“I loved her when I hated her. And I loved her when I didn’t want anything to do with her. I was so crazy about her, the lines had blurred together. Feelings were mixed, emotions twisted together.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“We’ve waited a long time for this. I want the real thing. Not the watered-down version. And the real thing is not only beautiful. It is also ugly. I want your truth.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“I used to think of you as a villain, but you’re not my villain. You’re your own villain.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“Lust is when you want the person to make you feel good. Love is when you want to make the other person feel good.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“My obsession. My muse. My enemy. “All”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“Sacrifices were like vices. You made them, gave up something good, in order to get something better.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“I wanted to dissolve into smoke, to crawl into him and never leave. It was crazy, but that was how much I craved this man.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“Ask me what I want,” Vicious murmured into my face. The public display of affection from him—not sexual, not bullying, but pure, naked affection—filled my chest with warmth, but I tried to swallow down my hope. “What do you want?” I turned my gaze to meet his, and suddenly, we weren’t in New York, in a gallery full of people. We were in my old room. Ignoring the party and the world around us, a world that we constantly disregarded when we were together. “I want you,” he said simply. “Just you. Nothing else. Only ever you,” he breathed out in pain, closing his eyes. “Fuck, Emilia. You.” I”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“...love and hate are the same feelings experienced under different circumstances. The passion is the same. The pain is the same.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“I want you,” he said simply. “Just you. Nothing else. Only ever you,” he breathed out in pain, closing his eyes. “Fuck, Emilia. You.” I”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“I just want you as you are. Broken. Misunderstood. Jerk. I want the real version, the dark version, the one who made me the saddest I’ve ever been in my life, but also the happiest.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“The push and pull was back. She could push all she wanted, but she was going to be pulled back to where she belonged. My arms. I”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“It was a receipt for my painting. My heart stuttered. He squeezed my hand in his and smiled. “It’s gonna look so fucking epic in my bedroom, don’t you think? I could fuck you and stare at myself as I do it. That’s some Napoleon shit right there.” It”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“Accepting the face that you loved someone was much harder than falling for that person. It took time. And courage. But when I finally took that time, found that courage, when I finally let my guard down, I'd discovered something spectacular.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“He was toxic, poison, and he was going to kill everything beautiful in my life if I let him. He was the storm to my cherry blossoms. This”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“Apologize for not being mine when you should’ve been. Because Emilia, baby...” I tilted my head sideways. “It was always fucking us and you know it.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“Because moments like these reminded me that my life was hard, but not bad. There was a difference between the two. A hard life equaled a life full of obstacles and challenging moments but also full of people you loved and cared about. A bad life equaled an empty life. One that wasn’t necessarily hard or challenging but was devoid of the people you loved and cared about.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“For a fraction of a second, we were together, and it had felt divine. Not nice. Not safe. Not taken for granted. It was short and beautiful and painfully memorable. Like the tree I was obsessed with.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“And if I want to hurt the person, is that hate? - Black
No, it's pain. You want to inflict pain on the person who caused you to hurt. I think if you hate someone, you just want them gone. - Pink”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“I’m just not sure how you can be both nice and compassionate and a terrible asshole all at the same time,” I muttered. He smiled. “It’s a hard job, but someone’s gotta do it.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“In all likelihood, I was going to be in charge of his entire business empire soon. I would hold the purse strings, and Jo was worried that my main vice—vindictiveness—would mean she was going to lose her cushy lifestyle. For once in her miserable life, she was right.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“I want the real thing. Not the watered-down version. And the real thing is not only beautiful. It is also ugly. I want your truth.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“He’d treated me horribly in the past, but right now…he brought color into my life. Acrylic?”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“In Japanese culture, the significance of the cherry blossom tree dates back hundreds of years. The cherry blossom represents the fragility and magnificence of life. It’s a reminder of how beautiful life is, almost overwhelmingly so, but that it is also heartbreakingly short.
As are relationships.
Be wise. Let your heart lead the way. And when you find someone who’s worth it—never let them go.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“I want you,” he said simply. “Just you. Nothing else. Only ever you,” he breathed out in pain, closing his eyes.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“I changed my mind about babies,” Emilia said through the chatter, leaning into me. “Maybe not right now or in a few years, but down the road, I want it. I think I really want it. What do you say?”
I smirked. Emilia LeBlanc of Richmond, Virginia was asking me to put a baby in her.
Then I shrugged and leaned back into her. “Don’t worry. I won’t stop trying to impregnate you, even after you get pregnant.”
She laughed. “Deal?” I asked. “Deal.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
“Grandmama said that the cherry blossom was life. Sweet and beautiful, but so darn short. Too short not to do what you wanna do. Too short to not spend it with the people…you love.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Vicious
L.J. Shen
Born place: in San Francisco, The United States
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“Some men carry torches for old loves, and then some guys—not many, but some—get completely consumed by the torch’s flames. It makes them nothing but long-term trouble for the follow-ups.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Six Years
“Margery," I blurted out in a passion of frustration. "I don't know what to make of you!"
Nor I you, Mary. Frankly, I cannot begin to comprehend the motives of a person who dedicates a large portion of her life to the contemplation of a God in whom she only marginally believes."
I felt stunned, as if she had struck me in the diaphragm. She looked down at me, trying to measure the effect of her words.
Mary, you believe in the power that the idea of God has on the human mind. You believe in the way human beings talk about the unknowable, reach for the unattainable, pattern their imperfect lives and offer their paltry best up to the beingless being that created the universe and powers its continuation. What you balk as it believing the evidence of your eyes, that God can reach out and touch a single human life in a concrete way." She smiled a sad, sad smile. "You mustn't be so cold, Mary. If you are, all you will see is a cold God, cold friends, cold love. God is not cold-never cold. God sears with heat, not ice, the heat of a thousand suns, heat that inflames but does not consume. You need warmth, Mary-you, Mary, need it. You fear it, you flirt with it, you imagine that you can stand in its rays and retain your cold intellectual attitude towards it. You imagine that you can love with your brain. Mary, oh my dear Mary, you sit in the hall and listen to me like some wild beast staring at a campfire, unable to leave, fearful of losing your freedom if you come any closer. It won't consume you; I won't capture you. Love does not do either. It only brings life. Please, Mary, don't let yourself be tied up by the bonds of cold academia."
Her words, the power of her conviction, broke over me like a great wave, inundating me, robbing me of breath, and, as they receded in the room, they pulled hard at me to folllow. I struggled to keep my footing against the wash of Margery's vision, and only when it began to lose its strength, dissipated against the silence in the room, was I seized by a sudden terror at the nearness of my escape.”
― Laurie R. King, quote from A Monstrous Regiment of Women
“This phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole has a name. It's called closure.
In our daily lives, we often commit closure, mentally completing that which is incomplete based on past experience.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“Standing among all those tiny, wavering lights, I felt as though I were God, up to my knees in the Milky Way.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
“Cruz made the sign of the cross over them. He hefted his rifle onto his shoulder and walked away. His warriors followed, blessed by the Lord, reconciled, holy in this day He had made, and ready to shoot.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, quote from The Hummingbird's Daughter
The Outsider
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