Holly Black Quotes

Mutually assured destruction.

Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.

Every hero is the villain of his own story.

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

You're like this leopard who's pretending to be a house cat.

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.

Jewels, lies, slips of paper, dried flowers, memories of thing long past, useless quotations, idle hands, beads, buttons, and mischief.

Put your puppet on the throne." said Talathain. "You may make her Queen but she won’t be Queen for long.

There’s nothing like a gunshot to make you the life of the party.

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

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

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

I survive at the edge of friends circles.

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

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

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

She sat in the dew-damp grass and ripped up clumps of it, tossing them in the air and feeling vaguely guilty about it. Some gnome ought to pop out of the tree and scold her for torturing the lawn.

Because I am about to be devoured by poodles," I quip. "Remember me always, my love.

Love changes us, but we change how we love too.

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.

Can't get away from your own self.

This, the language of deception, we both understand. We were born to it, along with the curses.

Some promises aren’t worth keeping.

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

You can always count on your family to love you. And to betray you. And then to feel guilty about it.

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

Telling Sam and Daneca feels like peeling off my own skin to expose everything underneath. It hurts.

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

One night you will ask me for something I cannot give.

My head is pounding. I wish the mints were aspirin.

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.

It's the flaw that brings out the beauty.

I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like DYING.

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

I did it to get what I want. Maybe I should regret that, but I can’t. Sometimes you do the bad thing and hope for the good result.

Sam: You know what I wish? Cassel: What? Sam: That someone would covert my bed into a robot that would fight other bed robots to the death for me.

To remind me, pain is the best teacher

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.

We’re all dying, Cassel. It’s just that some of us are dying faster than others.

He looks like the good boy he's never been.

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.

I envy what I fear and hate what I envy.

I got bored," he says. "Besides, you know what's creepier than walking around your dead brothers' apartment? Sitting alone in a hearse in front of his apartment.

Mirroring behavior. When a mark takes a drink from his water glass, so should you. When he smiles, so should you. Keep it subtle, rather than creepy, and it’s a good technique.

Poisonous jealousy thrummed through my veins.

Life is like licking Honey from a Thorn

whatever you love, that is your weakness

Nevermore," Lolli said. "That's what Luis calls it, because there are three rules: Never more than once a day, never more than a pinch at a time, and never more than two days in a row.

I'm afraid my voice is going to break. I am afraid she is going to hear how much this hurts.

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