperate. I think it has always been about doing something awful if it might help, when the only other option is death. Maybe that's what being a parent is supposed to feel like."
"My father warned me that you’re an interloper. He told me I should make you leave, since we’re no longer married and you’re not my concern,” he says. The thought gives me a chill. Yes, I’m sure Vaughn would love for his son to abandon me, so that Vaughn can swoop in and reclaim me the second I’m alone. But Linden adds, “I told him that wouldn’t be a good idea either."
"Vaughn is talking about the heat, and his voice is so excited that it breaks into whispers at times. He loves his madness the way a bird loves the sky."
"When we're alive, life consumes us. But when we die, all of the color and the motion is gone so quickly, it's as though it can no longer stand to be wasted on us."
"He talks softly, patiently, as I sit on the window ledge and watch boats with colorful triangles for sails scratch the ocean."
"Home?' I say. It's a word that can mean anywhere and nowhere."
"We'll squeeze every second that we can from our lives, because we're young, and we have plenty of years to grow. We'll grow until we're braver. We'll grow until our bones ache and our skin wrinkles and our hair goes white, and until our hearts decide, at last, that it's time to stop."
"His lips are familiar. I know the shape of them, know how to make mine fit against them. His taste is familiar too. For all the illusions and colors and sweet smells... he has always tasted like skin. His breaths are shallow. I'm holding his life against my tongue, between my rows of teeth. He's offering it up."
"I watch the ashes swim around like dandelion puffs, making swirls where bodies and walls once stood."
"I think she's brave. I think that nobody has ever believed what she could be capable of. All her life, nobody was listening."
"There is a dark place calling to me, but I will not go just yet. I know I can't return from it."
"A feeling can't kill you."