Holly Black

"It's you I love," he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours." He walks to the door to end the conversation. “You probably guessed as much," he says. "But just in case you didn't."
Cardan