“I can't give you the white picket fence, and if I did, you'd set it on fire.”
―
Ilona Andrews,
Magic Bleeds
“That dead-eyed anhedonia is but a remora on the ventral flank of the true predator, the Great White Shark of pain. Authorities term this condition clinical depression or involutional depression or unipolar dysphoria. Instead of just an incapacity for feeling, a deadening of soul, the predator-grade depression Kate Gompert always feels as she Withdraws from secret marijuana is itself a feeling. It goes by many names — anguish, despair, torment, or q.v. Burton's melancholia or Yevtuschenko's more authoritative psychotic depression — but Kate Gompert, down in the trenches with the thing itself, knows it simply as It.It is a level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it. It is a sense of radical and thoroughgoing evil not just as a feature but as the essence of conscious existence. It is a sense of poisoning that pervades the self at the self's most elementary levels. It is a nausea of the cells and soul. It is an unnumb intuition in which the world is fully rich and animate and un-map-like and also thoroughly painful and malignant and antagonistic to the self, which depressed self It billows on and coagulates around and wraps in Its black folds and absorbs into Itself, so that an almost mystical unity is achieved with a world every constituent of which means painful harm to the self. Its emotional character, the feeling Gompert describes It as, is probably mostly indescribable except as a sort of double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible.It is also lonely on a level that cannot be conveyed. There is no way Kate Gompert could ever even begin to make someone else understand what clinical depression feels like, not even another person who is herself clinically depressed, because a person in such a state is incapable of empathy with any other living thing. This anhedonic Inability To Identify is also an integral part of It. If a person in physical pain has a hard time attending to anything except that pain, a clinically depressed person cannot even perceive any other person or thing as independent of the universal pain that is digesting her cell by cell. Everything is part of the problem, and there is no solution. It is a hell for one.The authoritative term psychotic depression makes Kate Gompert feel especially lonely. Specifically the psychotic part. Think of it this way. Two people are screaming in pain. One of them is being tortured with electric current. The other is not. The screamer who's being tortured with electric current is not psychotic: her screams are circumstantially appropriate. The screaming person who's not being tortured, however, is psychotic, since the outside parties making the diagnoses can see no electrodes or measurable amperage. One of the least pleasant things about being psychotically depressed on a ward full of psychotically depressed patients is coming to see that none of them is really psychotic, that their screams are entirely appropriate to certain circumstances part of whose special charm is that they are undetectable by any outside party. Thus the loneliness: it's a closed circuit: the current is both applied and received from within.” ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
“Daniel took Luce’s hands in his. He closed his eyes, inhaled, and let his massive white wings unfurl. Fully extended , they would have filled the entire kitchen , but Daniel reined them in, close to his body. They shimmered and glowed and looked altogether too beautiful. Luce reached out and touched them with both hands. Warm and satin smooth on the outside, but inside, full of power. She could feel it coursing through Daniel, into her. She felt so close to him, understood him completely—As If they had become one.” ― Lauren Kate, Torment
“Some men got excited by white lace and a translucent negligee. My love muffin got excited by a woman dressed to murder. There was probably something deeply twisted about that. Lucky for me, negligees were never my thing.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Gifts
“Gender is not sane. It's not sane to call a rainbow black and white.” ― Kate Bornstein
“Do you like my working persona?" Saiman asked softly. "An aesthetically pleasing combination of intelligence and elegance, wouldn't you say?"Aren't we pleased with ourselves. "Are you Chinese, Japanese, half-white? I can't tell, your features are neither here nor there.""I'm inscrutable, mysterious and intellectual."He forgot conceited. "Did you have any trouble getting that ego through the door?"Saiman didn't even blink. "Not in the least.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Bleeds
“I had a dream about you.""Yeah?""You looked so pretty like always, and you were coming toward me in a white dress. The closer you got to me, the more you cried. And when you were close enough, I grabbed your hand."...."... After the minister said a prayer, I told you how beautiful you were.""Asher- ""I told you that every star in the sky was made for you, and they were, Kate. You light up my world even in my darkest moments.I told you that I loved you over and over again because I do, Kate. I love you so much,and the thought of leaving you alone is killing me more than cancer ever could." ”
