Chain of Thorns

How much love people have denied themselves through the ages because they believed they did not deserve it. As if the waste of love is not the greater tragedy.

There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.

We are not here just to forget, but also to remember there are good and beautiful things in the world, always. And mistakes do not take them from us; nothing takes them from us. They are eternal.

Our failings are always more monstrous in our own eyes than any others, in the eyes of those who love us, we are forgiven.

But you cannot fix someone. In the end, if they can be fixed at all, they must do the repairs themselves.

Mine is a complicated story, and people do not want to hear complicated stories. They want simple stories, in which people are either good or evil, and no one good ever makes a mistake, and no one evil ever repents.

Dear Alastair, why are you so stupid I brush my teeth don't tell anyone —Thomas

We all carry a light inside ourselves. It burns with the flame of ours souls. But there are other people in our lives who add their own flames to ours, creating a brighter conflagration.

I could never hate you, for all my hate is reserved for myself. I have none left over for anyone else.

We so desperately want to be with those who know the truth of us. Our secrets.

I realized you were leaving and I ran after you, because when someone you love is leaving, all you think about is getting them back.

You know it's the people who we love the most who can hurt us the most.

We have been in the crucible, and come out as gold.

It’s like you don’t live in the real world. You live in a world of stories.’ As if that were a terrible thing.

No one is strong and unyielding all the time, and none of us should be. We all have to let down our guard sometime. We are made up of different parts, sad and happy, strong and weak, solitary and in need of others. And there is nothing shameful about that.

It is the gifts we did not have the strength to ask for that matter the most.

Animals are innocent. To have their trust is an honor. He will be miserable unless you let him stay with you, help you. You are not saving him from a burden by keeping him away. Only breaking his heart.

There is no shame in caring about someone. Even if it hurts.

I rather think love is something like a book written just for us, a sort of holy text it is given to us to interpret.

There yet are two things in my destiny— A world to roam through, and a home with thee. The first were nothing—had I still the last, It were the haven of my happiness.

Perhaps to be a Shadowhunter simply meant drawing runes over one’s scars, over and over.

We are all flawed creatures. As diamonds are flawed, each distinct imperfection makes us unique.

We become what we are afraid we will be, Layla.

I don’t think I realized how much I would need someone in my life who would see the truth of me and offer me kindness, even though I had not asked for it. Even when I felt I did not deserve it.

Once you had lost everything, she reasoned, there was no reason not to embrace whatever small happinesses you could.

I suppose it depends on your definition of love. Love that will give up nothing, love that one is willing to sacrifice for a more comfortable life, is not love, in my opinion. Love should come above all other things.

Grief, Cordelia would realize during that night and the next day, was like drowning. Sometimes one would surface from the dark water: a period of brief lucidity and calmness, during which ordinary tasks might be accomplished. During which one's behavior was, presumably, normal, and it was possible to hold a conversation. The rest of the time, one was pulled deep below the water. There was no lucidity, only panic and terror, only her mind screaming incoherently, only the sensation of dying. Of not being able to breathe. She would remember the time later as flashes of light in the dark, moments when she surfaced, when the making of memories was possible, if incomplete.

She had an uncanny ability to inject reason and even humor into the darkest situation.

I have always thought everyone deserves a second chance. We are each given only one life. We cannot get another one. We must live with the mistakes we have made.

I know," he said, "but sometimes we leave people to protect ourselves, don't we? Not because we don't want to be with them.