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21 " But the truth is, death is everywhere. Death comes for the roses and the apples, it comes for the mice and the birds. It comes for us all. Why should death stop us from living? "
― V.E. Schwab , Gallant
22 " After all, you can choose a thing after it’s chosen you. "
23 " And dreams can never hurt you. That’s what her mother said. Of course, she knows now it isn’t true. Dreams can make you hurt yourself, dreams can make you do so many things, if you’re not careful. "
24 " Olivia Prior has never been a quiet girl. She has always made a point of making noise, everywhere she goes, in part to remind people that just because she cannot speak, does not mean that she is silent, and in part because she simply likes the weight of sound, likes the way it takes up space. "
25 " She has declared it a reading day, she says. Nothing else to do when the weather turns. "
26 " They are strange, even beautiful, organic things that shift & curl beyond the page, slowly resolving into shapes. "
27 " People tend to talk to Olivia, or rather, at her, some uneasy with the silence, others treating it as an invitation. "
28 " Everything casts a shadow," he begins. "Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source. "
29 " As if love is all they need. As if they have been placed under a curse and only love will set them free. She does not see the point in that: love did not save her father from illness and death. It did not save her mother from madness and loss. The girls say love, but what they really mean is want. "
30 " It does not matter what you want—the only way out is to be wanted by someone else. "
31 " It was never this quiet when you were here. Isn’t that funny? How much sound a body makes. I hate the silence, hate the fact that I’m the only one making noise. I make so much of it, as if I can trick myself into thinking you’re here, just out of sight. "
32 " How to exist in a world that does not want you. How to be a ghost in someone else’s home. "
33 " Home is a choice.""It does not matter what you want - the one way out is to be wanted by someone else. "
34 " But it is a heavy kind of silence, the one people use when they know the answer to something but can’t decide if they should tell it. "
35 " When people see tears, they stop listening to your hands or your words or anything else you have to say. And it doesn’t matter if the tears are angry or sad, frightened or frustrated. All they see is a girl crying. "
36 " Some people are repelled by darkness. Others are drawn to it, to the static crackle of power in a place. To the hum of magic, or the presence of the dead. They can see these forces staining the world like ink in water. "
37 " She has never had her own room, has always wondered how it would feel to have a space entirely hers, a door that she could close. "
38 " They are only dreams, she tells herself, every time she wakes. And dreams can never hurt you. That’s what her mother said. Of course, she knows now it isn’t true. Dreams can make you hurt yourself, dreams can make you do so many things, if you’re not careful. "
39 " Home is a choice. Those four words sit alone on a page in her mother’s book, surrounded by so much white space they feel like a riddle. In truth, everything her mother wrote feels like a riddle, waiting to be solved. "
40 " That is the trick with the ghouls. They want you to look, but they can’t stand being seen. "