William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back, by Ian Doescher

C-3PO:
My R2 small, pray be thou safe, good friend,
And take especial care of Master Luke.
Farewell, farewell! parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say farewell till thou hast left.

R2-D2:
[aside] "Till thou hast left"? No poet he, indeed.
Alas, it seems that romance is not one
of 3PO's six million forms of speech.

An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green

In that moment, the future--uncontainable by any Theorem mathematical or otherwise--stretched out before Colin: infinite and unknowable and beautiful. "Eureka," Colin said, and only in saying it did he realize he had just successfully whispered.

For Darkness Shows the Stars, by Diana Peterfreund

Elliot only had eyes for Kai. The could stand here forever, it seemed. Not moving, not blinking, not breathing, if that's what it took to plant this moment into reality. She didn't care that Olivia and Donovan were holding tight to each other for comfort, that Andromeda had run off to cry, that Horatio was chattering about plants as if he could somehow bring the level of discourse in the room back to the mundane, that the sun was shining or the seeds were sprouting or that the ship lay in the harbor waiting for Kai to sail away in it.

Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo

One thing did stand out to me: the word the philosophers used to describe people born without Grisha gifts, otkazat'sya, "the abandoned." It was another word for orphan.

Tenth of December, by George Saunders

From across the woods, as if by common accord, birds left their trees and darted upward. I joined them, flew among them, they did not recognize me as something apart from them, and I was happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and forever more, I had not killed, and never would.

*****

When they were first married, they used to fight. Say the most insane things. Afterward, sometimes there would be tears. Tears in bed? And then they would--Molly pressing her hot wet face against his hot wet face. They were sorry, they were saying with their bodies, they were accepting each other back, and that feeling, that feeling of being accepted back again and again, of someone's affection for you expanding to encompass whatever new flawed thing had just manifested in you, that was the deepest, dearest thing he'd ever--

A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan

"Do you remember the Vystrani runt in the menagerie?"

"The albino? Of course." Lord Hilford's prize, and in so many ways, the reason both Jacob and I were here.

"You remind me of that dragon."

Now I sat up and twisted to face him, torn between outrage and hilarity. "I'm a pale, sexless runt?!"

He fended me off with his hands, laughter getting the better of him. "Not in the least. But Mr. Swargin always said it was surprisingly robust. I think if Hilford hadn't captured it, the creature would have lived a fine life somewhere in these mountains." Jacob sobered, hands sliding down my arms to grip my hands. "I don't want you to pine away, Isabella. If it's my job, as your husband, to take care of you, then I will do so--by giving you the life you need."

The Impossible Knife of Memory, by Laurie Halse Anderson

When I was with Finn, the world spun properly on its axis, and gravity worked. At home, the planet tilted so far on its side it was hard to tell which way was up. Dad felt it, too. He shuffled like an old man, as if the carpet under his feet was really a slick sheet of black ice.