Explore Quotes by Holly Black

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.

A mortal had woven it, a man who, having caught sight of the Seelie queen, had spent the remainder of his short life weaving depictions of her. He had died of starvation, raw, red fingers staining the final tapestry.

I thought you were her knight, but you have become only her woodsman--taking little girls into the forest to cut out their hearts.

She'd always been a little contemptuous of beauty, as though it was something you had to trade away some other vital thing for.

Crippled things are always more beautiful. It's the flaw that brings out beauty.

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

His eyes look too bright, the way the do in people who are in love, people who are enraged, and people who are completely bonkers.

I thought I was getting better at this. I thought I was starting to make peace with being in love with a girl who despises me, but I don't think I'm so okay with it after all. Somewhere along the line I made a dark bargain with the universe without ever really being aware of it--a bargain that if I was allowed to see her, even if we never spoke, then I could live with that. And now a week without her has swallowed up all of my rational thinking. I feel like a junkie, sick for my next fix and not sure when it will come.

Jones looks like he wants to slug me, which is only subtly different from his usual way of looking at me like I'm a slug.

It's okay," he informs me. "Your grandfather is teaching me how to play poker." If I know Grandad, that means what he'll really be teaching Sam is how to cheat.

It's too early for there to be any coffee. I stare dully at the empty pot in the common room, while Sam picks up a jar of instant grounds. "Don't," I warn him. He scoops up a heaping spoonful and, heedlessly, shovels it into his mouth. It crunches horribly. Then his eyes go wide. "Dry," he croaks. "Tongue...shriveling." I shake my head, picking up the jar. "It's dehydrated. You're supposed to add water. Good thing you're mostly made of water." He tries to say something. Brown powder dusts his shirt. "Also," I tell him, "that's decaf.

I'm the best kind of thief, the kind that leaves behind items equal in value to those he's stolen.

At the end of a criminal’s life, it’s always the small mistake, the coincidence, the lark. The time we got too comfortable, the time we slipped up, the time someone aimed a little to the left. I’ve heard Grandad’s war stories a thousand times. How they finally got Mo. How Mandy almost got away. How Charlie fell. Birth to grave, we know it’ll be us one day. Our tragedy is that we forget it might be someone else first.

This is never going to be over,” I shout. “Someone will always be after me. There’s always consequences. Well, BRING IT. I am done with being afraid, and I am done with you.

Refills are free,” the waitress tells us with a frown, like she’s hoping we’re not the kind of people who ask for endless refills. I am already pretty sure we are exactly those people.

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.

There’s something about her—Cassel, I have met many evil men and women in my life. I have made deals with them, drank with them. I have done things that I myself have difficulty reconciling—terrible things. But I have never known anyone like your mother. She is a person without limits—or if she has any, she hasn’t found them yet. She never needs to reconcile anything.

A girl like that, Grandad said, perfumes herself with ozone and metal filings.

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.

She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and my salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything.

The problem with cell phones is that you can’t slam them down into a cradle when you hang up. Your only option is to throw them, and if you do, they just skitter across the floor and crack their case. It’s not satisfying at all. I close my eyes and bend down to pick up the pieces.