―
Lisa De Jong,
When It Rains
“ 'Dear Mr. Argeneau,'" she began. " 'I haven't read Love Bites, One, but I will, I guarantee it. I just finished Love Bites, Two, and thought it was wonderful. Etienne was so sweet and funny and sexy that I fell in love with him even as Rachel did. He's my dream man.'" Kate paused and glanced up expectantly. "What would you say to those letters?"That was easy enough. "Etienne is taken."-Kate and Lucern” ― Lynsay Sands, Single White Vampire
“Minutes passed by. A little blue butterfly landed on my nose. I blinked at it and it fluttered to my ear. A big yellow butterfly gently floated over and landed on my paw. Soon a whole swarm of them floated up and down around me, like a swirl of multicolored petals. It happened in my backyard, too, if the magic was strong enough. Butterflies were small and light, and very magic sensitive. For some reason I made them feel safe and they gravitated to me like iron shavings to a magnet. They ruined my ferocious badass image, but you’d have to be a complete beast to swat butterflies.If a baby deer frolicked out from between the buildings trying to cuddle up, I would roar. I wouldn’t bite it, but I would roar. I had my limits.” ― Ilona Andrews, Hexed
“Bran grabbed my hand,pulled me to a chest, and swung the heavy lid open. A white cloth covered the contents. He jerked it aside. Human heads filled the chest."Oh God."He scooped a mummified head from the chest by a scalp lock and thrust it at me. "All of them are mine."This was officially the weirdest version of "come down to my place and I'll show you some etchings" I've ever been hit with.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Burns
“If you had a daily printout from the brain of an average twenty-four-year-old male, it would probably go like this: sex, need coffee, sex, traffic, sex, sex, what an asshole, sex, ham sandwich, sex, sex, etc” ― Kate White, How to Set His Thighs on Fire: 86 Red-Hot Lessons on Love, Life, Men, and (Especially) Sex
“What's so funny?""Your panties have a bow," he said.I looked down. I was wearing a short tank top -not mine- and my blue panties with a narrow white strip of lace at the top and a tiny white bow. Would it have killed me to check what I was wearing before I pulled the blanket down? "What's wrong with bows?""Nothing." He was grinning now. "I expected barbed wire. Or one of those steel chains."Wiseass. "I'm secure enough in myself to wear panties with bows on them. Besides, they are comfy and soft.""I bet.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Burns
“The perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other” ― Kate Stewart, Loving the White Liar
“You are a white. The Imperial Wizard. Now, if you don't think this is logic you can burn me on the fiery cross. This is the logic: You have the choice of spending fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or a white woman. Fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping real close on hot nights. With a black, black woman or a white, white woman. The white woman is Kate Smith. And the black woman is Lena Horne. So you're not concerned with black or white anymore, are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty. Then let's really get basic and persecute ugly people!” ― Lenny Bruce
“The voice boomed from the Throne. "One more goodbye."Together, Luce and Daniel turned to acknowledge the Throne, but the second their eyes fell upon it, the stately figure of the woman blazed into white-hot glory, and they had to shield their eyes.The Throne was indiscernible again, a gathering of light too brilliant to be gazed upon by angels."Hey, guys." Arriane sniffed. "I think she meant for you two to say goodbye to each other.""Oh," Luce said, turning to Daniel, suddenly panicked. "Right now? We have to-"He took her hand. His wings brushed hers. He kissed the centers of her cheeks."I'm afraid," she whispered."What did I tell you?"She sifted through the million exchanges she and Daniel had ever shared-the good, the sad, the ugly. One rose above the clouds of her mind.She was shaking. "That you will always find me.""Yes. Always. No matter what.""Daniel-""I can't wait to make you the love of my mortal life.""But you won't know me. You won't remember. Everything will be different."He wiped away her tear with his thumb. "And you think that will stop me?"She closed her eyes. "I love you too much to say goodbye.""It isn't goodbye." He gave her one last angelic kiss and embraced her so tightly she could hear his steady heartbeat, overlapping her own. "It's until we meet again.” ― Lauren Kate, Rapture
