“This would go a lot easier if you'd stop screaming in pain,' Zoe told the muscular man lying beneath her.”

“Dreaming was easier than screaming, and screaming was easier than worrying, and worrying was easier than crying, which was what she knew she would be reduced to if she didn’t keep a hard eye on herself.”

“The most I would do was use the shadow tool in Photoshop to bring out the muscular rips in my stomach, which were honestly there. Beneath the fat.”

“If your body is screaming in pain, whether the pain is muscular contractions, anxiety, depression, asthma or arthritis, a first step in releasing the pain may be making the connection between your body pain and the cause. “Beliefs are physical. A thought held long enough and repeated enough becomes a belief. The belief then becomes biology.”

“I would slay dragons for you,” he told her. “I suspect that finding an unoccupied bedroom will be easier.”

“Leather cut into Usha's flesh and she screamed. She screamed for the soreness in her back, she screamed for the throbbing sensation in her soft belly, she screamed for the hope that was being lashed out of her; multiple screams for the first few lashings then whimpering as blinding pain clouded her head, numbness froze her body. Hope became hopeless. After twenty lashings even the whimpering stopped, only the nothingness of nothing remained.”