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

“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'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.”

“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.”

“She smiled, and there it was again, that aching pressure in his chest. Love, or a heart attack. Kind of the same thing.”

“Heart broken-he felt a deep ache in his chest, like that of a sore muscle, and each beat of his heart pained him”