Top 150 Ann Liang Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “There’s never been anybody else for me. There never will be.”

— Ann Liang

102. “That’s the one thing I’ve worked for my entire life – to be someone who matters. That’s why my parents moved to this country. That’s my purpose. If I can’t do it, then what’s the point of anything? What’s the point of me? What possible value could I provide?”

— Ann Liang

103. “The men fight for their thrones and their power and their legacies, but to them, we are nothing more than crickets and ants, insignificant, expandable... What does it matter who wears the crown, if they will not change any of this for us?”

— Ann Liang

104. “But a hero to many was still a villain to one.”

— Ann Liang

105. “Planning things out in detail means there are boundaries, and boundaries mean I’ll at least have control over something.”

— Ann Liang

106. “His eyes fluttered open, focused on me; it was how he had looked at me in all our time together, across the palace rivers, across the polished floors of his chambers, underneath the moonlight. no matter where we were, he was always the first one to spot me, always the last to look away. as if afraid that i would disappear at any moment, like smoke in the breeze. as if he knew that one day, he would run out of time, out of chance.”

— Ann Liang

107. “Fine.” He drags his chair forward until he’s right next to me, his shoulder almost pressed to mine, the heat of his skin seeping through my shirt. Until I’m aware of nothing but him, his nearness, his physical presence. And suddenly I find myself regretting my own request. It’s hard to think straight like this. I can’t even move without brushing against him.”

— Ann Liang

108. “We turn pain into a story, because then it has a purpose. Then, we reason, there was a point to it all along. But sometimes pain is just pain, and there’s nothing particularly noble about clinging to it.”

— Ann Liang

109. “I’m not so familiar with vices – I like to think I have none, but if anything were to count, you would be my only one. It must be an addiction or an obsession. I have never known anybody as completely as I know you, and yet I still want to sit next to you, draw close to you, closer. I want you to tell me every story, want to listen to you speak until the night sinks in the sky and the stars fade out. I want you to hold me like a grudge, keep me like a promise, haunt me like a ghost.”

— Ann Liang

110. “In the event that I do die in the middle of the night, I beg of you to not react by jumping up and down around my corpse,” Cyrus says flatly.”

— Ann Liang

111. “Whatever you say, my love.”

— Ann Liang

112. “You had to kiss me then kick me then fill my head with your voice.”

— Ann Liang

113. “Sadie, I’d hop on a sixteen hour plane ride to see you. An hour is nothing.”

— Ann Liang

114. “And isn’t it strange, I find myself marveling, how the safest I’ve ever felt is beside the boy I once considered the bane of my existence.”

— Ann Liang

115. “Something in me is missing. Lacking.”

— Ann Liang

116. “So beautiful and infuriating and confusing. So ready to split me open with a single word, stitch me up again with a fleeting touch.”

— Ann Liang

117. “Please, Sadie. I’m begging.”

— Ann Liang

118. “How many women throughout history were blamed for the weaknesses of men? We made such convenient scapegoats. We were raised to be small, to be silent, to take whatever we were given and no more.”

— Ann Liang

119. “You stare at your own face long enough and you’ll inevitably find something to hate about it.”

— Ann Liang

120. “The sun is bursting through my chest, breaking past my lips. It’s my life, I think with amazement, and it’s beautiful, and I can paint it any color I want to. Right now it’s drenched in the brighest shade of gold. I have the brush in my hands, and the canvas is mine. It’s all mine.”

— Ann Liang

121. “You’re so driven. So determined. No matter what happens, you just have a plan and you do it- and you do it well too.”

— Ann Liang

122. “I think you’re obsessed with me, Sadie Wen.”

— Ann Liang

123. “Fanli. Flesh of my heart, light of my sun. He was here, in the enemy kingdom.”

— Ann Liang

124. “It’s a challenge. This is what we do, I realize. We talk in circles. We give each other riddles, confounding clues, half answers. Everything and anything but the truth.”

— Ann Liang

125. “They’ve bet everything on me- their time and energy and savings- and this is what I have to show for it. Sunk costs. A failed investment.”

— Ann Liang

126. “I always feel better when I look better.”

— Ann Liang

127. “Because when he is ahead of her, if just by one question, one mark, one inch, that is the only time he can be confident she’s watching nobody but him. That is the only way he can think of to hold her attention, to make her care, to keep her interested.”

