Elena Knows Quotes

We never know the quality of someone else's life, though we seldom resist the temptation to assume and pass judgement.

You're talking!" "I know I am." "And making sense!" "Thank you kindly." "And in sentences!" "I've noticed." - Stefan and Elena

The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.

Children don’t know the meaning of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night.

You want a love that consumes you. You want passion and adventure, and even a little danger... I want you to get everything you're looking for. But for right now, I want you to forget that this happened. Can't have people knowing I'm in town yet. Goodnight, Elena.

Everything in the world was in precarious balance, pure risk, and those who didn’t agree to take the risk wasted away in a corner, without getting to know life.

There are people who leave and people who know how to be left.

Because when I finally take those lips in mine, it will be the furthest thing from pretending. I will not be showing you what it would be like if you were mine. I’ll show you what it is. And I sure as hell won’t be showing how good I could make you feel if you called me yours. You’ll already know that I am.

You always were selfish. Your one fault. Not willing to share anything, are you?" Suddenly, Damon's lips curved up in a singularly beautiful smile. But fortunately the lovely Elena is more generous. Didn't she tell you about our little liaisons? Why? The first time we met she almost gave herself to me on the spot." "That's a lie!" "Oh, no, dear brother, I never lie about anything important. Or do I mean unimportant? Anyway, your beauteous damsel nearly swooned into my arms. I think she likes men in black." As Stefan stared at him, trying to control his breathing, Damon added, almost gently, "You're wrong about her, you know, You think she's sweet and docile like Katherine. She isn't. She's not your type at all, my saintly brother. She has a spirit and a fire in her that you wouldn't know what to do with." "And you would, I suppose." Damon uncrossed his arms and slowly smiled again. "Oh, yes.

Venom’s pupils contracted the instant before he slid his sunglasses back on. She couldn’t help it. “Why isn’t your tongue forked?” “Why can’t you fly?” A smirk. “Those things on your back aren’t accessories you know.

There was something unbearable in the things, in the people, in the buildings, in the streets that, only if you reinvented it all, as in a game, became acceptable. The essential, however, was to know how to play, and she and I, only she and I, knew how to do it.

Even as she spoke, silver blue flashed on her other side and then Illium was standing beside her, his wing touching Elena's in an intimacy that made Raphael raise an eyebrow. Illium's lips curved in a wicked smile that did little to hide the intensity of his emotions. I would not watch you die again, Sire. His veins stood out against his skin as he gripped the wrist of one hand with the other. Raphael met those eyes of gold that had stood beside him for centuries. If I had done so, I would have gone knowing you would keep my heart safe. Illium's gaze went to Elena. Always.

Yes, I can talk and think at the same time. Most people can, though I suppose you wouldn't know that from personal experience. Elena (Bitten)

You know why I don’t leave,” he said again to Damon, who wouldn’t look at him. “You can pretend you don’t care. You can fool the whole world. But I know differently.” It would have been kindest at this point to leave Damon alone, but Stefan wasn’t in a kind mood. “You know that girl you picked up, Rachael?” he added. “The hair was all right, but her eyes were the wrong color. Elena’s eyes were blue.

What they had was the real stuff. Honest, devoted, palpable love. The one that transcended distance, differences, and obstacles. The kind that was meant to be written about in books. Thinking of it filled my chest with warmth and longing for something I didn’t know I’d ever be able to find.

I called. Why wasn't anyone here?"- Elena We were here." Clay said. "Around, anyway. You should have left a message." I did. Two hours ago." - Elena Well that explains it. I've been out, by the gate all day, waiting for you, and you know Jer never checks the machine."- Clayton I didn't know how Clay had known I was coming back today when I hadn't left a message. Nor did I question why he'd spent the entire day waiting at the gate. Clay's behavior couldn't be measured by human standard's of normalcy... or by any standards of normalcy at all. Bitten

Damon: I wanted to apologize. Elena: Good. Damon: Let me finish. I said I wanted to. And then I realized, I’m not sorry. Elena: You would rather die than be human, and you expect me to be okay with that? Damon: I didn’t say you were supposed to be okay with it, I just said I’m not sorry. But you know what I really am? Selfish, because I make bad choices that hurt you. Yes, I would rather have died than be human. I’d rather die right now than spend a handful of years with you, only to lose you when I’m too old and sick and miserable and you’re still you. I’d rather die right now than spend my last final years remembering how good I had it and how happy I was, because that’s who I am, Elena, and I’m not gonna change. And there’s no apology in the world that encompasses all the reasons that I’m wrong for you. Elena: Fine, then I’m not sorry either. I’m not sorry that I met you. I’m not sorry that knowing you has made me question everything, that in death you’re the one that made me feel most alive. You’ve been a terrible person, you’ve made all the wrong choices, and of all the choices that I’ve made this will prove to be the worst one. But I am not sorry that I’m in love with you. I love you, Damon. I love you.

Everything is interesting if you know how to work on it.

Males always have something pathetic about them, at every age. A fragile arrogance, a frightened audacity. I no longer know, today, if they ever aroused in me love or only an affectionate sympathy for their weaknesses.