“The black volhv pivoted to me. “I have questions.”“Can it wait?”“No. Your wedding is in two weeks. Have you prepared your guest list?”“Why do I need a list? I kind of figured that whoever wanted to show up would show up.”“You need a list so you know how many people you are feeding. Do you have a caterer?”“No.”“But you did order the cake?”“Umm…”“Florist?”“Florist?”“The person who delivers expensive flowers and sets them up in pretty arrangements everyone ignores?”“No.”Roman blinked. “I’m almost afraid to ask. Do you at least have the dress?”“Yes.”“Is it white?”“Yes.”He squinted at me. “Is it a wedding dress?”“It’s a white dress.”“Have you worn it before?”“Maybe.”Ascanio snickered.”“The ring, Kate?”Oh crap.Roman heaved a sigh. “What do you think this is, a party where you get to show up, say ‘I do,’ and go home?”“Yes?” That’s kind of how it went in my head.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Binds
“Kate," Lucern interrupted."What?" she asked warily."I do not need blood." He tugged her off balance and into his lap. "All I need is you.” ― Lynsay Sands, Single White Vampire
“His beard was nonexistent, except for a carefully trimmed goatee that met his mustache on both sides of his mouth. The overall effect was decidedly villainous. He needed a black horse and a barbarian horde to lead. That or a crew of cutthroats, a ship with blood-red sails, and some knucklehead heroine to lust after. “Look, I’ve had a bad day. How about you just walk away from my Jeep?”The volhv smiled wider, flashing even white teeth.If he started stroking his beard, I’d have to kill him on principle.“He raised his hand to his goatee.That does it. “Yeah. And what’s with the beard and the horse mane? You look like Rent-a-Villain.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Slays
“But Daniel wouldn't kiss her the way she wanted.The closer she pressed to him, the farther back he leaned.Finally he pushed her away completely. He held on only to her hands, as if the rest of her were dangerous."Lady." He kissed the very tips of her fingers, making her shiver. "Would I be too bold to say your love makes you unmannerly?""Unmannerly?" Luce blushed.Daniel took her back into his arms, slowly, a bit nervously. "Good Lucinda, you must not find yourself in this place dressed as you are." His eyes kept returning to her dress. "What clothes are these? WHere is your costume?" He reached into a wardrobe and flicked through the clothes pegs.Quickly,Daniel began to unlace his boots, tossing them on the floor with two thuds. Luce tried not to gape when he dropped his trousers.He wore short gray pantaloons underneath that left very little to the imagination.Her cheeks burned as Daniel briskly unbuttoned his white shirt. He yanked it off,exposing the full beauty of his chest.Luce sucked in her breath. The only things missing were his unfurled wings. Daniel was so impeccably gorgeous-and he seemed to have no idea of the effect he was having on her by standing there in his underwear.She gulped,fanning herself. "Is it hot in here?” ― Lauren Kate, Passion
“That dead-eyed anhedonia is but a remora on the ventral flank of the true predator, the Great White Shark of pain. Authorities term this condition clinical depression or involutional depression or unipolar dysphoria. Instead of just an incapacity for feeling, a deadening of soul, the predator-grade depression Kate Gompert always feels as she Withdraws from secret marijuana is itself a feeling. It goes by many names — anguish, despair, torment, or q.v. Burton's melancholia or Yevtuschenko's more authoritative psychotic depression — but Kate Gompert, down in the trenches with the thing itself, knows it simply as It.It is a level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it. It is a sense of radical and thoroughgoing evil not just as a feature but as the essence of conscious existence. It is a sense of poisoning that pervades the self at the self's most elementary levels. It is a nausea of the cells and soul. It is an unnumb intuition in which the world is fully rich and animate and un-map-like and also thoroughly painful and malignant and antagonistic to the self, which depressed self It billows on and coagulates around and wraps in Its black folds and absorbs into Itself, so that an almost mystical unity is achieved with a world every constituent of which means painful harm to the self. Its emotional character, the feeling Gompert describes It as, is probably mostly indescribable except as a sort of double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible.It is also lonely on a level that cannot be conveyed. There is no way Kate Gompert could ever even begin to make someone else understand what clinical depression feels like, not even another person who is herself clinically depressed, because a person in such a state is incapable of empathy with any other living thing. This anhedonic Inability To Identify is also an integral part of It. If a person in physical pain has a hard time attending to anything except that pain, a clinically depressed person cannot even perceive any other person or thing as independent of the universal pain that is digesting her cell by cell. Everything is part of the problem, and there is no solution. It is a hell for one.The authoritative term psychotic depression makes Kate Gompert feel especially lonely. Specifically the psychotic part. Think of it this way. Two people are screaming in pain. One of them is being tortured with electric current. The other is not. The screamer who's being tortured with electric current is not psychotic: her screams are circumstantially appropriate. The screaming person who's not being tortured, however, is psychotic, since the outside parties making the diagnoses can see no electrodes or measurable amperage. One of the least pleasant things about being psychotically depressed on a ward full of psychotically depressed patients is coming to see that none of them is really psychotic, that their screams are entirely appropriate to certain circumstances part of whose special charm is that they are undetectable by any outside party. Thus the loneliness: it's a closed circuit: the current is both applied and received from within.” ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
