“Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one person, no different from any other person, wanders into your stupid life…you give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like “maybe we should just be friends” or “how very perceptive” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt. A real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love.”

— Rose Walker, from The Sandman by Neil Gaiman