Do you know where Jason is?” she asked Dmitri when they exited the morgue. Dmitri pressed the car remote to unlock the flame red Ferrari parked in the employees-only lot. “Tired of your Bluebell already?” A tendril of champagne circled around her senses, cut with something far harder. Never had she felt that harsh edge in Dmitri’s scent. She pitied the woman he took to his bed today. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m building a harem.

I know, baby. Everything will always be okay, no matter what. You know why?” “Why?” “Because it’s you and me.

I thought of beauty as of a constant effort to eliminate corporeality. I wanted him to love my body forgetful of what one knows of bodies. Beauty, I thought anxiously, is this forgetfulness.

She was still looking down and she saw tears spill from her eyes and fall toward Damon’s outstretched arms. Elena didn’t know why she was crying, but part of it was sorrow for her ever having doubted him. Because Damon wasn’t just on her side. Unless she was wrong, he was willing to die for her - was courting death for her.

She meant something different: she wanted to vanish; she wanted every one of her cells to disappear, nothing of her ever to be found. And since I know her well, or at least I think I know her, I take it for granted that she has found a way to disappear, to leave not so much as a hair anywhere in this world.

Go out and ask her into the alley.” Clay looked at Jeremy as if he’d just been told to dance the rumba on a public thoroughfare. I bit back a laugh. “Just walk over to her and point at the alley. Maybe say…I don’t know…something like ‘fifty bucks.’ ” I looked at Jeremy. “Does that sound right? Fifty?” His brows shot up. “Why are you asking me?” “I wasn’t—I just meant, as a general…” I threw up my hands. “How am I supposed to know how much a hooker costs?

I would write, Dear Diary, Today I convinced myself it's ok to give up. Stick with the status quo, now just isn't the time. But my reasons aren't reasons, they're excuses and the truth is, I'm scared Stefan. I'm scared that if I let myself be happy for one minute, that the my world's going to come crashing down and I don't know if I'll be able to survive that.

I said to myself that maturity consisted in accepting the turn that existence had taken without getting too upset, following a path between daily practices and theoretical achievements, learning to see oneself, know oneself, in expectation of great changes.

I've waited enough. I've waited a lifetime without me knowing. So why don't you open this door and let me show you?

Jeremy had a plan for getting Clay back and I wasn't allowed to know anything about it or allowed to help him carry it out. As one might expect, I accepted this news with grace and understanding. "That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard!" I snarled for the dozenth time that hour. "I won't just sit here and do nothing.

Arms wrapped around his neck, she kissed his temple. "I'm sorry I scared you." It wasn't the done thing for an archangel to admit fear, but he was hers, and she'd hurt him without meaning to; it was up to her to fix her mistake. His wings shifted, but he didn't extricate their bodies. "I didn't know fear until you, Elena. Use the power wisely.

May I point out something? You always use true and truthfully, when you speak and when you write. Or you say: unexpectedly. But when do people ever speak truthfully and when do things ever happen unexpectedly? You know better than I that it’s all a fraud and that one thing follows another and then another. I don’t do anything truthfully anymore, Lenù. And I’ve learned to pay attention to things. Only idiots believe that they happen unexpectedly.

A memory for details, Elena knows, is only for the brave, and being cowardly or brave is not something one can choose.

We don't know anything about people, even those with whom we share everything.

Adults, waiting for tomorrow, move in a present behind which is yesterday or the day before yesterday or at most last week: they don't want to think about the rest. Children don't know the meaning of yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night.

I'm sorry Elena. I know that you want to help, but put yourself in her shoes, everything that happened tonight was to save you and that's OK because she loves you so much. But somehow she's always the one who gets hurt.

you only know something once you’ve experienced it in your life, life is our greatest test.

You could be different,” Elena said quietly. “You could be great. Greater than me—than any of us.” Celaena opened her mouth, but no words came out. Elena took a step toward her. “You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything, if you only dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.” She

One, he used to be Pack so he knows how dangerous this kind of killing on our territory is, that we can’tand won’tleave town. Two, he hates Clay. Three, he hates Jeremy. Four, he hates all of uswith the exception of our dear Elena, who, conveniently, wasn’t at Stonehaven to be affected by the mess, which I’m sure Daniel knew. Five, he really hates Clay. Sixoh, wait, other handsix, he’s a murderous cannibalizing bastard. Seven, did I mention he chose to strike when Elena wasn’t around? Eight, if he caused enough havoc, Elena might be in the market for a new partner. Nine, he really, really, REALLY hates Clay. Ten, he’s sworn undying revenge against the entire Pack, particularly those two members who happen to be currently living at Stonehaven. I’m out of fingers here, buddy. How many more reasons do you need?

