Deanna > Books: fave-heroines‎ (23)

And if she could succeed, if she could make things better for them, then maybe there was hope things could be better for her too.

The little serpent was so very lonely. She slithered right into those lovely, elegant fingers. She did not even see the claws.

My father who had taught me how to survive, how to kill, how to feel nothing. Perhaps I didn’t share his blood, but I was his child in every other sense of the word, and he loved me the only way he knew how. At the edge of a blade.

I didn’t realize my lips had curled until his thumb moved, tracing the curve of that smile as if it was something worthy of reverence.
“Are you going to kill me, Oraya?” he murmured.
I didn’t run. Didn’t move. Instead, I laid my palm flat against his chest.
I surprised even myself when I replied, “Not tonight.”

It always happened this way. Love was a sacrifice at the altar of power.

The problem with truths is that they're like spices. Add a little, and it can enrich things, let you experience more layers. But if you pour out too much, it becomes unpalatable.

My truths seem to always ruin the meal.

"You forget, I know what you are. You're so much more than what you let yourself be."

I've found that some smells are strings tied around memories. When you catch certain scents, those strings pull taut. Like a boat being brought to dock, forced to float in the sentiment.

And that, that secret sob I let drain into my pillow, is an ugly truth. But it's not one I'm ready to face yet. So I let the satin soak it up, and then I fall asleep, the candor hidden beneath my head and shoved away by the time the morning dawns.

Men making deals on the behalf of women never seems to go very well for the women.

“And so the savior becomes the villain.”

“People assume strength is loud. In reality, strength is silent. It is resilience, the will to never surrender your dignity. And sometimes, the only person who knows strength exists inside you is you.”

"Hiraeth is a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was. It is the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past. I’ve always thought of it as the saddest entry in the dictionary."

“The only prisoner freed when you forgive someone is you.”

It began with a whisper and it will end with a scream. What comes between is still to be seen.
And so I wait.

"If you can do it, I can do it."--> (AN ANTHEM!)

My blade was out, the edge as sharp as the terror of the girl I was and the rage of the woman I became.

At least I was doing something, unlike Max, who seemed fairly committed to doing absolutely nothing, ever. On a particularly cold day, he stepped outside, shivered, looked up at the sky, and declared, "I'm not made for this," before wandering back into the house. I quickly learned that Max was apparently only "made for" an exceptionally narrow set of environments, temperatures, activities, and interactions.

"I'm both disgusted and impressed by the delight with which you flaunt your superiority over a bunch of children," Max said, when I rejoined him between stages. " At least try to look like you aren't enjoying it quite so much."
"Why?"
"Some might call it distasteful."
I gave him a sly smirk. "But not you."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "No," he admitted. "Not me."

"You are more than your value to powerful men, Tisaanah."

I wanted him in so many ways. As a friend, as a kindred soul, as a fierce teammate. As skin and lips and teeth. As a hitched breathless moan in the darkness or a lazy embrace in the sunrise. I wanted that. I wanted it all.

"She wouldn't be my first, but she'd be the only one who ever mattered. I think she could wait for the time to be right. I'd make sure she never regretted it."