I curse you," it said. "All who love you will die. Their love will be their destruction. It may take moments, it may take years, but any who look upon you with love will die of it, unless you remove yourself from them forever. And I shall begin it with her." It snarled in Ella’s direction, and vanished.

Just be careful. When we arrive at the house, you can’t look to me for help or instruction. Remember, I am your human subjugate. You keep me about you for blood—blood whenever you want it—and nothing else.” “So you’re not going to speak tonight,” Tessa said. “At all.” “Not unless you instruct me to,” said Will. “This evening sounds as if it might be better than I thought.

Perfect heroines, like perfect heroes, aren't relatable, and if you can't put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, not only will they not inspire you, but the book will be pretty boring.

If people ever look down upon you for crying for fictional characters, you should give them a gentle, pitying look and feel bad for them. If they've never cried for a fictional character, then they've never loved one (and what a joy that is). If they've never cried at a book, a movie, a piece of music, then they've missed one of the great pleasures life has to offer. Just because fiction does not contain things that are real doesn't mean it doesn't contain truth, and we find it through the alchemy of our tears.

He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to sit and listen to her talk about books until his ears fell off. But all these were things he could not want, because they were things he could not have, and wanting what you could not have led to misery and madness.

It was stupid to hope, she knew. But sometimes hope was all you had.

If I’d just listened—just taken one second to listen—it wouldn’t have happened