Jennifer Megan Varnadore

“Why is it when you fall in love with someone (and especially when you are trying extremely hard not to do so), the world seems to conspire against you in order to cause that person to be the only thing on your mind? It doesn't matter what you're doing: reading, driving, walking down the road. You just look up and, BANG, there is their name or some form of it. Then you smile, and you think of them. That's when you realize there isn't any way to get out of this one alive and unscathed, because it's already a battle that you've lost, and the war is going to rage on forever after.”

“They say love makes everything complicated, but it doesn't, it makes everything simple. You and Me. That was everything, and it was pure. Purely simple love.”

“Desmondelooked over to where Delilah had gone, his gaze focused onit. He smiled wryly and said softly, "You'd be surprised to know that I am a man whose heart could be stolen by a woman who loved beauty in darker things. A woman who loved chaos and disorder. A woman who loved poetry, and beautiful sonatas.”

“Delilah, pretend that it doesn’t bother you. Move onwith your life, as if nothing ever happened. Nothing movesa man, more than a woman who acts as if he didn’t mean athing to her when he left. It bothers them, and they oftentry to make sense of it. Meanwhile, you’re puttingeverything you have into yourself, and well, sometimes youjust don’t know why things happen until later.”

“They were alike, and yet they were totally oppositein the way they viewed the world. He viewed it as it was. Itwas a dark place, always holding itself into the shadows.She saw the beauty that no one else could ever have seen inthe darkness. It was to be said that she both saved anddestroyed him. She was the essence of him and yet she,beautiful sad eyed angel that she was, was also hisdestruction all at the same time. He could be a downrightwretch of a man, yet she took it into herself, and never saida word, but to love him. It was the love that broke him.”

“The fighting was horrendous. Bloodshed and death lie everywhere around us. It was not exciting, Vindhya. It is fearsome, and we were all scared out of our wits. There is no honour in battle but to protect you, my love. We have won the gates of Grilsom and lost the fortress of Loare...but we’ve gained allies from the Knights of Scrivehrim, and enemies of the dark elves of Scryire. There is no winning in War, my sweet...only loss. People die onevery side. How can any battle be won with such consequence and loss? I do not understand war. It’s so unfair, so...unjustified.We take innocent lives, yet we gain medals of highest honour and divine, sacred blessings. What is the sense of it? And even much less do I understand Andsar’s concept of celibacy in soldiers, and that they choose to stay alone their entire lives. I might understand, were the reasoning that we would leave no one behind to suffer...but there is no reason for it. They tell us we are wrong to love one another, and so they justify our love by sending me to my assured death. If anyone were to find out about us, we’d both surely be killed. Love like this, though…I believe it is worth the cost of my life, if I could only be with you one moment.”

“Hold out what men have said. (Desmonde and Delilah backtracked)”

“Everyone has a temptation; a weakness that they would yield to. Mine is you. Not only you, but your love. For your love is unique. For you are the other half of my soul. I feel you, even when you are not there. It's like a shadow. You are my shadow. Your love follows me every step I tread.”

“One day love will be the death of me. Your love, in fact, specifically. You're the vice I can't control my lust for. You're the colour in my life that I seek for. However, you'd rather not fight, but walk away. Therefore, in the like of all tragedies, you will be the death of me.”

“I'm not sure when it began, that descent into the depths of falling without realizing I was doing so. Could it have been when you asked if you could keep me? Could it have been the moment that you said you wanted me to be yours? Was it the moment that you said I had never left, because in some way I'd always been with you? Was it when you said abruptly that I couldn't leave, or that you teased that I hated you because I was leaving you? I'm not sure.All I know, I became aware that i loved you when you kissed my nose, and my heart stopped. I knew then that I had to get away from you, because if I didn't it would be you, and only you. I became aware of it, when you dipped down to kiss me, and teasingly kissed my cheek instead. In that moment, my heart stopped and I thought, kiss me. I breathed fireworks, and you hadn't even touched me.I realized, it was already too late. You were in my heart, and I could never get away. It was like I'd stepped into quicksand, and my only lifeline was your hand held out to me, and in that moment I was afraid, but you apologized and said, "Na. I'm sorry, you are stuck with me."That is the moment, if nothing else were to qualify, that I was irrevocably yours.”

“To become the love of a poet is to become both a muse and an immortal all at the same time.”

“I feel we are becoming divergent upon the paths we are walking down. I feel we are becoming distant, as the way we see things becomes more pronounced. I feel I know you less, where once I knew you like I knew myself before. I fear that in the end, we will become no more. When that guillotine descends, friend will be friend no longer. As time ascends, we will move forward on different paths in life's Wonderland.”

