#h

My whole life, I had thought that my story was, again and again: Once upon a time, there was a boy, and he had to risk everything to keep what he loved. But really, the story was: Once upon a time, there was a boy, and his fear ate him alive. ↗

— Maggie Stiefvater

#fear #life #love #risk #story

As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath. ↗

— Edith Wharton

#empathy #love #love

You didn't think I really liked you? Do you think I really like you now?" He turned toward her, uncertainty in his face."You did go quite a lot of effort to be having this conversation, but... I don't want to read too much of what I hope into that." Val stretched out beside him, resting her head in the crook of his arm. "What do you hope?" He pulled her close, hands careful not to touch her wounds as they wrapped around her. "I hope that you feel for me as I do for you," he said, his voice like a sigh against her throat. And how is that?" she asked, her lips so close to his jaw that she could taste the salt of his skin when she moved them. You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that." She smiled and let her eyes drift closed. They lay there together, under the bridge, city lights burning outside the windows like a sky full of falling stars, as they slid off into sleep ↗

— Holly Black

#hope #love #love

I didn’t know how I could live with that knowledge, without it eating me up, without it poisoning every happy memory I had of growing up. Without it ruining everything Beck and I had. I didn’t understand how someone could be both God and the devil. How the same person could destroy you and save you. When everything I was, good and bad, was knotted with threads of his making, how was I supposed to know whether to love or hate him? ↗

— Maggie Stiefvater

#love #parenting #sam-roth #love

I’ll be your friend in daylight. I’ll treat you as a comrade in every gas-lit ballroom. But alone, under moonlight, I’ll not pretend that I want you for anything but mine. ↗

— Courtney Milan

#love #moonlight #romance #unlocked #love

Do you want this to be a love story? ↗

— Jenny Downham

#sad #tom #truth #love

What is this "heart"? If I tear open that chest of yours, will I see it there? If I smash open that skull of yours, will I see it there? ~ulquiorra ↗

— Tite Kubo

#emotions #heart #love #love

I remember that my mother once told me that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. ↗

— Emily Giffin

#something-borrowed #love

He says he’s lonely, horribly lonely because of this love he feels for her. She says she’s lonely too. She doesn’t say why. ↗

— Marguerite Duras

#love #marguerite-duras #the-lover #love

Well, I’m an abridger, so I’m entitled to a few ideas of my own. Did they make it? Was the pirate ship there? You can answer it for yourself, but, for me, I say yes it was. And yes, they got away. And got their strength back and had lots of adventures and more than their share of laughs. But that doesn’t mean I think they had a happy ending, either. Because, in my opinion, anyway, they squabbled a lot, and Buttercup lost her looks eventually, and one day Fezzik lost a fight and some hot-shot kid whipped Inigo with a sword and Westley was never able to really sleep sound because of Humperdinck maybe being on the trail. I’m not trying to make this a downer, understand. I mean, I really do think that love is the best thing in the world, next to cough drops. But I also have to say, for the umpty-umpth time, that life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all. ↗

— William Goldman

#love #death