It was a mug. And it had a joke printed on it. It said, Engineers don’t cry. They build bridges and get over it.” Someone laughed then. Isabel or perhaps Gonzalo—I wasn’t sure. With all that crazy banging, my heart had somehow moved up my throat and to my temples, so it was hard to focus on anything besides its beating and Aaron’s voice. “And you know what I did?” he continued, bitterness filling his tone. “Instead of laughing like I wanted to, instead of looking up at her and saying something funny that would hopefully make her give me one of those bright smiles I had somehow already seen her give so freely in the short day I had been around her, I pushed it all down and set the mug on my desk. Then, I thanked her and asked her if there was anything else she needed.” I knew I shouldn’t feel embarrassed, but I was. Just as much as I had been back then, if not more. It had been such a silly thing to do, and I had felt so tiny and dumb after he brushed it away so easily. Closing my eyes, I heard him continue, “I pretty much kicked her out of my office after she went out of her way and got me a gift.” Aaron’s voice got low and harsh. “A fucking welcome gift.” I opened my eyes just in time to watch him turn his head in my direction. Our gazes met. “Just like the big jerk I had advertised myself to be, I ran her out. And to this day, I regret it every time it crosses my mind. Every time I look at her.

And if I am interested in someone, I make myself heard. I will find a way for her to know. Sooner or later, she’ll know.” Aaron didn’t look at me, not once. He just spoke with his gaze on the road ahead of us.

Naasir stretched lazily before settling back into his previous position. “I’m old enough now, and I want someone to play with like you play with Janvier and Raphael does with Elena. Even Dmitri plays with Honor.” This seemed to fascinate him. “The rules are secret in each game. I want to have secret rules with a woman who . . .” A long pause. “A woman who knows me, understands what I am, and who wants to have secret rules with me.

That was very bad of you, Elena, Raphael said once they were in the air. You know the coming sun shower will pass in but a moment. I also know Tasha McHotpants is regretting she didn’t scoop you up when you were young and single. Altering her mental tone, she said, Oh, Raphael, what luck I caught you. And me dressed up like a warrior with a sword and everything. She snorted. Luck my ass.

Catalina.” There it was again. Not Lina. Catalina. “I’m glad I didn’t kiss you.” Something halted in my chest. “Why?” The word was nothing more than a shaky whisper. “Because when I finally take those lips in mine, it will be the furthest thing from pretending. I will not be showing you what it would be like if you were mine. I’ll show you what it is. And I sure as hell won’t be showing how good I could make you feel if you called me yours. You’ll already know that I am.” He paused, and I swore I could see the restraint in his posture. As if he was stopping himself from pouncing and returning us to our former position, right against the hard surface of the wardrobe door. “When I finally kiss you, there won’t be any doubt in your mind that it is real.

You know how children are, sometimes they love you by cuddling you, other times by trying to remake you from the start, reinvent you, as if they thought you were badly brought up and they had to teach you how to get on in the world, what music to listen to, what books to read, what films to see, the words you should use and those you shouldn’t because they’re old now, no one says that anymore.

People confuse thinking with knowing, they let themselves confuse the two.

For her whole life she would sacrifice to him every quality of her own, and he wouldn't even be aware of the sacrifice, he would be surrounded by the wealth of feeling, intelligence, imagination that were hers, without knowing what to do with them, he would ruin them.

Thus she returned to the theme of ‘before,’ but in a different way than she had at first. She said that we didn’t know anything, either as children or now, that we were therefore not in a position to understand anything, that everything in the neighborhood, every stone or piece of wood, everything, anything you could name, was already there before us, but we had grown up without realizing it, without ever even thinking about it. Not just us. Her father pretended that there had been nothing before. Her mother did the same, my mother, my father, even Rino… <…> They didn’t know anything, they wouldn’t talk about anything. Not Fascism, not the king. No injustice, no oppression, no exploitation … And they thought that what had happened before was past and, in order to live quietly, they placed a stone on top of it, and so, without knowing it, they continued it, they were immersed in the things of before, and we kept them inside us, too.

I’ll give you treasure chests full of gold pieces, I know the value of spending time with you.” I

life will test us. For real, not a dress rehearsal. And on that day we will finally realise that we are all alone, forced to face ourselves, with no lies left to cling to.

Ellie, my darling, please explain to me why the office has been flooded with calls about, and I quote"--she crooked her fingers in the air--"a vicious vampire on the loose, a crazy knife-wielding maniac, and oh, this one's my favorite--an assassin carrying a gun!" "I can explain." Sara folded her arms and tapped one fashionably clad foot. "Explain why you flashed not only a knife but a gun? I hope to God you didn't actually use either of them without authoriation because if the VPA gets ahold of it, we're screwed." Elena rubbed the back of her neck. "Exigent circumstances. He was trying to make me his bed buddy. I declined. He gave chase." Ranson chocked back what sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "Why did you say no? It's been a dry spell of what, forever?" She threw him a dirty look before returning her gaze to Sara. "You know I'd never have considered using the gun otherwise." Sara heldup a hand. "How, exactly, did you 'decline' his offer?" "By slitting his throat.

His soul,' she would say, 'picked mine up and we flew.' And to those who gave her a disbelieving look, she would insist. 'Have you never touched someone and felt them? Felt what was inside of their body?' Only a few would know what she was talking about.

