Natasha Ngan Quotes

Falling in love is the most dangerous thing women like us can do.

It doesn't matter how beautiful the cage is. It's still a prison.

I am still that girl of paper and fire - and I'm going to prove it to them.

Where the King's touch closed me, shut me down, Wren's opens me up.

I keep my promises, Lei. Whatever they might cost me.

When the world denies you choices... you make your own

She looks so astonishing it's almost unreal, as though she'd slipped out of a painting perfectly formed, a thing of beauty, of art - of bright, vivid life in this cold, still place.

In my land, we're known as Paper Girls...
Easily torn, existing only for others to use and discard.
But there's something that they've all forgotten about paper. It can light the world on fire...
And make it burn.

They can take and break and steal all they want, but there is one thing they have no control over. Our emotions. Our feelings. Our thoughts. None of them will ever be able to control the way we feel. Our minds and hearts are our own. That is our power, Nine. Never forget it.

I don't realize it until I speak it. And it's different from the times I've said it before, or the way I've hoped it, as if dreaming something enough could birth it into being. I know it now with a certainty that has fitted into the lost core at the heart of me, as hard and angular as my hope was soft and shimmering. The King will not have me.

I don't want an easy life. I want a meaningful one.

Honor is in family, in hard work and care and love, in a small life well lived.

Wren, in her sleeping robe, standing close to a tall wolf demon, her head craned back to face him. The wolf: Moon caste, marbled ash-gray fur flowing silkily over angular features, a diamond-shaped patch of white on his long, muzzlelike jaw. He's dressed in soldier's clothes. One pawed hand is lifted to cup Wren's face, like the beginning of a kiss.

Fear is good. It means you care. And caring is its own kind of magic. One just as powerful as any dao I can weave.

Desire cannot be tamed. That's what the King told me the first time I was here. Well, King. You should see how untamable love makes you.

I was a girl with fire in her veins.

This isn't dancing the way I saw it done back home, all abandon and laughter and loose limbs. This is a kind of clockwork, technical thing.

I'm not spending the rest of my life as a prisoner.

But if there's one thing, palace life has taught me, it's how to follow orders. Even if you're raging against them.

Does darkness not follow light, and light follow darkness, neither one truly ahead of the other?

Instead of disappearing, she makes me feel reappeared. Reimagined. Her touch shapes me, draws out the boldness that had been hiding in my core.

Making love to Wren still feels like healing, like being made anew.

Remember, even that which seems impossible at first can be overcome by strength of mind and heart.

She is my air. My shelter. Wren is my wings.

We have a new goal now, Wren. One we can share the burden of together.

I promise myself that I will not give the King the chance to discard us.
One day, we will be the ones discarding him.

And what some people don't understand was that bleeding wasn't a sign of weakness; it was a sign of strength. It demonstrated to the world that you were vulnerable and ordinary, but when you wanted something enough, and fought hard for it, you were capable of doing extraordinary things.

It's all about yin and yang," she said, stroking my hair in her slow calming way, her voice as sweet and delicate as summer rain. "Balancing your energy. When you're angry or upset, stop for a moment and close your eyes. Breath in slowly. Imagine as you do that the air you take in is bright and golden, as lovely and light as your eyes. Let that brightness fill your belly. Then, when you exhale, picture the darkness that had been within you--whatever it was that upset you -- and visualize it leaving your body as you release your breath.

Hold on to that as tightly as you can, Lei. Because war will do everything it can to take goodness from you. I think sometimes people forget there will be time after all of this-for the lucky ones, at least. And when that time comes, we'll all have to live with what we have done.

Winning a war is the easy part. All it takes is brawn. Maintaining your rule afterward is the real test.