“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
“What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether. They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.”
― N.T. Wright, quote from Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
“From the first note I knew it was different from anything I had ever heard.... It began simply, but with an arresting phrase, so simple, but eloquent as a human voice. It spoke, beckoning gently as it unwound, rising and tensing. It spiraled upward, the tension growing with each repeat of the phrasing, and yet somehow it grew more abandoned, wilder with each note. His eyes remained closed as his fingers flew over the strings, spilling forth surely more notes than were possible from a single violin. For one mad moment I actually thought there were more of them, an entire orchestra of violins spilling out of this one instrument. I had never heard anything like it--it was poetry and seduction and light and shadow and every other contradiction I could think of. It seemed impossible to breathe while listening to that music, and yet all I was doing was breathing, quite heavily. The music itself had become as palpable a presence in that room as another person would have been--and its presence was something out of myth.”
― Deanna Raybourn, quote from Silent in the Grave
“Samantha thought he looked very tired and more than a little grim, and even the simmering anger she felt toward him couldn't stop her from appreciating the courtesy.
He was most always courteous, Luke.
Damn him.”
― Kay Hooper, quote from Hunting Fear
“Не знаеше, знаеше само, че Марсел се нуждае от нея, а тя се нуждае от неговата нужда, че с нея живее денем и нощем, особено нощем, когато той не искаше да бъде сам, да остарява и да умира, и на лицето му се появяваше заинатеното изражение, което понякога разпознаваше и върху други мъжки лица - единственото общо наглед у тези луди, прикриващи се под маската на разума, докато не ги сграбчи изстъплението и не ги захвърли към някое женско тяло, за да заровят отчаяно и без желание в него уплахата си от самотата и нощта.”
― Albert Camus, quote from Exile and the Kingdom
“She liked a very particular kind of plot: the sort where the pirate kidnaps some virgin damsel, rapes her into loving him, and then dispatches lots of seamen while she polishes his cutlass. Or where the Highland clan leader kidnaps some virginal English Rose, rapes her into loving him, and then kills entire armies Sassenachs while she stuffs his haggis. Or where the Native American warrior kidnaps a virginal white settler, rapes her into loving him, and then kills a bunch of colonists while she whets his tomahawk. I hated to get Freudian on Linda, but her reading patterns suggested some interesting insight into why she is such a bitch.”
― Nicole Peeler, quote from Tempest Rising
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