And I know that even if something did break you—because that’s life and no one is invincible—you’d still put the pieces back together and remain the brightest thing I’d ever seen.

Is it true that you don’t love me anymore?” “Yes.” “Why? Because I lied to you? Because I left you? Because I humiliated you?” “No. Just when I felt deceived, abandoned, humiliated, I loved you very much, I wanted you more than in any other moment of our life together.” “And then?” “I don’t love you anymore because, to justify yourself, you said that you had fallen into a void, an absence of sense, and it wasn’t true.” “It was.” “No. Now I know what an absence of sense is and what happens if you manage to get back to the surface from it. You, you don’t know. At most you glanced down, you got frightened, and you plugged up the hole with Carla’s body.

I think I’m falling in love with you.” The words leave my lips in the faintest whisper. He keeps quiet for a solid minute. I second-guess myself, but he squeezes me tighter into him. “Elena?” “Mm.” I copy him. “I already know I am.

I concluded that first of all I had to understand better what I was. Investigate my nature as a woman. I had been excessive, I had striven to give myself male capacities. I thought I had to know everything, be concerned with everything. What did I care about politics, about struggles. I wanted to make a good impression on men, be at their level. At the level of what, of their reason, most unreasonable.

Damon spoke without moving. “I’m not like you.” “You’re not as different from us as you want to think,” Matt said. “Look,” he added, an odd note of challenge in his voice, “I know you killed Mr. Tanner in self-defense, because you told me. And I know you didn’t come here to Fell’s Church because Bonnie’s spell dragged you here, because I sorted the hair and I didn’t make any mistakes. You’re more like us than you admit, Damon. The only thing I don’t know is why you didn’t go into Vickie’s house to help her.” Damon snapped, almost automatically, “Because I wasn’t invited!” Memory swept over Bonnie. Herself standing outside Vickie’s house, Damon standing beside her. Stefan’s voice: Vickie, invite me in. But no one had invited Damon. “But how did Klaus get in, then—?” she began, following her own thoughts. “That was Tyler’s job, I’m sure,” Damon said tersely. “What Tyler did for Klaus in return for learning how to reclaim his heritage. And he must have invited Klaus in before we ever started guarding the house—probably before Stefan and I came to Fell’s Church. Klaus was well prepared. That night he was in the house and the girl was dead before I knew what was happening.” “Why didn’t you call for Stefan?” Matt said. There was no accusation in his voice. It was a simple question. “Because there was nothing he could have done! I knew what you were dealing with as soon as I saw it. An Old One. Stefan would only have gotten himself killed—and the girl was past caring, anyway.” Bonnie heard the thread of coldness in his voice, and when Damon turned back to Stefan and Elena, his face had hardened. It was as if some decision had been made. “You see, I’m not like you,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.” Stefan had still not withdrawn his hand. Neither had Elena.

Because you are his heart, Elena. A man with his heart torn out is a broken creature. I know.

I just …” He trailed off, sounding exhausted. Defeated. “Are you really here, baby?” he repeated, holding me tighter. “Or is this my imagination playing tricks on me? I haven’t slept in … I don’t know how many days. Two? Three?” “I’m here. I’m right here.” I lifted my head and moved, so I could cup his face, take a good look at that face I had been so set on despising and now loved so much. “And I’m going to take care of you.

I could quit the committee. But that would leave Bonnie and Meredith holding the bag. And I keep remembering what Matt said when I asked him to get Stefan to come to the dance: "You want everybody and everything revolving around Elena Gilbert." That isn't true. Or at least, if it has been in the past, I'm not going to let it be true anymore. I want--oh, this is going to sound completely stupid, but I want to be worthy of Stefan. I know he wouldn't let the guys on the team down just to suit his own convenience. I want him to be proud of me. I want him to love me as much as I love him.

Well, you know what they say." "'A chipped pot still holds soup'?" "I was going to go with 'one-legged whore's still got holes.

Isabel: It’s weird that I don’t know what your boyfriend looks like. Is he ugly? That’s okay. I bet he makes up for it in other ways. *eggplant emoji*

For example, I came to my exams very well prepared, but if the professor were suddenly to ask me, “Do you know from what works I derive the authority on the basis of which I teach this subject in this university?” I wouldn’t know what to answer. But the others knew. So I moved among them fearful of saying and doing the wrong things.

The Cascade happens and Neha calls fire and ice, Elena said into his mind at the same instant. Titus moves the earth, Astaad the sea, while creepy Lijuan brings the dead back to life. Meanwhile, my gorgeous archangel, not satisfied with, I don't know, shooting lightning bolts or something, actually taps into the energy of the planet and calls an army of bogeymen from the bottom of the ocean. Of course you do. The dry commentary made him wonder how he'd ever walked through life without the wit and laughter of his hunter by his side. He could no longer imagine such a cold, remote existence, the idea of it spawning an immediate repudiation in his bloodstream.

I hated the idea that he knew everything about me while I knew little or nothing of him. I felt like someone who is blind and knows that he is being observed by the very people he would like to spy on in every detail.

