“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.”
“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.”
“I used to think of you as a villain, but you’re not my villain. You’re your own villain.”
“Lust is when you want the person to make you feel good. Love is when you want to make the other person feel good.”
“My obsession. My muse. My enemy. “All”
“Sacrifices were like vices. You made them, gave up something good, in order to get something better.”
“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.”
“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”
“...love and hate are the same feelings experienced under different circumstances. The passion is the same. The pain is the same.”
“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”
“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.”
“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”
“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”
“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.”
“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”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“He’d treated me horribly in the past, but right now…he brought color into my life. Acrylic?”
“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.”
“I want you,” he said simply. “Just you. Nothing else. Only ever you,” he breathed out in pain, closing his eyes.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The wise person knows it is fruitless to project hopes and fears on the future. This only leads to forming melodramatic representations in your mind and wasting time.”
“Then what in your opinion is a good story?'
'What it's always been, monkey,' Ganesha said. 'One dhansu conflict. Some chaka-chak song and dance. Grief. Love. Love for the lover, love for the mother. Love for the land. Comedy. Terror. One tremendous villain whom we must love also. All the elements properly balanced and mixed together, item after item, like a perfect meal with a dance of tastes. There you have it.”
“The higher Christian churches--where, if anywhere, I belong--come at God with an unwarranted air of professionalism, with authority and pomp, as though they knew what they were doing, as though people in themselves were an appropriate set of creatures to have dealings with God. I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed. In the high churches they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a strand of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect in any minute. This is the beginning of wisdom.”
“The worst experience can bring out a person's deepest strength.”
“It has been the one song of those who thirst after absolute power that the interest of the state requires that its affairs should be conducted in secret... But the more such arguments disguise themselves under the mask of public welfare, the more oppressive is the slavery to which they will lead... Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.”
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