“That's interesting," Bitterblue said. "You think a conscience requires fear?”

“Find something useful to do with your morning,' she thought to him as she neared her chambers. 'Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into a river while no one's looking and th...”

“Katsa and Po were trying to drown each other and, judging from their hoots of laughter, enjoying it immensely.”

“Madlen came to sit beside her on the bed. "Lady Queen," she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of the child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to p...”

“Truths are dangerous," he said."Then why are you writing them in a book?""To catch them between the pages," said Teddy, "and trap them before they disappear.”

“But that's how memory works," Bitterblue said quietly. "Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission." And sometimes they came back incomplete and warped.”

“I hurt myself, Syren bit out. I make myself bleed and it feels good. It eases the pressure inside me, but it never lasts for long. His lips trembled. Before I slept in your bed, Id never had a full...”

“Look. I have a strategy. Why expect anything? If you dont expect anything, you dont get disappointed.”

“I tried cutting myself to express my heartbreak over Tommy (Lord Flood) rejecting me, but OMFG it hurts like flaming fuck.”

“Pain is not the same as suffering. Left to itself, the body discharges pain spontaneously, letting go of it the moment that the underlying cause is healed. Suffering is pain that we hold on to. It ...”

“In pleasant peace and security How suddenly the soul in a man begins to die He shall look up above the stalled oxen Envying the cruel falcon, And dig under the straw for a stone To bruise himself on.”

“It is amazing, though, what pains your subconscious will undergo in achieve sustainable peace.”

“And wishes, truly wishes, that she could say the same herself. Because hurting herself would be so much easier.”