130 Quotes by Brenna Yovanoff

In his youth, he was electrified. The stars were moving in his bloodstream. He would not have been cowed by the customs of an earthly monarch. When he loved, it was with a heat and a desperation that he carried like a sword. He loved in the way that Greeks burned cities.

I had only to remember that centuries before, men fell in battle for the daughter of Troy, that passions carried greater weight than decorum. It took so little to prove that human life and property are devastatingly temporary. All she had to do was lie down for a prince. They burned the city to the ground.

The moon is full, and even the stars are scared of me.

Did you ever think about boys?' I say, staring up into the dark. 'There wasn't room,' she whispers, and her voice is unbelievably sad. 'At first, after Connor, I was just waiting. I was going to get a new boyfriend soon- as soon as I was prettier or better, more perfect. But after a while there was no room for anything else. If I though about kissing or sex, I just started feeling ugly, too awful for anything good.

The new mythology of love was that it bent to the fashion of the day, obligated to take the shape of doves, lilies, jewels. This is a lie. Love is sometimes as passionate as war.

Because I was conceived and born and I grew up. I'm breathing and my heart is beating and as much as it hurts ― as much searing, monumental pain it causes me ― I have to exist.

I'm not about love, but in this moment, I wish that I were.

He smiles an honest smile for the first time, and the difference is hard to describe but easy to recognize.

Running is like music. It requires rhythm and focus. It requires dedication. It requires a dogged ability to shut out everything else. The herd is strung out below me, keeping time with the thump and slap of their cross-trainers. I hold the sound in my head and subtract cars, trucks, motorcycles, voices until it’s nothing but a song.