He spreads his fingers over my heart, like he’s holding it, like it belongs to him, the hard-fought-for territory he’s won fair and square.

Climb onto my shoulders. I will not let you fall.

She hated him and loved him, longed for him and loathed him, and cursed herself for feeling anything at all

It isn't up to me to break his heart; that's time's job.

Self-pity is egotism undiluted, after all—self-centeredness in its purest form.

To show mercy is not naïve. To hold out against the end of hope is not stupidity or madness. It is fundamentally human. Of course... We are all doomed; we are all poisoned from our birth by the rot of stars. That does not mean we should succumb...to the seductive fallacy of despair, the dark tide that would drown us. You may think I'm stupid, you may call me a madman and a fool, but at least I stand upright in a fallen world.

Still, you tend to believe what you always believed, think what you always thought, expect what you always expected