“Daniel took Luce’s hands in his. He closed his eyes, inhaled, and let his massive white wings unfurl. Fully extended , they would have filled the entire kitchen , but Daniel reined them in, close to his body. They shimmered and glowed and looked altogether too beautiful. Luce reached out and touched them with both hands. Warm and satin smooth on the outside, but inside, full of power. She could feel it coursing through Daniel, into her. She felt so close to him, understood him completely—As If they had become one.” ― Lauren Kate, Torment
“Some men got excited by white lace and a translucent negligee. My love muffin got excited by a woman dressed to murder. There was probably something deeply twisted about that. Lucky for me, negligees were never my thing.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Gifts
“Gender is not sane. It's not sane to call a rainbow black and white.” ― Kate Bornstein
“Do you like my working persona?" Saiman asked softly. "An aesthetically pleasing combination of intelligence and elegance, wouldn't you say?"Aren't we pleased with ourselves. "Are you Chinese, Japanese, half-white? I can't tell, your features are neither here nor there.""I'm inscrutable, mysterious and intellectual."He forgot conceited. "Did you have any trouble getting that ego through the door?"Saiman didn't even blink. "Not in the least.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Bleeds
“I had a dream about you.""Yeah?""You looked so pretty like always, and you were coming toward me in a white dress. The closer you got to me, the more you cried. And when you were close enough, I grabbed your hand."...."... After the minister said a prayer, I told you how beautiful you were.""Asher- ""I told you that every star in the sky was made for you, and they were, Kate. You light up my world even in my darkest moments.I told you that I loved you over and over again because I do, Kate. I love you so much,
“ 'Dear Mr. Argeneau,'" she began. " 'I haven't read Love Bites, One, but I will, I guarantee it. I just finished Love Bites, Two, and thought it was wonderful. Etienne was so sweet and funny and sexy that I fell in love with him even as Rachel did. He's my dream man.'" Kate paused and glanced up expectantly. "What would you say to those letters?"That was easy enough. "Etienne is taken."-Kate and Lucern” ― Lynsay Sands, Single White Vampire
“Minutes passed by. A little blue butterfly landed on my nose. I blinked at it and it fluttered to my ear. A big yellow butterfly gently floated over and landed on my paw. Soon a whole swarm of them floated up and down around me, like a swirl of multicolored petals. It happened in my backyard, too, if the magic was strong enough. Butterflies were small and light, and very magic sensitive. For some reason I made them feel safe and they gravitated to me like iron shavings to a magnet. They ruined my ferocious badass image, but you’d have to be a complete beast to swat butterflies.If a baby deer frolicked out from between the buildings trying to cuddle up, I would roar. I wouldn’t bite it, but I would roar. I had my limits.” ― Ilona Andrews, Hexed
“Bran grabbed my hand,pulled me to a chest, and swung the heavy lid open. A white cloth covered the contents. He jerked it aside. Human heads filled the chest."Oh God."He scooped a mummified head from the chest by a scalp lock and thrust it at me. "All of them are mine."This was officially the weirdest version of "come down to my place and I'll show you some etchings" I've ever been hit with.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Burns
“If you had a daily printout from the brain of an average twenty-four-year-old male, it would probably go like this: sex, need coffee, sex, traffic, sex, sex, what an asshole, sex, ham sandwich, sex, sex, etc” ― Kate White, How to Set His Thighs on Fire: 86 Red-Hot Lessons on Love, Life, Men, and (Especially) Sex
“What's so funny?""Your panties have a bow," he said.I looked down. I was wearing a short tank top -not mine- and my blue panties with a narrow white strip of lace at the top and a tiny white bow. Would it have killed me to check what I was wearing before I pulled the blanket down? "What's wrong with bows?""Nothing." He was grinning now. "I expected barbed wire. Or one of those steel chains."Wiseass. "I'm secure enough in myself to wear panties with bows on them. Besides, they are comfy and soft.""I bet.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Burns
