#lina

I told him the story of the day I'd been mending pottery with one of the maids in the kitchen at Keramzin, waiting for him to return from one of the hunting trips that had taken him from home more and more frequently. I'd been fifteen, standing at the counter, vainly trying to glue together the jagged pieces of a blue cup. When I saw him crossing the fields, I ran to the doorway and waved. He caught sight of me and broke into a jog. I had crossed the yard to him slowly, watching him draw closer, baffled by the way my heart was skittering around in my chest. Then he'd picked me up and swung me in a circle, and I'd clung to him, breathing in his sweet, familiar smell, shocked by how much I'd missed him. Dimly, I'd been aware that I still had a shard of that blue cup in my hand, that it was digging into my palm, but I didn't want to let go. When he finally set me down and ambled off into the kitchen to find his lunch, I had stood there, my palm dripping in blood, my head still spinning, knowing that everything had changed. Ana Kuya had scolded me for getting blood on the clean kitchen floor. She'd bandaged my hand and told me it would heal. But I knew it would just go on hurting. ↗

— Leigh Bardugo

#ana-kuya #mal #scar #change

No boyfriend," I said, perhaps a little too quickly. Have I mentioned my total lack of social life? Having a dream about Alex last night was the closest thing I'd had to a date in months and that was only a dream and it was about a guy who was undead. Admittedly very sexy, but still completely undead. Although I have heard that vampire sex is supposed to be pretty damn good. ↗

— Eileen Rendahl

#sex #social-life #dating

The first time I'd entered the Fold, I'd feared the darkness and my own death. Now, darkness was nothing to me, and I knew that soon death would seem like a gift. I'd always known I would have to return to the Unsea, but as I looked back, I realized that some part of me had anticipated it. ↗

— Leigh Bardugo

#death

And when her lips met mine, I knew that I could live to be a hundred and visit every country in the world, but nothing would ever compare to that single moment when I first kissed the girl of my dreams and knew that my love would last forever. ↗

— Nicholas Sparks

#love #nicholas-sparks #north-carolina #novel #dreams

The boy held her tighter, murmured soft words to lull her to sleep. "It's only a nightmare," he whispered. "The dreams will stop." He didn't understand. The dreams were the only place it was safe to use her power now, and she longed for them. ↗

— Leigh Bardugo

#mal #dreams

You don't learn knife skills at cooking school, because they give you only six onions and no matter how hard you focus on those six onions there are only six, and you're not going to learn as much as when you cut up a hundred. ↗

— Bill Buford

#experience #practice #experience

Good-bye, my moonsong and my breath, my white nights and golden days, my fresh water and my fire. Good-bye, and may you find a better life, find comfort again and your breathless smile, and when your beloved face lights up once more at the Western sunrise, be sure what I felt for you was not in vain. Good-bye and have faith, my Tatiana. ↗

— Paullina Simons

#paullina-simons #the-bronze-horseman #faith

Blood may be thicker than water, but it's certainly not as thick as ketchup. Nor does it go as well with French fries. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#bizarre #blood #crazy #culinary #food

Great food needed more than chefs; it needed gourmet diners. ↗

— Nicole Mones

#food

But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes . . . and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for. ↗

— Melina Marchetta

#grief #jellicoe-road #love #melina-marchetta #family