— Ann Liang

128. “He’s leaving with Sadie Wen: his co-conspirator, his co-captain, his rival, his life’s great defining question and answer.”

— Ann Liang

129. “Every move I made premeditated, but still always miscalculating, offering up the wrong comment or opinion or idea. Days when I was too exhausted to sleep while someone else lived the life I dreamed of.”

— Ann Liang

130. “Sorry.” Sarah’s voice sounds smaller, muffled, like she’s holding the phone between her ear and shoulder. I think I hear the clatter of wood and a very quietly uttered expletive. “A – a painting of Jesus just fell to the ground for some reason. Weird.” If I were even kind of religious, I’d definitely see this as a bad omen.”

— Ann Liang

131. “It’s one of the many reasons I love being around Abigail. We can talk on the phone for five hours straight in the evenings, stopping only to grab our phone chargers or a glass of water, but we can also just sit together and watch the changing scenery through the window.”

— Ann Liang

132. “Sometimes I worry I’d bore you if I told you every single time I found you beautiful. But you are. Just so you know.”

— Ann Liang

133. “I’ve never known how to witness dusk without feeling a dull sense of grief: another day gone, another day lost where I’m still the same.”

— Ann Liang

134. “In a world where everyone will demand something from you, it requires a certain degree of selfishness to be happy, you know.”

— Ann Liang

135. “Why not? It’s very easy to fall in love with you, Leah. The easiest thing in the world.”

— Ann Liang

136. “Please,” he said. “There cannot be nobody else but you.”

— Ann Liang

137. “We could grab dinner first... Maybe walk around a bit –.”

— Ann Liang

138. “Because you challenge me, you distract me when my brain is being cruel, you sharpen my edges when the world tries to wear them down.”

— Ann Liang

139. “The men will fight for their thrones and their power and their legacies, but to them we are nothing more than crickets and ants, insignificant, expendable. We will continue to worry over the rice and soy sauce and oil, three meals a day, how to escape the cold in the winter and the heat in the high summer, the holes in the roof and the bedding and the taxes. What does it matter who wears the crown, if they will not change any of this for us?”

— Ann Liang

140. “What I’m realizing is that if you’re quiet about the things that hurt you, people are only going to mistake your tolerance for permission.”

— Ann Liang

141. “Success is only meant to be rented out, borrowed in small doses at a time, never to be owned completely, no matter what price you’re willing to pay.”

— Ann Liang

142. “His mouth is on mine in an instant, desperate, urgent. And I cave in. I hate surrendering, but maybe it’s different when you’re both surrendering to the same thing.”

— Ann Liang

143. “But aren’t small things exactly what friendships are made up of? Frayed string bracelets and late-night texts and compilations of your favorite songs? When you take those things away, what do you have left?”

— Ann Liang

144. “At what point, I wonder, staring at the front door as it swings shut one last time, does something become unfixable? At what point is a tapestry riddled with so many holes and loose threads that it’s impossible to patch it up again? That it deserves to be thrown away instead?”

— Ann Liang

145. “And I’m certain in this very moment that if I had to walk deep into the woods, into a burning house, down into the depths of hell itself, he would still accompany me, just to make sure I don’t leave his sight.”

— Ann Liang

146. “Whatever works,′ I say sweetly, relishing the flash of genuine surprise on his face before I wrap one hand around the nape of his neck and pull him forward.”

— Ann Liang

147. “How ironic it was, that when we were apart, all i wished for was to be with him. Yet as soon as we were reunited, all we did was tell each other to leave.”

— Ann Liang

148. “I have never known anybody as completely as I know you, and yet I still want to sit next to you, draw close to you, closer. I want you to tell me every story, want to listen to you speak until the night sinks in the sky and the stars fade out. I want you to hold me like a grudge, keep me like a promise, haunt me like a ghost.”

— Ann Liang

149. “When joy arrives, it catches me off guard. It sneaks up slowly through my rib cage like poppies pushing through soil after the rain, and then it’s there, everywhere, warmth beating in my chest, spreading down to my fingertips as I sink back in the sunlight.”

— Ann Liang

150. “I hate you,” she grumbles without conviction, her voice soft enough to be a sigh. He tugs her closer still, taking his time to take her in, his smile widening slowly. “I know you don’t,” he says. And she doesn’t disagree.”

— Ann Liang