You are a symbol—even if I am missed, so long as people can see you in the air, they’ll feel safe.” Because everyone knows I would not leave my consort in a city I didn’t feel was protected against all harm. “Shit,” Elena muttered. “I hate it when you make sense.

Seattle,” I repeated, chewing on this new piece of information he had given me. More. I wanted just a little more. “That’s Washington up north, right? I know because of Twilight. Forks is supposed to be a few hours away.

On the page was exactly what I had written, but it was clearer, more immediate. The erasures, the transpositions, the small additions, and, in some way, her handwriting itself gave me the impression that I had escaped from myself and now was running a hundred paces ahead with an energy and also a harmony that the person left behind didn't know she had.

What’s left of you when your arm can’t even put on a jacket and your leg can’t even take a step and your neck can’t straighten up enough to let you show your face to the world, what’s left? Are you your brain, which keeps sending out orders that won’t be followed? Or are you the thought itself, something that can’t be seen or touched beyond that furrowed organ guarded inside the cranium like a trove?

The conclusion we drew from this convinced us that it was best to do everything on purpose, deliberately, so that you would know what to expect.

I thought of beauty as of a constant effort to eliminate corporeality. I wanted him to love my body forgetful of what one knows of bodies.

I wasn't capable of entrusting myself to true feelings. I didn't know how to be drawn beyond limits. I didn't possess that emotional power that had driven Lila to do all she could to enjoy that day and that night. I stayed behind, waiting. She, on the other hand, seized things, truly wanted them, was passionate about them, played for all or nothing, and wasn't afraid of contempt, mockery, spitting, beatings. She deserved Nino, in other words, because she thought that to love him meant to try to have him, not hope that he would want her.

Ah, the violence: tearing, killing, ripping. Lila, between fascination and horror, spoke to me in a mixture of dialect, Italian, and very educated quotations that she had taken from who knows where and remembered by heart. The entire planet, she said, is a big Fosso Carbonario.

And they thought that what had happened before was past and, in order to live quietly, they placed a stone on top of it, and so, without knowing it, they continued it, they were immersed in the things of before, and we kept them inside us, too.

What pet name would you like me to call you?” “Whatever makes you the happiest. Just pick one.” In that moment, the effect of the baby came back with a vengeance. “I don’t know,” I said, kicking that one out of my head. “I guess one in Spanish makes sense. Bollito? Cuchi cuchi? Pocholito?” “Bollito?” “It’s little bun.” I smiled. “Like those bread buns that are spongey and shiny and so cute that—" “Okay, no.” He frowned. “I think it’s better if we stick to our names,” he said, taking both drinks from the attendant who had just reappeared and placing mine in front of me. “I don’t think I can trust you to pick one in Spanish without knowing what it means.” “I’m very trustworthy—you should know that by now.” I brought a finger to my chin, tapping it a few times. “How about conejito? That’s little bunny.” With a long sigh, Aaron let his massive body fall deeper into the seat. “You are right; you are not a bunny.” I paused. “Osito?” I made a show of looking him up and down, as if I were testing the name on him. “Yeah, that one is way more fitting. You are more of a bear.

But I was serious when I said that when I finally took your lips, you’d know what it meant.” “Do you know now, Catalina?Do you know what this means?” "Answer me, please.” “Put me out of my misery, Catalina

For the first time, I left Naples, left Campania. I discovered that I was afraid of everything: afraid of taking the wrong train, afraid of having to pee and not knowing where to do it, afraid that it would be night and I wouldn’t be able to orient myself in an unfamiliar city, afraid of being robbed. I put all my money in my bra, as my mother did, and spent hours in a state of wary anxiety that coexisted seamlessly with a growing sense of liberation.

You really work in those conditions?” She, irritated by the contact, pulled her arm away, protesting: “And how do you work, the two of you, how do you work?” They didn’t answer. They worked hard, that was obvious. And at least Enzo in front of him, in the factory, women worn out by the work, by humiliations, by domestic obligations no less than Lila was. Yet now they were both angry because of the conditions _she_ worked in; they couldn’t tolerate it. You had to hide everything from men. They preferred not to know, they preferred to pretend that what happened at the hands of the boss miraculously didn’t happen to the women important to them and that—this was the idea they had grown up with—they had to protect her even at the risk of being killed. In the face of that silence Lila got even angrier. "Fuck off," she said, "you and the working class.

I’m laughing, I apologized, at the situation, at you, who’ve wanted to kill Nino forever, and at me, who if he showed up now would say to you: Yes, kill him. I’m laughing out of despair, because I’ve never been so offended, because I feel humiliated in a way that I don’t know if you can imagine, because at this moment I’m so ill that I think I’m fainting.

I'm scared all the time," he admitted, bracing his hands on the counter. "I know he's powerful, I've seen him in battle, and yet the fear crushes me." "Of course it does." Elena let her wing overlap his. "That's what it means to love someone.

