Ann Aguirre

“There were different kinds of strength. I knew that now. It didn't always come from a knife or a willingness to fight. Sometimes it came from endurance, where the well ran deep and quiet. Sometimes it came from compassion and forgiveness.”

“Are you afraid of falling, baby?No, I’m afraid of landing.[He’s laughing, and I’m smiling.]Stupid idiot smile, don’t you know what comes next?”

“Spanish was weird that way: two words for monkeys, and esposas meant both wives and handcuffs. That said a lot.”

“You could miss someone, but it did no good to fixate on loss. I wished I had the ready words of a Breeder or the ability to comfort with a soft touch. I didn't. Instead I had daggers and determination.That would have to do.”

“I never belonged anywhere until I met you.”

“He's never going to sit at my feet and write me poems, which is good because I hate poetry, except dirty ones that rhyme.”

“I always know exactly where you are in a room", he tells me without looking round. "I know how many times you run your fingers through your hair. I know when you look at me as well as the precise instant you look at anyone else.”

“To my mind, modern life just offers too many numbers that we're supposed to keep track of.”

“...my inclination toward an action always plummets in direct correlation to someone's demand. Call me contrary.”

“I wanted proof, not promises.”

“Show, not tell, right? Action, not words. You don’t want to hear how sorry I am or how things will be different this time. You want to see it with your own eyes. And until I can show you that, you won’t tell me what I want to hear.”

“There’s a reason I hate jigsaw puzzles. I don’t have the patience to find all the border pieces, especially when they’re all the same shade of gray.”

“I don’t like anyone knowing anything about me that I didn’t choose to tell them.”

“Most people weren’t aware enough to fear the things that could really hurt them.”

“Sometimes the past needed to stay buried; it was the only way you could move on. And sometimes you had to dig it up, because that too was the only way.”

“Sometimes when you meet someone, there’s a click. I don’t believe in love at first sight but I believe in that click. Recognition.”

“I felt like the blonde in every horror movie who hears a noise in the basement and goes to investigate alone. Sometimes you smell the stupid all around you, but you step in it anyway.”

“Is that love? It seems like a pale word, too easily tossed about by people who don’t know the meaning of it, who twist it for their own ends. I’m afraid of it now, right up there with clowns, close spaces, and open flames.”

“You ever have that feeling? Like you’ve known someone your whole life but you don’t know them at all.”

“He would bear scars because of me, as I carried them for him.”

“Sometimes broken things heal crooked. The pieces didn’t fit anymore.”

“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

“Men can be very stupid. We cease to value what we have until it's gone, and only then do we realize the gold we glimpsed in distant hills pales as dross compared to treasure we had in hand.”

“His face held a certain impassivity; you see it in all waiters and valets. They might want to jam a knife through your left eye socket, but you'd never know it from their expression. Working retail, I've acquired a similar look myself.”

“They say you never forget your first glimpse of Gehenna. Over the tall buildings the sky swirls with orange and red, true titian, a feature of the unique atmosphere. Of course that same air would kill human beings; hence they built the entire city inside a dome. Eternal sunset, that’s why the place is so wild. You know the feeling you get, just before full dark? Sundown makes you feel like the world burgeons with possibility, and that’s Gehenna for you.Like any other romantic notion, it’s based on bullshit, of course. Gehenna isn’t the land of eternal sunset and infinite potential. The gas in the atmosphere just makes it impossible to see the sun.”

“Mother Mary of Anabolic Grace, we got Teras incoming?” He levels angry blue eyes on me. “You’re a hex, lady, dark luck, powerful bad juju, ken?”“Only to people who try to kidnap me,” I tell him sweetly, and March snorts, so I feel obliged to add, “Or rescue me…” And then Dina makes a pfft sound. “Or who travel with me…” My gaze sweeps around the darkened interior, trying to find an ally, but nobody will hold my eyes more than two seconds, it seems. “Fine, frag you all, I’m dark juju, bad luck, and you’re all doomed.”

“As I dive between the legs of a big Gunnar, I see Mair wind up and slam her shockstick hard as she can between the V of another guy’s thighs. Falling, he makes a noise that I can’t say I’ve heard a human utter before, sort of like I imagine a puppy would sound being put through a juicer.”

“I’m not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. I’ve seen a chunk of the universe, true, but there’s still so much more to see. I doubt I’ll ever cure this wanderlust, and I’m content with dedicating my life to failing to sate it... He’s never going to sit at my feet and write me poems, which is good because I hate poetry, except dirty ones that rhyme.”

“Science has proved there's nothing to the talk of ghosts and spirits, no proof anything like the soul exists. And to my mind that's an argument against the existence of an omniscient force. I think people believe whatever makes living easiest, and who am I to deny someone comfort?”

“Have you ever watched a child learning to walk? Before this week, I never had, but there's a certain grace to it. Well, if not grace, then tenacity. Fall down nine times--get up ten. And the tenth time you get where you're going, you don't stop, not for obstacles, not for other people telling you to stop. You don't listen to anything but that inner voice until you arrive where you want to be.”

“Time is fluid, so the moments where everything feels perfect pass in a wink, and those where you're on your knees in despair drag on like the death of a thousand cuts.”

“After people have gone, you forget their faults, and you recall the ideal more than the person.”

“We're broken in complementary ways, thus rendering our damage comprehensible to each other.”

“I'll always want him. Until every sun goes dark in every sky, until I am nothing more than long-forgotten cosmic dust, I will want him. And even then I suspect my particles will long for his.”

“Does changing for the better absolve you of all the wicked shit you did before?No. March fills my head like a warm glow. Instead you receive the twin delights of guilt and regret.”

“No matter how interminable something feels, there is always, always an ending. Sometimes that's good, and sometimes it's bad; sometimes it's a matter of indifference, and sometimes it's heartbreaking, and your life is never the same thereafter.”

“There’s always room in the heart for others, too.”

“Now I know there are ways to belong to someone that don’t take anything away. A relationship shouldn’t impose limits—and if it does, then it’s wrong. A lover should help you exceed your potential, not clip your wings.”

“Men always want to be remembered whereas women realize that requires being dead.”

“Just . . . love me, and let tomorrow look after itself.”

“Nobility and self-sacrifice sound wonderful in theory, but now he’s seen how it feels. A dead hero is still dead at the end of the day, and you’re still alone.”

“We’re bound by chains of love, but they don’t weigh us down. Instead, they allow us to be bigger and better than we are.”

“My heart should be breaking, too, but there comes a point when you’re so inured to loss that you no longer feel the lash.”

“Love can make us do dreadful things.”

“There are quiet ways to die where the body just doesn’t notice that the heart is gone.”

“I’m as forgiving as the wall you hit at two hundred kilometers an hour.”

“Possessiveness isn’t love. I’m not even sure it qualifies as an emotion.”

“People stay together and stay true only as long as they both want to. And all the promises in the world don’t change the length of time. Nothing comes with a guarantee.”

“While sight may deceive you, touch rarely does.”

“We find heroes, not on battlefields, but in hospitals that tend the injured. Sometimes I think it’s easier to fight than it is to heal.”