“The perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other” ― Kate Stewart, Loving the White Liar
“You are a white. The Imperial Wizard. Now, if you don't think this is logic you can burn me on the fiery cross. This is the logic: You have the choice of spending fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or a white woman. Fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping real close on hot nights. With a black, black woman or a white, white woman. The white woman is Kate Smith. And the black woman is Lena Horne. So you're not concerned with black or white anymore, are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty. Then let's really get basic and persecute ugly people!” ― Lenny Bruce
“The voice boomed from the Throne. "One more goodbye."Together, Luce and Daniel turned to acknowledge the Throne, but the second their eyes fell upon it, the stately figure of the woman blazed into white-hot glory, and they had to shield their eyes.The Throne was indiscernible again, a gathering of light too brilliant to be gazed upon by angels."Hey, guys." Arriane sniffed. "I think she meant for you two to say goodbye to each other.""Oh," Luce said, turning to Daniel, suddenly panicked. "Right now? We have to-"He took her hand. His wings brushed hers. He kissed the centers of her cheeks."I'm afraid," she whispered."What did I tell you?"She sifted through the million exchanges she and Daniel had ever shared-the good, the sad, the ugly. One rose above the clouds of her mind.She was shaking. "That you will always find me.""Yes. Always. No matter what.""Daniel-""I can't wait to make you the love of my mortal life.""But you won't know me. You won't remember. Everything will be different."He wiped away her tear with his thumb. "And you think that will stop me?"She closed her eyes. "I love you too much to say goodbye.""It isn't goodbye." He gave her one last angelic kiss and embraced her so tightly she could hear his steady heartbeat, overlapping her own. "It's until we meet again.” ― Lauren Kate, Rapture
“The black volhv pivoted to me. “I have questions.”“Can it wait?”“No. Your wedding is in two weeks. Have you prepared your guest list?”“Why do I need a list? I kind of figured that whoever wanted to show up would show up.”“You need a list so you know how many people you are feeding. Do you have a caterer?”“No.”“But you did order the cake?”“Umm…”“Florist?”“Florist?”“The person who delivers expensive flowers and sets them up in pretty arrangements everyone ignores?”“No.”Roman blinked. “I’m almost afraid to ask. Do you at least have the dress?”“Yes.”“Is it white?”“Yes.”He squinted at me. “Is it a wedding dress?”“It’s a white dress.”“Have you worn it before?”“Maybe.”Ascanio snickered.”“The ring, Kate?”Oh crap.Roman heaved a sigh. “What do you think this is, a party where you get to show up, say ‘I do,’ and go home?”“Yes?” That’s kind of how it went in my head.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Binds
“Kate," Lucern interrupted."What?" she asked warily."I do not need blood." He tugged her off balance and into his lap. "All I need is you.” ― Lynsay Sands, Single White Vampire
“His beard was nonexistent, except for a carefully trimmed goatee that met his mustache on both sides of his mouth. The overall effect was decidedly villainous. He needed a black horse and a barbarian horde to lead. That or a crew of cutthroats, a ship with blood-red sails, and some knucklehead heroine to lust after. “Look, I’ve had a bad day. How about you just walk away from my Jeep?”The volhv smiled wider, flashing even white teeth.If he started stroking his beard, I’d have to kill him on principle.“He raised his hand to his goatee.That does it. “Yeah. And what’s with the beard and the horse mane? You look like Rent-a-Villain.” ― Ilona Andrews, Magic Slays
“But Daniel wouldn't kiss her the way she wanted.The closer she pressed to him, the farther back he leaned.Finally he pushed her away completely. He held on only to her hands, as if the rest of her were dangerous."Lady." He kissed the very tips of her fingers, making her shiver. "Would I be too bold to say your love makes you unmannerly?""Unmannerly?" Luce blushed.Daniel took her back into his arms, slowly, a bit nervously. "Good Lucinda, you must not find yourself in this place dressed as you are." His eyes kept returning to her dress. "What clothes are these? WHere is your costume?" He reached into a wardrobe and flicked through the clothes pegs.Quickly,Daniel began to unlace his boots, tossing them on the floor with two thuds. Luce tried not to gape when he dropped his trousers.He wore short gray pantaloons underneath that left very little to the imagination.Her cheeks burned as Daniel briskly unbuttoned his white shirt. He yanked it off,exposing the full beauty of his chest.Luce sucked in her breath. The only things missing were his unfurled wings. Daniel was so impeccably gorgeous-and he seemed to have no idea of the effect he was having on her by standing there in his underwear.She gulped,fanning herself. "Is it hot in here?” ― Lauren Kate, Passion