Like Raphael’s Seven,” Izak continued, aching hope in his expression. “You’re a consort. Elijah’s consort has a Guard.” Elena didn’t know what she would do with a Guard, but saying no to this fragile, broken, hopeful boy was out of the question. “Consider yourself the first member.” His smile lit up the whole room.

You know the times I have jerked off to the thought of you on your hands? On your elbows?” He passed his shaft along my ass, making me moan in need. “Or bent over my knee after getting all mouthy with me?” Another moan, this one soaked with agony. Just like I was at the image of bringing his words to life. “Oh,” he whispered. Then, his voice lowered. “Sounds like you’d love that as much as me.

Then, he angled his large body toward me, eating a big chunk of the distance that had been separating us. The motion had been unexpected, and my breath hitched with surprise. Hyperaware of how close he had come, I stuttered. Suddenly not knowing what to say or if I was expected to say anything at all. Aaron’s arm reached out, the backs of his fingers gracing my temple. My lips parted, tingles spreading down my skin. It was him who lowered his voice then. “Always fighting me.” I looked up at his handsome and stern face, his assessing blue eyes surveying my reaction. “Resisting me.” My heart tripped, making my chest feel like I had just sprinted a mile or two. Aaron’s head dipped, his mouth coming close to where his fingers had been a few seconds ago. Almost as close as it had been when we danced. “It’s like you want me to beg. Is that something you’d enjoy? Me begging?” His voice sounded so … intimate. Hushed. But it was his next words that scattered my thoughts all over the place. “Is that what this is? You like bringing me to my knees?” Whoa.

One of them has to break,” the queen said to the princess. “Only then can it begin.” “I know,” the princess said softly. ”But the prince isn't ready. It has to be her.” “Then you understand what I am asking of you?” The princess looked up, toward the shaft of moonlight spilling into the tomb. When she looked back at the ancient queen, her eyes were bright. “Yes.” “Then do what needs to be done.” The princess nodded and walked out of the tomb. She paused on the threshold, the darkness beyond beckoning to her, and turned back to the queen. “She won't understand. And when she goes over the edge, there will be nothing to pull her back.” “She will find her way back. She always does.” Tears formed, but the princess blinked them away. “For all our sakes, I hope you're right.

I need this,” I whimpered. “Need more.” Aaron rocked into me as he braced himself on the headboard. His pace gave away all remnants of control. “You need me,” he grunted, thrusting into me even faster. My back arched in return. “You don’t need this.” He plunged into me hard. Then, he did it again. Harder. “It’s me you need.” God, didn’t he know—wasn’t it painfully obvious—that I did? Another brisk thrust. “Say it.” “Yes,” I moaned, my body losing all its strength under the waves of pleasure. “You, Aaron. I need you.

Elena glanced up at him, taking in his words. “If you get rid of your fear? You know, I never look at you as someone who’s afraid.” “That’s because every time you look at me, I’m looking right back, and the only time I’m not afraid, is when I see you. And I do see you, Elena. I see everything you’ve been through, from so young – how you struggled through it; how you never let it destroy your hope and faith – and I’m afraid of nothing." (Karl and Elena)

Everything in the world was in precarious balance, pure risk, and those who didn't agree to take the risk wasted away in a corner, without getting to know life. I understood suddenly why I hadn't had Nino, why Lila had had him. I wasn't capable of entrusting myself to true feelings. I didn't know how to be drawn beyond the limits. I didn't possess that emotional power that had driven Lila to do all she could to enjoy that day and that night. I stayed behind, waiting.

You could be different,” Elena said quietly. “You could be great. Greater than me—than any of us.” Celaena opened her mouth, but no words came out. Elena took a step toward her. “You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything, if you only dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.

Look beyond that light,' says my father. 'Look hard and you'll see people filing into the theater. You'll see ushers run up and down the aisles; people talk, programs rustle-you'll hear a murmur. When the lights start to dim, the murmur rises, and then, just a moment before the curtain goes up, the noise stops-everyone in the house holds their breath, everyone knows what is going to happen. This is the moment I've always loved most:the anticipation of magic, the expectation of illusion.

She reached into the pocket of her riding leathers and extended the Amulet of Orynth and a sliver of black stone to Dorian. He balked. “Elena said Mala’s bloodline can stop this. It runs in both your houses.” The golden eyes were weary—heavy. He realized what Manon was asking. Aelin had never planned to see Terrasen again. She had married Rowan knowing she would have months at best, days at the worst, with him. But she would give Terrasen a legal king. To hold her territory together. She had made plans for all of them—and none for herself. “The quest does not end here,” Dorian said softly. Manon shook her head. And he knew she meant more than the keys, than the war, as she said, “No, it does not.” He took the keys from her. They throbbed and flickered, warming his palm. A foreign, horrible presence, and yet … all that stood between them and destruction. No, the quest did not end here. Not even close. Dorian slid the keys into his pocket. And the road that now sprawled away before him, curving into unknown, awaiting shadow … it did not frighten him.

