“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
See more on GoodReads
“There is something in the eyes of a bonobo that you don’t see in those of a tiger or a shark. They are human eyes, but not the cautious glimpse of a stranger you pass on a city street, or the pretended interest of a shrink you’re paying $300 an hour. Or someone you think you recognize but don’t. The eyes of a bonobo are the eyes of your best friend or a lover or a priest. They see into you. They see nothing else. They invite confession.”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
“As long as he is around, I don't fit into your life." - Nathan”
― Markelle Grabo, quote from The Spell Master
“It's the way we deal with what Fate hands us that defines who we are.”
― Lisa Graff, quote from A Tangle of Knots
“Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.”
― M. Scott Peck, quote from The Road Less Travelled
“Land and sea.
We may think of them as opposites; as complements. But there is a difference in how we think of them; the sea, and the land.
If we are walking around in a forest, a meadow or a town, we see our surroundings as being made up of individual elements. There are many different kinds of trees in varying sizes, those buildings, these streets. The meadow, the flowers, the bushes. Our gaze lingers on details, and if we are standing in a forest in the autumn, we become tongue-tied if we try to describe the richness around us. All this exists on land.
But the sea. The sea is something completely different. The sea is one.
We may note the shifting moods of the sea. What the sea looks like when the wind is blowing, how the sea plays with the light, how it rises and falls. But still it is always the sea we are talking about. We have given different parts of the sea different names for navigation and identification, but if we are standing before the sea, there is only one whole. The Sea.
If we are taken so far out in a small boat that no land is visible in any direction, we may catch sight of the sea. It is not a pleasant experience. The sea is a god, an unseeing, unhearing deity that does not even know we exist. We mean less than a grain of sand on an elephant's back, and if the sea wants us, it will take us. That's just the way it is. The sea knows no limits, makes no concessions. It has given us everything and it can take everything away from us.
To other gods we send our prayer: Protect us from the sea.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbour
The Buried Giant
Year Zero
Fiance by Fate
The Vanishing Girl
Diaries of Franz Kaf...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
