Home > Work > Smoke (Burned, #2)
1 " Some peopleAre worthy of a bullet straightto the heart because that is wherecruelty evolves into evil.Somehumans aren't human at all,despite how they appear.Humanity is what lives insidepeople,harbored beneath skin, flesh,and bone. "
― Ellen Hopkins , Smoke (Burned, #2)
2 " What's the point of being a hero when everyone thinks you're a villain? "
3 " Right Here.Beside a living, breathing human being who cares for me. I can see it in the cool lagoons of his eyes,hear it in the timbre of his voicewhen he speaks my name.Right here. Where the warmth of his skintempers the February cold andthe thinnest beam of his innerlight overcomes winter's pall. He is a candle in the wilderness.Right here. Where the omnipresent specterof death takes flight, awedby the power of the two of us,hearts beating in unison, as we stumble through the darknesstoward one another. "
4 " Happiness is a bull's-eye, awaiting arrows of pain. "
5 " My grandmother used to say God gives us drought years-years drained of happiness-to prepare us for bounteous times. I'm more than ready for bounty. "
6 " Love is a pain in disguise, a scorpion lying in wait for just the right moment to strike and inject you with its poison before scuttling off into the shadows. "
7 " Home. What does it mean to me? Will I ever know home again? "
8 " adjudicator. "
9 " But if there is a hereafter, one my father has been welcomed into, it must be a godless wasteland. "
10 " I have no right to love you, but I do. "
11 " Can 'love and obey' possibly go together? "
12 " It's one thing to crave a shot of adventure, a taste of something new, and quite another to become immersed in the extraordinary, where you're not quite certain if you're safe or stuck in limbo. "
13 " Some people blunt such pain with dope or booze or a dive into madness, but I don't have such luxuries available to me. "
14 " People aren't meant to carry sorrow alone. And joy? Well, that is something best shared. "