Because when I finally take those lips in mine, it will be the furthest thing from pretending. I will not be showing you what it would be like if you were mine. I’ll show you what it is. And I sure as hell won’t be showing how good I could make you feel if you called me yours. You’ll already know that I am.” He paused, and I swore I could see the restraint in his posture. As if he was stopping himself from pouncing and returning us to our former position, right against the hard surface of the wardrobe door.

She can also be a little defiant, and God knows she is stubborn as they come. But that’s all fire. Passion. That’s what makes her our Lina. Our little terremoto.” Our little earthquake. My dad’s eyes started shining under the light of the few lamps that had switched on as we entered the night. Something in my chest constricted. “And for a while there, it wasn’t like that. All that lightness faded out, and seeing my daughter going through something like that wasn’t easy. It broke our hearts. Then, she left, and even if we knew it was what she wanted and needed to do, our hearts broke a little further.

He made my life hell. Him and Tonto over there." Daniel glared toward Nick. "Poor little Clay. He has problems. He's had a tough life. You should be nice to him. You should make friends with him. That's all I ever heard. All they saw was a cute little runt of a wolf cub. He bared his teeth and they thought it was cute. He ordered us around like a miniature Napoleon and they thought it was cute. Well, it wasn't cute from where I was standing. It was—" I held up my hand. "You're ranting." "What?" "Just wanted to let you know. You're ranting. It's kinda ugly. Next thing you know, you'll be laying out your plans for world domination. That's what all villains do after they rant about their motivation. I was hoping you'd be different.

Yes, it's Lila who makes writing difficult. My life forces me to imagine what hers would have been if what happened to me had happened to her, what use she would have made of my luck. And her life continuously appears in mine in the words that I've uttered, in which there's often an echo of hers, in a particular gesture that is an adaptation of a gesture of hers, in my less which is such because of hermore, in my more which is the yielding to the force of her less. Not to mention what she never said but let me guess, what I didn't know and read later in her notebooks. Thus the story of the facts has to reckon with filters, deferments, partial truths, half lies: from it comes an arduous measurement of time passed that is based completely on the unreliable measuring device of words.

While I was busy wondering if we were expecting anybody, it took me by surprise when an arm—which I was starting to get very well acquainted with at this rate—snaked around my waist and pulled me backward. My ass landed on something hard and hot, immediately molding into the space. Aaron’s lap. His breath caressed the shell of my ear. “You didn’t say good morning.” My back straightened as I remembered my lame runaway moment. “You almost made me drop my cookie, Mr. Robot.” It was so weird, so strange, calling him that, like I had done so many times in the past. As if that belonged to a whole different life. To two different people. Aaron chuckled, and it tickled my neck. “I wouldn’t dare. I know better than that.” His arm tightened around me, and I had to restrain myself from wrapping my hands around it. “What are you doing?” I whispered loudly. Charo would come back in at any second. “I was feeling lonely,” he admitted, lowering his voice and making my mind fly with everything he wasn’t saying. Stupid. I need to stop being stupid. “And if I’m going to sit through this one-sided interrogation, the least you can do is keep me company. Plus, you owe me a conversation.” “I was right there.” My voice came out strangled. “And Charo is not here now.” He hummed, and that noise traveled straight to my lower belly. “She will be back though. You know I like to be extra prepared.

I’m glad I didn’t kiss you.” Something halted in my chest. “Why?” The word was nothing more than a shaky whisper. “Because when I finally take those lips in mine, it will be the furthest thing from pretending. I will not be showing you what it would be like if you were mine. I’ll show you what it is. And I sure as hell won’t be showing how good I could make you feel if you called me yours. You’ll already know that I am.” He paused, and I swore I could see the restraint in his posture. As if he was stopping himself from pouncing and returning us to our former position, right against the hard surface of the wardrobe door. “When I finally kiss you, there won’t be any doubt in your mind that it is real.

It was a mug. And it had a joke printed on it. It said, Engineers don’t cry. They build bridges and get over it.” Someone laughed then. Isabel or perhaps Gonzalo—I wasn’t sure. With all that crazy banging, my heart had somehow moved up my throat and to my temples, so it was hard to focus on anything besides its beating and Aaron’s voice. “And you know what I did?” he continued, bitterness filling his tone. “Instead of laughing like I wanted to, instead of looking up at her and saying something funny that would hopefully make her give me one of those bright smiles I had somehow already seen her give so freely in the short day I had been around her, I pushed it all down and set the mug on my desk. Then, I thanked her and asked her if there was anything else she needed.” I knew I shouldn’t feel embarrassed, but I was. Just as much as I had been back then, if not more. It had been such a silly thing to do, and I had felt so tiny and dumb after he brushed it away so easily. Closing my eyes, I heard him continue, “I pretty much kicked her out of my office after she went out of her way and got me a gift.” Aaron’s voice got low and harsh. “A fucking welcome gift.” I opened my eyes just in time to watch him turn his head in my direction. Our gazes met. “Just like the big jerk I had advertised myself to be, I ran her out. And to this day, I regret it every time it crosses my mind. Every time I look at her.” He didn’t even blink as he talked, looking straight into my eyes. And I didn’t think I did either. I didn’t think I was even breathing. “All the time I wasted so foolishly. All the time I could have had with her.

