“Something large and happy has unfolded in my chest, erupting in a smile that won’t quit. I can’t remember ever feeling so light-hearted. Or is my heart full? Or bursting? Not aching, that’s for sure.”

“A brave heart? It feels like a swollen and aching thing in my chest.”

“I'll sometimes feel a warmth or ache in my chest and think that it's my heart shaking off it's torpor. I hear it murmuring; maybe someday it will shout.”

“And," he continued, his strange smile gleaming, "as I see it, our hearts are not so different in size. I murdered my father. You murdered yours. Is that something you did with a large heart?”

“My heart is drumming in my chest so hard it aches, but it's the good kind of ache, like the feeling you get on the first real day of autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are all flaring at the edges and the wind smells just vaguely of smoke - like the end and the beginning of something all at once.”

“I actually feel something in my chest open, a feeling so intense, it’s like my heart’s about to burst. And I just let it. I just let it out.”