She'd always been a little contemptuous of beauty, as though it was something you had to trade away some other vital thing for.

Little mouse," a voice said through the keyhole. "Don't you know the more you wriggle, the greater the cat's delight?

People said that video games were bad because they made you numb to death, made you register entrails splattering across a screen as a sign of success. In that moment, Val thought that the real problem with games was that the player was suppossed to try everything. If there was a cave, you went in it. If there was a mysterious stranger, you talked to him. If there was a map, you followed it. But in games, you had a hundred million billion lives and Val only had this one.

More and more I feel like the boy who cut off his nose to spite his face.

You have to write a lot. And you have to rewrite what you wrote a lot more.

Some promises aren’t worth keeping.

I would remain nearer you for what time there is." "Gone in one faerie sigh," she quoted. Leather-clad fingers brushed over her short hair, rested on her cheek. "I can hold my breath.