„What they had between them was still as fragile as a flickering candle flame, as delicate as eggshell - and he knew that if it shattered, if he somehow let it break and be destroyed, something inside him would shatter too, something that could never be fixed.“

„He can touch your soul. And there is a difference between having your heart break and having your soul shatter.“

—  Cassandra Clare, book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

„She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance--shattered it. He had let the walls down when he'd thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up.“

—  Cassandra Clare, book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

„strongest blade in the world, howeve, r it is so fragile as to shatter when handled by any force other than the delicate touch of a lesbian.“

—  Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/235218148800991233]
Tweets by year, 2012

„Is love so fragile,
And the heart so hollow,
Shatter with words,
Impossible to follow,
You're saying I'm fragile, I try not to be,
I search only, for something I can't see.“

—  Stevie Nicks American singer and songwriter, member of Fleetwood Mac 1948

Leather And Lace
Bella Donna (album) (1981)

„Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.“

—  Celeste Ng, book Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

Source: Everything I Never Told You

„He was angry, too, because it would soon be Christmas and he had nothing to give Leslie. It was not that she would expect something expensive; it was that he needed to give her something as much as he needed to eat when he was hungry. […] She wouldn't laugh at him no matter what he gave her. But for his own sake he had to give her something he could be proud of.“

—  Katherine Paterson, book Bridge to Terabithia

Jesse Aarons
Bridge to Terabithia (1977)

„Toad saw that he was trapped. They understood him, they saw through him, they had got ahead of him. His pleasant dream was shattered.“

—  Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 12

„A candle burned on the table, a candle burned … he whispered to himself — the beginning of something confused, formless; he hoped that it would take shape of itself. But nothing more came to him.“

—  Borís Pasternak, book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago (1957), Ch. 3 section 10

„And at that moment Jude thought something that he would never forgive himself for.
He wished that he had never met any of them.“

—  Melina Marchetta, book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

„Something had been given back to him. And because [she] had been a part of it, there was something between them now. A bond of loss, if loss could bind.“

—  Orson Scott Card, book Homebody

Homebody (1998)

„A singer can shatter glass with the proper high note," he said, "but the simplest way to break glass is simply to drop it on the floor.“

—  Anne Rice, book The Vampire Lestat

Source: The Vampire Lestat

„Is he… is Dimitri a Strigoi?"
Mason hesitated only a moment, like he was afraid to answer me, and then—he nodded.
My heart shattered. My world shattered.“

—  Richelle Mead, Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

„He had gone to church and brought back this little flame and had nowhere to put it on the dark damp walls of the apartment, so it had flickered and gone out. And he realised that he wouldn't always be able to produce this flame.“

—  John Updike, book Rabbit, Run

Rabbit, Run (1960)

„Deep inside himself, in a place he didn't often go, where he kept the things he didn't like to think about but dared not forget, he knew that [she] was still alive somewhere, and somehow she was watching what he did, or at least looking in on him from time to time.“

—  Orson Scott Card, Treasure Box

Treasure Box (1996)

„In his eyes, there was no trace of what had happened earlier, and I could feel something inside me break. So that was that. We were finally, finally over.“

—  Jenny Han American writer 1980

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

„He had to choose between something he had become accustomed to and something he wanted to have.“

—  Paulo Coelho Brazilian lyricist and novelist 1947

„And it was because of their long history that he searched for something to say, something that would get them back to where they had been.

All that came to him was…“

—  Jessica Bird U.S. novelist 1969

Source: Lover Mine

„Uninfluenced by others, he never knew he influenced them; he had no idea they liked him.“

—  Ursula K. Le Guin, Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 2 (p. 58)

„You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.“

—  Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies

Farewell! But Whenever You Welcome the Hour, st. 3.
Source: Irish Melodies http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html (1807–1834)