“I nodded. Everyone at the hospital wanted to think that their case was special, and if you were a good nurse, you helped them keep that illusion alive. Knowing that someone down the hall had it worse than you never stopped your own paper cut from hurting, at least not until they came in and bludgeoned you senseless with their amputated leg.”

“No, I wanted to say, he didn't cut off her hands because he didn't have to, he had cut them off long before, with years of keeping all authority in his own palms, all the rules and all the power and all the answers emanating from him and no one else. And if you don't understand that, if you've never been in such a family, then you can't know the way the mind shackles itself and amputates its own limbs so adeptly that you never think to miss them, never think that you had anything so obscene as choice.”

“I consider kissing her right there on the dirty couch, but self-preservation stops me. Once someone hurts you, it’s harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn’t stop you wanting them. Sometimes I actually think it makes the wanting worse”

“Once someone's hurt you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you from wanting them.”

“I don't make promises in case I can't keep them. Sometimes you can't help it; things stop you.”

“I thought that what I felt for you was right," Luce said. "I loved you until it hurt me, until our love was consumed by your pride and rage. The thing you called love made me disappear. So I had to stop loving." She Paused. "Our adoration never diminished the Throne, but your love diminished me. I never meant to hurt you. I only meant to stop you from hurting me.”