“We can only truly love, when we realized we have been loved all along, by the one person who gave their life for simply our forgiveness, and for us to truly live.”

“It is not God who is too busy to hear us, it is we who are too busy to hear God.”

“It is exactly our sense of haste and impatience that impedes us from seeing the true beauty life has to offer.”

“I wish I could protect you from the world. It’s a cold, dark place. It has very little light, where it used to abound in it, but alas, I am one lone candle. I cannot speak for the world. Just for what I’ve seen and felt. Being in the world means you could very well realize how lost you are. You find out, you cannot find yourself all alone. However, as long as a light shines, all hope is not lost. One day we’ll all know for certain which paths are best traveled, and which were left narrow.”

“I have seen conversations that I had three years ago, when I was young, in love, and naive. I've grown a lot since those days. I now know that love isn't just that abstract feeling, because there are so many other sides to it. Sometimes you learn that to truly love someone you have to just support them as a person, and step out of their view finder. Be their friend and nothing else. Sometimes you learn to walk away and find what you need. You learn you knew nothing and that's when you grow up and change your ways. There may be no fairy take endings, but that is okay, because love is much more real than that. So much less superficial.”

“No matter where you go, or however long you're there, you can always come back home to me. Whether tears or smiles cloud your eyes, you can rest upon your knees. Whether you have found yourself, or lost your sense of purpose along the way, I'll be there to take you in. I won't give you away.”

“Love can both ruin and save one. It is our deepest emotions that lay root to our most beautiful words.”

“He told me once I was flawless in his eyes, because my imperfections made me that way. Imperfections build character, but in the end he is close, but might as well as not exist. So, where is flawless now? He too saw me fall off the pedestal. He called me beautiful all of the time, even when I said I failed or I was a mess he still found me beautiful, but that isn't how he sees me anymore. I'm not beautiful or flawless. I'm just something like the sun, and he's the Icarus who flew too close. I don't think I'll ever see him again, and it is best that that is the case. It is best for me to marry, and forget, because I can't go back. And even if I could, it would not change the facts as they are. I loved him too much. I needed him too much. I craved the very sound of his voice. He was the world to me. He was the very breath I breathed. And it almost ruined me. And it almost ruined him. They don't tell you that about love. How it can ruin you by its mere existence. How it can be so deep that it devours you. And that...is most frightening.”

“Love is the beginning of an eternal hell of doubt, and is a destruction even in its divinity. Cravings of lovers are burned into frenzy, and love alone remains immortal in the ability to lift the soul, or cause it to fall into devastation.”

“When it comes to love, I realize that I am masochistic. They might consider me crazy for loving you despite everything that we have been through. You may not be worth the pain, but if it’s from you, I really don’t mind the devastation. I don’t want to ever let you go. I may deserve better than you, but you’re just the same, aren’t you? You are me. There is no difference. Tomorrow I will feel the same as I did the day before. You are the only one I could love this way, and that’s not something I ever want to give up.”

“I fail too much to be good as a real person, being anonymous makes me less real.”

“And if I erase you from my mind, it would be easy. It’s loving you beyond a hope and a prayer, that is the hard part. It’s not hard to do it. It’s hard to stop.”

“No one will ever love you like I did, or as long. That’s what I told you, but I lied. I love you more than I ever did before, and for far longer.”

“Patience is hardest when it comes to love, especially love that creates an almost obsessive passion inside yourself to love the other person beyond what it costs you. How do you wait for someone you loved to come back to you? There is always a chance that you will be waiting forever, and that they will never come, but if they do…every ounce of waiting is worth the weight of all the diamonds in the world.”

“Love is easy. It's being afraid that's hard.”

“Sometimes, when things fall apart, it's because you spent so much time being scared that it was too perfect and it slips through your fingers. When you try to hold love too tightly, it leaves you without warning. You have to revel in the ease of it, because even when the hard times come you can overtake them, and fear is just a crutch and the sibling of doubt.”

“You never have a guarantee of tomorrow. Everyone's thread is held taut, just waiting for that last scissor cut to sever at any given moment. Live your life in the way you should live it, and look at your troubles as tests of faith. They build your character, like gold being tried by the fire; getting rid of all its faults.”

“Everyone runs away from something, but who are you running to? Who are you running with? Why are you running for? Why run at all?”

“My mama taught me the most important lesson of all: "Sometimes you don't know why things happen until later." She still gets me through the dark days even to this day, because of that one day we sat in the grass, with my heart broken to smithereens, and she told me that one simple phrase that changed my life.”