Holly Black Quotes

“Well fine, then. I could send you out to win my favor. Possibly on a quest involving bringing a large mug of coffee and a doughnut. Or the wholesale slaughter of all my enemies. I haven't decided which.”

“It is my belief that books are living things…. And as living things, they need to be protected.”

“The only way to end grief was to go through it.”

“If she'd known she was going to die at his hands, she would have dressed up.”

“Hazel, Hazel, blue of eye. Kissed the boys and made them cry”

“You and your sister are very dear to each other. To show your regard, you give each other lovely bouquets of lies.”

“We love until we do not. For us, love doesn't fade gradually. It snaps like a branch bent too far.”

“Yeah, the whole family knows. It's no big deal. One night at dinner I said, 'Mom, you know the forbidden love that Spock has for Kirk? Well, me too.' It was easier for her to understand that way.”

“whatever you love, that is your weakness”

“I love you, you see… and I fear I have no way to say or show it that isn't terrible, except coming here. I would kill everyone in the world for you, if you wanted……. Or not obviously”

“There's a monster in our wood. She'll get you if you're not good. Drag you under leaves and sticks. Punish you for all your tricks. Anest of hair and gnawed bone. You are never, ever coming… home.”

“Mutually assured destruction.”

“Every child needs a tragedy to become truly interesting.”

“Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill monsters and feel quite proud of themselves.”

“Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.”

“Hazel never cried. She was forged from iron; she never broke.”

“All boys lie," Ben said. "And all girls lie, too. I lie. You lie. Don't pretend you don't.”

“Ah coffee. The sweet balm by which we shall accomplish today's tasks.”

“Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.”

“The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.”

“Once someone's hurt you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you from wanting them.”

“Those who really love you don't mean to hurt you and if they do, you can't see it in their eyes but it hurts them too.”

“She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.”

“The truth is messy. It's raw and uncomfortable. You can't blame people for preferring lies.”

“Changing is what people do when they have no options left.”

“If curiosity killed the cat, it was satisfaction that brought it back.”

“You are the only thing I have that is neither duty nor obligation, the only thing I chose for myself. The only thing I want.”

“We are, largely, who we remember ourselves to be. That's why habits are so hard to break. If we know ourselves to be liars, we expect not to tell the truth. If we think of ourselves as honest, we try harder.”

“Every hero is the villain of his own story.”

“No trouble ever got fixed late at night," he said. "Midnight is for regrets.”

“She says that what you did was a cry for help."

"It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety.”

“Baby," she says in a harsh whisper, "in this world, lots of people will try to grind you down. They need you to be small so they can be big. You let them think whatever they want, but you make sure you get yours. You get yours.”

“I can't trust the people I care about not to hurt me. And I'm not sure I can trust myself not to hurt them, either.”

“I need you to be happy. I need one of us to be happy.”

“Death’s favorites don’t die.”

“If she was going to die, she might as well die sarcastic.”

“He's the kind of liar who totally forgets what he told you the last time, but he believes every single lie with such conviction that sometimes he can convince you of it.”

“She knew what it felt like to tremble like that before touching someone -- desire so acute that it became despair.”

“What an author doesn't know could fill a book.”

“Clever girl. You play with fire because you want to be burnt.”

“You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that.”

“And if I wanted to kill myself, I wouldn't throw myself off a roof. And if I was going to throw myself off a roof, I would put on some pants before I did it.”

“She looks honestly upset, but then, I’ve learned that I can’t read her. The problem with a really excellent liar is that you have to just assume they’re always lying.”

“We all wind up drawn to what we're afraid of, drawn to try to find a way to make ourselves safe from a thing by crawling inside of it, by loving it, by becoming it.”

“This is the part in the movie where that guy says, "Zombies? What zombies?" just before they eat his brains. I don't want to be that guy.”

“Even from the beginning, that was the problem. People liked pretty things. People even liked pretty things that wanted to kill and eat them.”

“The more powerful you become, the more others will find ways to master you. They'll do it through those you love and those you hate. They will find the bit and the bridle that fits your mouth and will make you yield.”

“I can learn to live with guilt. I don't care about being good.”

“No," said Luis, "You can't date the Lord of the Night Court."
"Well, I'm not, he dumped me."
"You can't get dumped by the lord of the night court."
"Oh, yes, you can. You so completely can.”

“You are more dangerous than daybreak.”

“I would remain nearer you for what time there is."

"Gone in one faerie sigh," she quoted.

Leather-clad fingers brushed over her short hair, rested on her cheek. "I can hold my breath.”

“They say that nameless things change constantly—that names fix them in place like pins.”

“That’s family for you. Can’t live with them, can’t murder them.”

“But if you didn't believe in monsters, then how were you going to be able to keep safe from them?”

“I haven't had a very good day. I think I might still be hung over and everyone's dead and my root beer's gone.”

“You can break a thing, but you cannot always guide it afterward into the shape you want.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere," Sam says, "Except, apparently, off a roof.”

“Life's full of opportunities to make crappy decisions that feel good. And after the first one, the rest get a whole lot easier.”

“Tana. In all my long life, though there were many times I prayed for it, no one has ever saved me. No one but you.”

“Can't get away from your own self.”

“Marks forget that whenever something's too good to be true, that's because it's a con.”