She said that we didn't know anything, either as children or now, that we were therefore not in a position to understand anything, that everything in the neighbourhood, every stone or piece of wood, everything, anything you could name, was already there before us, but we had grown up without realizing it, without ever even thinking about it. Not just us. Her father pretended that there had been nothing before. Her mother did the same, my mother, my father, even Rino. And yet Stefano's grocery store before, had been the carpenter shop of Alfredo Peluso, Pasquale's father. And yet Don Achille's money had been made before. And the Solaras' money as well. She had tested this out on her father and mother. They didn't know anything, they wouldn't talk about anything. Not Fascism, not the king. No injustice, no oppression, no exploitation. They hated Don Achille and were afraid of the Solaras. But they overlooked it and went to spend their money both at Don Achille's son's and at the Solaras', and sent us, too. And they votes for the Fascists, for the monarchists, as the Solaras wanted them to. And they thought that what had happened before was past, and in order to live quietly, they placed a stone on top of it, and so, without knowing it, they continued it, they were immersed in the things of before, and we kept them inside us, too.

And yet, as I was returning in the car to Florence, I had the impression that there in the neighborhood, between backwardness and modernity, she had more history than I did. How much I had lost by leaving, believing I was destined for who knows what life. Lila, who had remained, had a very new job, she earned a lot of money, she acted in absolute freedom and according to schemes that were indecipherable. She was very attached to her son, she had been extremely devoted to him in the first years of his life, and she still kept an eye on him; but she seemed capable of being free of him as and when she wanted, he didn’t cause her the anxieties my daughters caused me. She had broken with her family, and yet she took on their burden and the responsibility for them whenever she could. She took care of Stefano who was in trouble, but without getting close to him. She hated the Solaras and yet she submitted to them. She was ironic about Alfonso and was his friend. She said she didn’t want to see Nino again, but I knew it wasn’t so, that she would see him. Hers was a life in motion, mine was stopped.

I sat on a bench and did what, as a girl, I had done whenever I needed to calm myself: instead of pressing the button with the number 4 on it, I let myself go up to the sixth floor. That space had been empty and dark for many years, ever since the lawyer who had his office there had left, taking with him even the light bulb from the landing. When the elevator stopped, I let my breath glide into my stomach and then return slowly to my throat. As always, after a few seconds, the light in the elevator went out, too. I thought of reaching my hand out to one of the door handles: you had only to pull it and the light would return. But I didn't move and continued to send my breath deep into my body. The only sound was that of the woodworms eating into the panelled walls. Just a few months earlier (five, six?), on a sudden impulse, I had revealed to my mother, during one of my brief visits, that as an adolescent I used to retreat to that secret place, and I brought her up there, to the top. Maybe I wanted to try to establish an intimacy that there had never been, maybe I wanted to let her know in some confused way that I had always been unhappy. But she seemed to me only amused by the fact that I had sat suspended in the void, in a dilapidated elevator.

those who gave me the most pleasure. You know why? Because you’re an idiot, and even to fuck well it takes a little intelligence. For example you don’t know how to give a blow job, you’re hopeless, and it’s pointless to explain it to you, you can’t do it, it’s too obvious that it disgusts you. And he went on like that for a while, making speeches that became increasingly crude; with him vulgarity was normal. Then he wanted to explain clearly how things stood: he was marrying her because of the respect he felt for her father, a skilled pastry maker he was fond of; he was marrying her because one had to have a wife and even children and even an official house. But there should be no mistake: she was nothing to him, he hadn’t put her on a pedestal, she wasn’t the one he loved best, so she had better not be a pain in the ass, believing she had some rights. Brutal words. At a certain point Michele himself must have realized it, and he became gripped by a kind of melancholy. He had murmured that women for him were all games with a few holes for playing in. All. All except one. Lina was the only woman in the world he loved—love, yes, as in the films—and respected. He told me, Gigliola sobbed, that she would have known how to furnish this house. He told me that giving her money to spend, yes, that would be a pleasure. He told me that with her he could have become truly important, in Naples. He said to me: You remember what she did with the wedding photo, you remember how she fixed up the shop? And you, and Pinuccia, and all the others, what the fuck are you, what the fuck do you know how to do? He had said those things to her and not only those. He had told her that he thought about Lila night and day, but not with normal desire, his desire for her didn’t resemble what he knew. In reality he didn’t want her. That is, he didn’t want her the way he generally wanted women, to feel them under him, to turn them over, turn them again, open them up, break them, step on them, and crush them. He didn’t want her in order to have sex and then forget her. He wanted the subtlety of her mind with all its ideas. He wanted her imagination. And he wanted her without ruining her, to make her last. He wanted her not to screw her—that word applied to Lila disturbed him. He wanted to kiss her and caress her. He wanted to be caressed, helped, guided, commanded. He wanted to see how she changed with the passage of time, how she aged. He wanted to talk with her and be helped to talk. You understand? He spoke of her in way that to me, to me—when we are about to get married—he has never spoken.