Just in case you missed it — though I’m sure you didn’t! — the playlist for Chain of Iron.

snippet COI

In honor of International Friendship Day!

James thwacked Matthew gently on the back of the head. “I believe what he means to say is that it cannot be the responsibility of one’s friends to prevent one from doing something one believes is right,” he said. “It is, however, the job of one’s friends to rescue one from the consequences of one’s actions when it all goes skew-whiff.”

Lucie clapped and called out, “Hear, hear!”

“Would you wear it?” she asked. “As my friend. As my only real friend, truly. Then when I see you, I will be reminded of who I am.”

“Of course,” he said, his heart breaking for her. “Of course I will.”

❝most people are lucky to have even one great love in their life. you have found two.❞

Will, Tessa & Jem ✨

“Being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t scared. Being brave means you are scared, really scared, badly scared, and you do the right thing anyway.”

— Neil Gaiman, Coraline (via the-book-diaries)

“Love is vivid. I never wanted the pale version.”

— Jeanette Winterson (via quotemadness)

“They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (via books-n-quotes)

“Human beings are such knotted, desperate pieces of work- it’s a rare thing to know one completely, to the core, and still love them.” - Dean Koontz (via quotemadness)

“For an instant he thought he grasped the truth of a terrifying world in which one could not escape horror, in which violence was eternal, the great and only verity, greater than the civilisations it created, greater than any god man worshipped, for it was the only true god. It was as if man existed only to transmit violence to ensure its domain is eternal.”

— Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

I won’t ever be ready to let you go.

“If I had my way we’d sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes.”

— William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (via books-n-quotes)

"It is as great a thing to love as it is to be loved. Love is not something that can be wasted."

Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Angel

“They promise me the world will keep on spinning without you, but honestly, that is what worries me most.”

— Beau Taplin

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman (via books-n-quotes)

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw (via philosophybits)

“How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?”

— John Locke (via quotemadness)

“Here is the riddle of love: Everything it gives to you, it takes away.”

— Alice Hoffman, The Dovekeepers (via books-n-quotes)