Holly Black citations

“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.”

“Once, there was a girl who vowed she would save everyone in the world, but forgot herself.”

“I need to stop fantasizing about running away to some other life and start figuring out the one I have.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“The first boy I fell in love with didn't know I loved him, but he managed to break my heart anyway.”

“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.”

“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.”

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