The system uses me, and I use the system.

I shine a light on them of my own making: septic, ugly, the wrong yellow. I mean, maybe it’s better if my opponent wins.

You would have reached for her with the mindless desire of an infectious disease. You would have whored yourself to her as necrosis to a wound.

Once upon a time, a girl did the impossible, but she did it just a little too late.

Nobody will ever end me. I’ll be so great that no one will be able to touch me, or come near me, for fear of becoming nothing.

She imagined the entire universe burning, rolling into black petals. And she cried—for the first time in many days.

What is wisdom? Or what better gift can gods give mortals than to hold an upper hand above the enemy's hand?

and my love is no good / against the fortress that it made of you

'If I had even the slightest idea what would make you happy, I'd do it,' he thinks. Even if it was idiotic, or humiliating. Stand on his head. Sing the alphabet backwards.

I’m sorry, my love. I can’t be by your side anymore. And I have nowhere to be but your side.

I want to live in the calmness of the morning light.

And he did not want to be loved as a second choice, as a surrender. He had spent his whole life not being loved at all, and he had thought being loved enough would satisfy him. It would not. He did not want to be loved enough. He wanted to be loved overwhelmingly.

You gave yourself something to protect. That's why you're weak.

SORRY BUT ONE OF US HAS TO LIVE. I LOVE YOU.

THE ONLY THING OUR CIVILIZATION CAN LEARN FROM YOURS IS THAT WHEN OUR BACKS ARE TO THE WALL AND OUR TOWERS ARE FALLING ALL AROUND US AND WE ARE WATCHING OURSELVES BURN WE RARELY BECOME HEROES.

Maybe the world will never be free of disaster. But there is good in the world, too. Even the darkest hearts have room for those they cherish.

He'd fallen in love slowly and quietly, and it was a quiet sort of love, full of phrases left unsaid, laced with dreams.

I came to see you. It wasn’t easy because you were so far away.

“Is that why you stare at the stars?” he asked. “Are you searching for beauty or dreaming with your eyes wide open?”

Useless things should be disposed of at the outset.