According to Dickens, the first rule of human nature is self-preservation and when I forgive him for writing a character as pathetic as Oliver Twist, I’ll thank him for the advice.
Love’s easy. It kind of comes with the territory. But liking is another story.
She knows that feeling too. Of believing that each time someone says her name, it’s to tell her that something bad has happened.
They always prided themselves on looking youthful. “Forty’s the new thirty,” they’d joke. Until heartbreak and grief enter your life, and then forty’s the new one hundred.
Tom always did anger well. Hid it well, but showed it even better.
She misses him more now than when he was away.
But grieving people are selfish. They won’t let you comfort them and they say you don’t understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you’ve been functional to them.
Silence is not just about secrecy, Your Majesty. It is grief and it is shame.
You know what? You didn’t do anything wrong. I did. It’s this dumb thing I do. I look into things and see more than I’m supposed to.
Because being so dependent on people scares me.
Unexpectedly, a fierce sense of protectiveness comes over me. Except I fight it back because I can hardly look after myself these days.
That someone can want something out of another person who gives absolutely nothing in return astounds me.
A home to come back to every day of their lives. Where they would all belong or long to be. A place on the Jellicoe Road.
If there was one weapon he had against these savages, it was not acknowledging their existence.
One of Sir Topher’s rules was to never indulge in sentimentality, never return for what was left behind.
It’s against the rules of humanity to believe there is nothing we can do.
This isn’t romance. This isn’t a declaration of love or affirmation of friendship. This is something more.
Mama says that satisfaction isn’t what I should search for. Respect is. Respect? I detest that word. Probably because in this world you have to respect the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?
Simple dreams are the hardest to come true.
I do not believe that the desires of young boys cause catastrophic events. The actions of humans do.