Better to be the one to wield the lightning than the one that got struck.
Lost Causes, Mia Marshall
Someone who leads you to a pile of dead bodies might not have your best interests at heart.
Smoke and Summons, Charlie N Holmberg
"What do you do? As Engel?"
Rone lowered his hand. "I think the more important question is, What the hell, Sandis?"
Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge, Paul Krueger
Bailey decided to concentrate entirely on her pancakes. Sweet, reliable pancakes. Pancakes were delicious. Pancakes were dependable. She'd been eating pancakes her entire life and never got tired of them. They'd been there forever, like an old friend. Pancakes understood her.
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Caitlin Doughty
Screwing up my face and emitting a high-pitched sound only dogs could hear, I pressed blade to cheek and began my career as barber to the dead.
Labyrinth Lost, Zoraida Cordova
For beings that don't bleed, the gods sure ask for a lot of it, I think.
I am a Filipino and This is How We Cook, Nicole Ponseca & Miguel Trinidad
There are some who like foods so spicy it leads to sweat, shakes, and gasps for air, but I've met countless Filipinos with a preference for a sourness so intense it provokes salivation and lip-smacking. Sourness is a cuisine-defining flavor profile. Sour is the gateway to Filipino food, and it sets the cuisine apart.
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, Valeria Luiselli
Telling stories doesn't solve anything, doesn't reassemble broken lives. But perhaps it is a way of understanding the unthinkable.
China Rich Girlfriend, Kevin Kwan
You do not know the gossip that goes back to these people's childhoods. And this is the secret: They are all still completely obsessed with what happened when they were five.
The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
"I didn't do anything wrong."
"That's what I always say," Mat said blandly, though he was suddenly grinning hard, and Egwene asked in a decidedly neutral voice, "Who's Elayne?"
In an Absent Dream, Seanan McGuire
Following the rules didn't make you a good person, just like breaking them didn't make you a bad one, but it could make you an invisible person, and invisible people got to do as they liked.
Call Me Zebra, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
Because in order for a book to be a good counselor, I persevered, it must be negotiating a danger zone; there must be a transgression, a leap, a move beyond a prohibition.
So Lucky, Nicola Griffith
Her body didn't move, but her face changed, I saw it, a shuttering and turning away, just before she laid a hand on my arm and said, "I'm sorry."
Kingdom of the Blind, Louise Penny
"It was her decision. I had nothing to do with it. And I certainly didn't poach her."
"That wasn't my question," said Gamache. Though it was an interesting answer.
America Is Not the Heart, Elaine Castillo
She's not my girlfriend, Jaime said, unprompted.
I thought we had something special, Hero said.
Severance, Ling Ma
My mind kept searching for words--words to unite us despite, words to bond us in spite--and coming up empty.
Golden State, Ben H Winters
I am performing for Arlo, my mentor and friend; I am performing for Aysa Paige, who stands deferentially listening, absorbing. I am performing for Charlie, hung up there on the wall, behind the shield of his crossed arms, watching from the distant past.
Thick as Thieves, Megan Whalen Turner
He was a most eloquent onion farmer.
There There, Tommy Orange
And so what we could do had everything to do with being able to understand where we came from, what happened to our people, and how to honor them by living right, by telling our stories. She told me the world was made of stories, nothing else, just stories, and stories about stories.
Shadows, Robin McKinley
"Maybe engineers and philosophers go crazy more tactfully than magicians do."
In the Woods, Tana French
I am not good at noticing when I'm happy, except in retrospect.
The Likeness, Tana French
The quality of silence was different inside: deeper, and so thick I could feel it pressing softly around me.
Margaritaville: The Cookbook, Carlo Sernaglia and Julia Turshen
The only difference between a regular club sandwich and a beach club sandwich is that the latter is eaten on a towel or a lounge chair, preferably with your toes in the sand and a frosty drink next to you.
Kingdom of Ash, Sarah J Maas
So Lysandra kept killing, the blood of her enemy like spoiled wine on her tongue.
If the stones and the roots of the forest hurt her, she didn't so much as flinch. She only walked on, Fenrys at her side within that sphere of fire, as if they were two ghosts of memory.
Sunday Suppers at Lucques, Suzanne Goin with Teri Gelber
But if someday, when cherries are long out of season, you happen to see in a corner booth at DuPar's Coffee Shop someone who looks like me, wolfing down a slice of all-American diner pie, wearing dark sunglasses and a stain that looks suspiciously like Red Dye #40, well, keep it to yourself.
State Tectonics, Malka Older
That might be what stings the most: all the time while she thought they were happy, while she imagined she had finally found someone who could forgive her for who she is, he's been feeling this way and smothering it.
Mishima's hands are fists. She keeps walking.
Faithful Place, Tana French
I had spent my whole adult life growing around a scar shaped like Rosie Daly's absence.
Solo, Anita Lo
Mix everything together. That's it. Then eat it.
Broken Harbor, Tana French
Over time, the ghosts of things that happened start to turn distant; once they've cut you a couple of million times, their edges blunt on your scar tissue, they wear thin. The ones that slice like razors forever are the ghosts of things that never got the chance to happen.
Fire and Blood, George RR Martin
When Aemon was given his first wooden sword to begin his training in arms, Baelon was judged too young to join him, but that did not stop him. He made his own sword from a stick and rushed into the yard anyway to begin whacking at his brother, reducing their master-at-arms to helpless laughter.
The Secret Place, Tana French
"We made it together, me and Chris, it was never going to exist anywhere else in the world, and it was beautiful. Wrecking something like that, grinding it up into nothing and throwing it away: that's evil. That's what evil is, isn't it?"
Roots, Diane Morgan
Pursuing the story of the dispersal of yams throughout the world's tropical and temperate regions involves untangling conflicting theories, decoding detailed studies, and sorting through mountains of scholarly research--tasks beyond my ability.
Dread Nation, Justina Ireland
Here's a thing about me: I have always considered pursuing a life on the stage if this whole killing-the-dead thing doesn't work out.
The Parking Lot Attendant, Nafkote Tamirat
I feel as though I'm carrying Ayale with me at all times, although for whom and for what reason escapes me. The weight is often unbearable, but I am terrified of what would happen if I were to let go completely. I fear that I would no longer recognize myself.
The Trespasser, Tana French
"Fuck me," I say, suddenly realizing. "I'm half English."
"And you're middle-class," Steve says. "Next time you go home, you're going to get the shite kicked out of you."
The Ruin of Kings, Jenn Lyons
"Good luck and bad luck. Joy and pain. They will always be there. It won't be better if you follow me. A hero who has never had a bad thing happen to him isn't a hero--he's just spoiled."
Speak No Evil, Uzodinma Iweala
There is a part of me that wishes Sportzone would burn down, leaving nothing but a sticky mess of rubber soles and melted mannequins with blistered and charred skin, but the only one capable of incinerating problems is God and almost everyone who matters in my life tells me that God is not on my side.
Rich People Problems, Kevin Kwan
"I'll never understand you coffee people." Victoria tut-tutted as she carefully stirred her cup of tea made from GFBOP Orthodox leaves she had flown in every month from a special reserve estate in Tanzania.
The Italian Teacher, Tom Rachman
He looks to the restaurant clock, irritated. Nobody likes to be understood without warning.
Milkman, Anna Burns
'You are not inferable. You cannot be deduced - and they don't like that.'
The Dictionary of Animal Languages, Heidi Sopinka
I know I have been strict with myself in an unforgiving way. But I needed something more durable than love, more subterranean.
My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite
I console myself with the knowledge that even the most beautiful flowers wither and die.
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