Ann Aguirre

“Don’t let them see you weak.”

“The strong survive.”

“I sighed. 'It's hard. You're the only one who listens to what I have to say.' Longshot dropped a gentle, comforting arm around my shoulders. 'Then speak louder, girl. Don't let them put out your spark.”

“If you don't tell me what's on your mind, I can't guess”

“Maybe I was just one of those people who couldn't rest easy unless things went catastrophically wrong.”

“Yet sometimes being a friend meant letting people do things that hurt, like putting distance between you, just because it made them happy.”

“I'm not sick, Deuce. You don't know your own charm."My charm? I hadn't been aware I had any. It must be the dress, I thought.”

“This is the way we win over our enemies, not with bigger weapons, or faster ships, but with human courage, ingenuity, and sacrifice. Don’t lose hope. We’ve faced the darkness before—it has nothing new to teach us. As we go about our lives, let us remember the example Dr. Navarro set for us. At the right time, anyone can be a hero.”

“He was the heat of a fire and the sweetness of the moon I'd only just met.”

“Yeah, sorry. I can't help my genetics. Take your frustration out on me if it'll make you feel better, but don't mess up my pretty face.”

“Vel once told me that the heart isn't like a cup of water. You can't drain it. It's more like an endless well, and the more you love, the more it pumps out.”

“Stalker put his hands on my shoulders - and for a moment, his pale eyes blazed with the power of what he felt for me. The reflected head warmed me where I hadn't even know I was cold. Then his golden, spiky lashes swept down, veiling his thoughts. I shouldn't let this boy comfort me when I'd rejected him. Weakness made me selfish, but I didn't resist when he pulled me against him.”

“If I ever win you," he said, anger bright in his pale eyes, "it will be because you want me more. Not because he's gone. I'm nobody's second best.”

“Finally, I understood what else was going on. I might be slow, but given time, I put the pieces together. "You have no reason to be jealous, I promise. We talked... and trained. You're the only boy who gets close like this.""Oh." A long, slow breath escaped him. "I feel so stupid."I put my lips to his cheek and whispered, "Don't. I love you, Fade.”

“If there had been another female for him since we arrived in Salvation, I needed to cut off all her hair and beat her half to death. The strength of that impulse scared me, and I took a step back. Deuce the girl was every bit as vicious as the Huntress, it seemed”

“Edmund cleared his throat. "Pretty as a picture, isn't she?"Fade only nodded. His hungry stare brought color to my cheeks, and I was conscious of the warmth of his fingers when he touched me. Just on the arm, but my skin was bare, and it felt shocking, intimate, too darking in front of my foster parents.”

“I swept down the stairs to find Fade waiting for me at the bottom. His dark eyes widened, and for the first time since I'd known him, he was speechless. He stared up at me like I was everything he ever wanted.”

“Stalkers lips curled into a sneer. "You won't make a move without him, huh? That's embarrassing.""No," I said softly. "It just hurts because you wish it was you.”

“I’m just staring at him, mouth half-open. As soon as I realize it, I find something to say, anything. “Who the hell are you?”“March,” he tells me.“That a name or an order?”

“Not to wish too hard for a shift in circumstances since it never happens as you imagine.”

“Mother Mary," he breathes. "How you shine." I shake my head. "The light is yours. Right now you can't see it because you sit in shadow, but all I do is reflect you.”

“In the enclave, the strong and the physically perfect survived, but if you were strong, you protected the weak until they had an opportunity to grow into their own power.”

“My heart raced. He needs you, I thought. Don't let him down. I couldn't remember ever being so happy... or so scared.”

“If so, I couldn't imagine how the opposite gender managed to get out of bed in the morning. They might be lovely to look at, but clear thinking wasn't their strong point.”

“The whole world is like Whitewall's razors," I burst out. "It cuts us, and we bleed, but there's no purpose to it.”

“But if you're to be punished regardless if we're caught wouldn't it be better to have done something worth the price?”

“Perhaps that was the point; life, if you did it right, meant learning and changing. If you didn't, you died- or stopped growing - which amounted to more or less the same thing. So I would slide in and out of different roles until I discovered the one that fit me best.-Deuce, (183)”

“Beyond, the unknown lay before us once more, and another impossible task. The four of us emerged from the earth and turned our steps west, toward the last hope for Salvation.”

“Like most, I was a mix of good and bad, anger and protectiveness, kindness and pride. But right now, I had only strangled fear and the promise of revenge.”

“Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other. Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth for the other. Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other. Now you are two persons, but there are three lives before you: His life, Her Life, and Your life together.”

“I want to drag you off and hide you away,” he whispered. “Why?” “I always knew you were beautiful, but now everyone else will too. I won’t be able to keep other boys away from you, and it’ll make me crazy.”

“People try to make sense of things, and if they don’t know the answers, they make them up, because for some, a wrong answer is better than none.”

“My body was a machine, plain and simple. I worked it to stay strong; I fed it to keep it running.”

“Caring too much could be dangerous; I saw that now. But the alternative was no better.”

“What was the good of having such a fine home if you weren't willing to fight for it?”

“I couldn't help what I'd done before I learned it was wrong. I could only do better in the future.”

“Love sounded terrible if it made you so weak, you couldn't survive with out it.”

“I found it curious that people kept animals for companionship and not food. When I'd asked Mama Oaks when she planned to cook the fat creature that slept in a basket in the kitchen, her eyes almost popped out of her head. Since then, she'd kept her pet away from me, like she suspected I meant to turn it into stew. Clearly, I had a lot to learn.”

“This is not a love story. It is my life, and as such, there is love, loss, war, death, and sacrifice. It's about things that needed to be done and choices made. I regret nothing.”

“His wide mouth falls into amused lines. “Everything dies. There’s no way to stop that tide. In the end, all we have is the pleasure we take from life. For my people, it’s not long. I can spend my time crying or I can live . I can seek wonder. Haven’t you ever noticed that people tend to find what they’re looking for, my friend?”

“He's earned a lifetime of peace and happiness, but some people never get what they deserve. That's why there are saints in gutters and sadists in palaces.”

“I think people can be trusted to know what makes them unhappy. Maybe we don't always know what we want exactly, but we can usually say what we don't with a fair amount of specificity.”

“...afraid of damn near everything. But I refuse to let it paralyze me. I won't be the woman who cowers behind four walls, never taking chances. I want to die like I've lived. I always wanted to be larger than life.”

“I have had passionate kisses and fierce ones, kisses so sweet they tasted like pure honey and kisses that cut like knives, but until this moment, I’ve never had one that said both hello and good-bye.”

“He’s worth fighting for, but I won’t change who I am for any man. No more than he should alter himself to suit me.”

“I know just how he feels that it’s come to this. Sometimes, love isn’t enough, even when it’s all you have.”

“She carries chaos like an overcoat.”

“He doesn’t have the words, so he does practical things instead.”

“It’s always been him saving me . . . and I’m not used to that.”

“But the world moves on, even when you don’t want it to, even when change feels like the end of everything. It never stops. That’s harsh and magical and somewhat comforting because nothing is immutable, however much we want it to be. Moments cannot be caught like fossils in amber, ever- perfect,ever-beautiful. They go dark and raw, full of shadows, leaving you with the memories. And the world moves on.”