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Longing Quotes

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Longing Quotes

“Jacks had so badly wanted to tell her that he couldn't even remember what Donatella looked like, that Evangeline's face was the only one he saw whenever he closed his eyes, that he would go with her anywhere... if he could. But he couldn't see her die again. His first fox had believed in him, and she had died, just like Evangeline would. There was only one way their story ended, and it wasn't happy. Her hope might have been powerful enough, but it wasn't magic. It wasn't enough. It was better to hurt her, better to break her heart, to do whatever he needed to do, to keep her alive and to keep her away from him. That hadn't changed. But today, Jacks was failing at letting her go. He wanted to keep her pressed to the floor beneath him. He would have set the world on fire and then let it all burn just to keep holding her like this.”

“He couldn't tell if she was finally remembering. But he was selfish enough to hope that she was. He debated keeping her trapped under him until she did. He knew it was a bad idea, but he wanted her to remember him. He wanted her to look at him, just once, and know him the way she had before. It was cruel of him to want her to want him again. If she remembered, it would only hurt her more. He was still haunted by the last time he'd seen her with her memories. It had been right outside the Valory. Hours before, he'd felt her die in his arms.”

“I, too, want to feel the heat with somebody or, at worst, I want to be a child of the heat's eager production, the smoke that rises & dances thick in the air, a ghost over those who labor in our names & then become the ghosts themselves & it's a shame our wings don't arrive until after we've already raced off the cliff & met whatever waits below & it's a shame to still have living hands & barely anything left worthy of touch.”

“The late afternoon Sun threw amber and gold across the deep body of the ocean, breaking into unseen luminance across the horizon. She listened to the crashing distance in the waves: formless and curving into the Earth, reaching for the wide basin of the sky. The ocean’s longing to embrace – not understanding stillness or the way others might be tied to the ground.”

“We stretch our bodies without letting go of each other's hands; we exorcise our grief. We twine and bend while the owls look on. I am reflected in Sami's eyes. I am not a girl in that moment, or a boy, but a person-shaped beam of light, and we see each other as we are, as energy that has willed itself into these bodies because the desire to dance is the first kind of longing.”

“You need to get out in the practice ring more, brother,' Cassian told him, surveying his friend's powerful body. 'Don't want that mate of yours to find any soft bits.' 'She never finds any soft bits when I'm around her,' Rhys said, and Cassian laughed again. 'Is Feyre going to kick your ass for what you said earlier?' 'I already told the servants to clear out for the rest of the day as soon as you take Nesta up to the House.' 'I think the servants hear you fighting plenty.' Indeed, Feyre had no hesitation when it came to telling Rhys that he'd stepped out of line. Rhys threw him a wicked smile. 'It's not the fighting I don't want them hearing.' Cassian grinned right back, even as something like jealousy tugged on his gut. He didn't begrudge them their happiness- not at all. There were plenty of times when he'd seen the joy on Rhys's face and have to walk away to keep from weeping, because his brother had waited for that love, earned it. Rhys had gone to the mat again and again to fight for that future with Feyre. For this. But sometimes, Cassian saw that mating ring, and the portrait behind the desk, and this house, and just... wanted. The clock chimed ten thirty, and Cassian rose. 'Enjoy your not-fighting.”

“Which is better? To have heard the sound of children’s laughter? To have listened to the song of birds at morning’s peak? To have beat your fingers in rhythm to the cities traffic? to have giggled at the whispers of your lover’s sweet… nothings? Or never hearing any of those things at all? Therefore never, forever craving those things that was? Which is better? Aw deaf man. Can you even hear me?”

“It cracks my heart wide open to think of all of us out there, wandering the world, so deeply hungry to be known. Defying our own disbelief in search of rest and respite. It is the most beautiful thing, this universal human longing. We have not given up on the idea that we might one day taste it, at least some sense of it. However brief. However transient. However impossible to hold. It might be out there, so we keep seeking. This, to me, is tremendously, tenderly, beautiful.”

“The songs are full of nostalgia, which is to say they are full of mourning; one remembers that which came before, often with a fond sadness, a want to return, despite knowing to return to a memory is to morph it, to warp it. Every time you remember something, the memory weakens, as you’re remembering the last recollection, rather than the memory itself. Nothing can remain intact. Still, it does not stop you wanting, does not stop you longing.”

“Cardan had grown up in the palace, a wild thing to be cosseted by courtiers and scowled at by the High King. No one much liked him, and he told himself he cared little for anyone else. And if he sometimes thought about how he might do something to win his father's favour, something to make the Court respect him and love him, he kept that to himself. He certainly asked no one to tell him stories, and yet he found it was nice to be told one. He kept that to himself, too.”

“Wandering, meandering, and leaving the familiar are quintessential impulses of longing. Similar to a seed nesting in the darkness that emerges into the light, longing is a growth gesture essential for connection, transformation, and innovation. It is also a voice from deep within that cannot be ignored even when we think what we long for is forever lost.”