Destroying what someone else cherished never brought back what you yourself had lost. All it did was spread grief like a contagion. Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun.

(. ) she had witnessed a woman full of raw potential. Someone powerful who looked at her and looked at her, as if Malini—sick, unkempt, her curls in a snarl and her mind liquid—had the sun inside her. Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne.

She was always good at the hard math. Death and nothing out of it, or life and the chance to better the Sands' lots. That wasn't even a question. C. L. Clark, The Unbroken.

He kneeled and lowered his head. Touched his fingertips to the ground before her feet. He kneeled as a man kneels before a king. An emperor. Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne.

It made Luca wonder what new boundaries people would have to make in the future—how they would call themselves, what else they would find to separate themselves from each other. Humans tended to do that. C. L. Clark, The Unbroken.

But you know what's worse than suffering? Not suffering, because you're not even alive to feel it. Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun.

He kneeled and lowered his head. Touched his fingertips to the ground before her feet. He kneeled as a man kneels before a king. An emperor. Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne.

"All those years of yearning, and you finally get Esen kneeling for you. Did it feel good?". Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun.

The princess leaned against the door, and when Touraine was dressed in the vest and trousers, she made an appreciative sound in her throat and smirked. "It's a crime to keep those arms of yours hidden away in an army coat.". C. L. Clark, The Unbroken.

The moment I saw you, I felt a tug. You are the feeling of falling, the tidal waters, the way a living thing will always turn, seeking light. Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne.

He kneeled and lowered his head. Touched his fingertips to the ground before her feet. He kneeled as a man kneels before a king. An emperor. Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne.

This must be what it's like to stand at the edge of a cliff and decide to jump. From here on, it would be the rush of air, the speeding inevitability coming toward her, water or rocks—eventually she would make contact. C. L. Clark, The Unbroken.

All of Ouyang's life he had believed he was suffering, but in that instant he knew the truth that every past moment had been a candle flame compared to this blaze of pain. Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun.

She'd never considered herself lost before, but every day since she'd stepped into this sky-falling city, the path she'd expected to walk crumbled beneath her boots. C. L. Clark, The Unbroken.

There was no void in her any longer. Whatever she was—weapon, monster, cursed or gifted—she was whole. Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne.

I want to be free. How little Luca knew her, for those words to be such a surprise. C. L. Clark, The Unbroken.

The way of priests was isolation and meditation—a surrender to fate. The opposite of kingship, where a man inevitably held the fate of swathes of people in his grasp. Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne.

But you know what's worse than suffering? Not suffering, because you're not even alive to feel it. Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun.

There were moments that defined empires, that determined how a reign would be remembered. Luca would look back on this day, years later, and know that this was one such moment. C. L. Clark, The Unbroken.

Cheminade was kind, sure. But she was Balladairan. She didn't understand the lines a Sand had to dance between. C. L. Clark, The Unbroken.