#her

Gone was the reflexive need to see the worst in things. Before the tumors took her life, they gave her a few moments of grace. ↗

— Dani Shapiro

#life

Because he let the entire world press upon him. For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person.Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. ↗

— Saul Bellow

#science

I think about going to the lake, but I'm so weak that I barely make it to my meeting place with Gale. I sit on the rock where Cressida filmed us, but it's too wide without his body beside me. Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking that when I open them, he will have materialized without a sound as he so often did. I have to remind myself that Gale's in 2 with a fancy job, probably kissing another pair of lips. ↗

— Suzanne Collins

#book #collins #end #everdeen #gale

Percy and Hedge lay on the deck, looking exhausted. Hedge was missing his shoes. He grinned at the sky, muttering, “Awesome. Awesome.” Percy was covered in nicks and scratches, like he’d jumped through a window. He didn’t say anything but he grasped Annabeth’s hand weakly as if to say, Be right with you as soon as the world stops spinning. Leo, Piper, and Jason, who’d been eating in the mess hall, came rushing up the stairs. “What? What?” Leo cried, holding a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich. “Can’t a guy even take a lunch break? What’s wrong?” “Followed!” Frank yelled again. “Followed by what? Jason asked. “I don’t know!” Frank panted. “Whales? Sea monsters? Maybe Kate and Porky!” Annabeth wanted to strangle the guy, but she wasn’t sure her hands would fit around his thick neck. “That makes absolutely no sense. ↗

— Rick Riordan

#coach-hedge #frank-zhang #jason-grace #leo-valdez #percy-jackson

Annabeth gripped the hilt of her dagger. “A bounty on our heads…as if we didn’t attract enough monsters already.” “Do we get WANTED posters?” Leo asked. “And do they have our bounties, like, broken down on a price list?” Hazel wrinkled her nose. “What are you talking about?” “Just wondering how much I’m going for these days,” Leo said. “I mean, I can understand not being as pricey as Percy or Jason, maybe…but am I worth, like, two Franks, or three Franks? ↗

— Rick Riordan

#bounty #frank-zhang #hazel-levesque #jason-grace #leo-valdez

He began it,” Cecily said, jerking her chin at Will, though she knew it was pointless. Jem, Will’s parabatai, treated her with the distant sweet kindness reserved for the little sisters of one’s friends, but he would always side with Will. Kindly, but firmly, he put Will above everything else in the world. Well, nearly everything. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#clockwork-princess #jem-carstairs #sisters

What I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in the stars. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#fathers #moon #stars #sisters

Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from Heaven. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#smile

One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone. There. Gone. No 'poof.' No flash of light. No explosion. ↗

— Michael Grant

#survival #teens #teacher

But kids don't stay with you if you do it right. It's the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won't be needed in the long run. ↗

— Barbara Kingsolver

#motherhood #parenting #parenting