A last, despairing thought shot through Aliya’s mind, Is this it? I don’t want to die! I want to live! Then everything went dark.

Children should not repeat their parents’ mistakes, especially if their parents are around to warn them.

All of a sudden, thoughts of the past flitted through Lily’s mind and scratched at her heart.

Lily held onto the edge of her desk to keep herself from screaming. She breathed in and breathed out.You’re a surgeon. A surgeon never panics during an operation.

Beauty is skin-deep, young man.

Time doesn’t really heal all wounds. It just creates a layer of years over something that still pulses and bleeds. When someone cuts a piece out of your heart, it never heals.

You can’t keep her down, and you won’t get away with it.

There were just four things a woman could be (five at most): daughter, wife, mother, widow, and slut. That was it. There were no other roles for them—no free and independent women, no feminism, no selfsufficiency. If you didn’t like it, you could be branded a witch and executed.

These people don’t even realize how tied down they are by thinking of themselves as either lords or peasants.