“Some people can’t keep fighting. Some people want to escape. Some people are not ready—are not able—to find a way to deal with what’s in front of them. Sometimes there’s no one to help them. Sometimes they don’t know how to ask for help. Sometimes it feels like there’s no choice but to end it. No other way out. And sometimes it’s impossible to see past that.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“Don't confuse what you want and what you need.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“He kissed me gently. 'Lieutenant Malachi Sokol, reporting for duty, Captain.'
'What?'
'I've been assigned to your field unit,' he whispered as he nuzzled my neck. Oh, man. Heaven. Help. Me. 'I'm afraid I'm already being shockingly insubordinate.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“He absently stroked my hair, winding it around his fingers, smoothing it against my back. I relaxed into him, and he laid his cheek on top of my head. It felt good. Better than good. Normal. Safe. Clean and right and whole... and not at all what I expected when I decided to come to hell.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“...Were you in the military?"
"Are you kidding me? I was in high school."
"High school," he said quietly. "You’re American. And a civilian?"
"Uh, yes. An American civilian."
"Lovely. A straight answer. Keep it up. Did somebody train you?"
"No, nobody trained me. Unless you count the Rhode Island child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Why?"
Malachi held up his hand and ticked off the reasons with his fingers. "You stole a Guard's weapon. If I'm not mistaken, it belonged to a Gate Guard. Which means you managed to do it on your way into the city. You escaped Amid even after he had you in hand. You slashed his leg in just the right place, preventing him from chasing you. Under extreme duress, injured and cornered, you threw a knife and hit a target-"
"It's not like I hit something vital.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“I wanted the chance to give him something, to give him the best of me, as pathetic as it was, damaged and broken, warped at the edges, hardly worth having. I decided that if I had the chance, if he asked, if he needed, it was his.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“You said you needed to see me again, too.'
'Did it help?'
'More than you'll ever know.'
I tightened my arm around his waist, wanting nothing more from the moment than what it was.
That simple moment, touching him, feeling him breathe, his hand stroking my hair—it was all I could have hoped for, all I could have wanted. I was filled up with it, this warm, buzzing feeling in my chest, and it was completely satisfying.
I wondered if it might be what I needed after all.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“Figures. The first time a guy tells me I’m beautiful, I’m in hell and he’s delirious.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“A faint rattling pulled me from sleep, which was a relief because I’d been caught in yet another nightmare. After what Rick, my now-former foster father, had done to me, one would think he’d be the one haunting my dreams. And he had something to do with it—he’d revived me the night I tried to kill myself. In the moments before he had, I was certain I’d been standing at the gates of hell, about to be sucked in. Unfortunately, when Rick revived me, I’d brought a piece of hell back with me. That was what I dreamed about. Every night. A dark, walled city. Wandering, lost, trapped. A voice whispering to me, You’re perfect. Come back.
Stay.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“She looked at me as if she saw something else inside of me—something wonderful, something worth knowing—and she was the only person who could make it come out. She taught me things. She gave me things. Amazing things. A vision of myself, different from what I had been. Better, but still me, you know?”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“I wrapped my arms around his neck, drawing him closer. Oh God, it was so out of control, but in this really sweet, beautiful way. I never thought I'd be allowed to have that feeling. I thought it had been completely beaten out of me, but there it was, untouchable and clean.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“Malachi sighed as he gazed at me. Even from that distance, the heat of his expression blew several circuits in my mind. “Because of the way she looked at me. She should have looked at me with fear. I did some pretty scary things. Most people would agree I am a scary person.”
I stared at him, amazed as he echoed my own words so flawlessly.
“But that’s not how she looked at me. She looked at me as if she saw something else inside me—something wonderful, something worth knowing—and she was the only person who could make it come out. She taught me things. She gave me things. Amazing things. A vision of myself—different from what I had been, better, but still me. I don’t think she really recognized how she was bringing me to life. It came so naturally to her.”
“I don’t know if I did the same for her,” he said quietly. “Since we’re here right now, my guess would be that I didn’t. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change how I feel. I love her, and I would do anything for her.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“The city planners in hell either had very bad taste or a strange sense of humor”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“Most people here can't see it, even when they're right next to the wall. They're so absorbed in their own sadness that they cant' see past the darkness. But you can. You belong out there.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“When you don't have a future, you act different. You don't plan. You don't try. You just... exist”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“I took a moment to stare at all the leather and metal buckles. And now I begin my career as a dominatrix.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“I need you. I need you safe and well and whole. I need you to be okay, because that's the only thing that will keep me from going crazy right now. And I need you to let me look at your hand.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“I said those final words against his lips and swallowed the rest as he kissed me. My mind went blissfully blank as his mouth moved with mine. No pain, no more fear. Just him. Just him and me and an open Countryside, heaven, and all the time in the world.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“I rolled my eyes. Of course. Whatever you wanted to see, but you couldn't see it very well, there were lots of commercials, and it never quite hit the spot. Television in hell”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
“Your friend is convinced she is unlovable, unreachable. Depression can do that to a person. She thinks no one can understand her. She ignores all evidence to the contrary, and it has led her to make some very tragic decisions.”
― Sarah Fine, quote from Sanctum
Sarah Fine
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“She felt like a baton getting passed along in a relay race, completely devoid of any control over her destiny.”
― Gretchen McNeil, quote from Possess
“We all know the elementary form of politeness, that of the empty symbolic gesture, a gesture-an offer-which is meant to be rejected. In John Irving's A Prayer for
Owen Meany, after the little boy Owen accidentally kills John's-his best friend's, the narrator's-mother, he is, of course, terribly upset, so, to show how sorry he is, he discreetly delivers to John a gift of the complete collection of color photos of baseball stars, his most precious possession; however, Dan, John's delicate stepfather, tells him that the proper thing to do is to return the gift. What we have here is symbolic exchange at its purest: a gesture made to be rejected; the point, the "magic" of symbolic exchange, is that, although at the end we are where we were at the beginning, the overall result of the operation is not zero but a distinct gain for both parties, the pact of solidarity. And is not something similar part of our everyday mores? When, after being engaged in a fierce competition for a job promotion with my closest friend, I win, the proper thing to do is to offer to withdraw, so that he will get the promotion, and the proper thing for him to do is to reject my offer-in this way, perhaps, our friendship can be saved....
Milly's offer is the very opposite of such an elementary gesture of politeness: although it also is an offer that is meant to be rejected, what makes hers different from the symbolic empty offer is the cruel alternative it imposes on its addressee: I offer you wealth as the supreme proof of my saintly kindness, but if you accept my offer, you will be marked by an indelible stain of guilt and moral corruption; if you do the right thing and reject it, however, you will also not be simply righteous-your very rejection will function as a retroactive admission of your guilt, so whatever Kate and Densher do, the very choice Milly's bequest confronts them with makes them guilty.”
― Slavoj Žižek, quote from The Parallax View
“the value of work? Have I taught them self-reliance? Have I taught them to take care of each”
― Douglas Preston, quote from The Codex
“Strangely fruitful intercourse this, between one body and another mind”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories
“I just want you to know that I love you with everything I am—a million times a million and to the moon and back.”
― Laura Miller, quote from My Butterfly
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