Explore Quotes by Holly Black

You really dug your own grave,” he mutters. “And I’m going to bury you in it.” “Say that louder,” I tell him, under my breath. “I dare you.

You want me to say something? Okay. Sometimes I think I am what you made me. And sometimes I don’t know who I am at all. And either way I’m not happy.

More and more I feel like the boy who cut off his nose to spite his face.

You got a lot of ladies to get through. You’re still young. First love’s the sweetest, but it doesn’t last.” “Not ever?” I ask. Grandad looks at me with a seriousness he reserves for moments when he wants me to really pay attention. “When we fall that first time, we’re not really in love with the girl. We’re in love with being in love. We’ve got no idea what she’s really about—or what she’s capable of. We’re in love with our idea of her and of who we become around her. We’re idiots.

The funny thing about good people—people like Daneca—is that they really honestly don’t get the impulse toward evil. They have an incredibly hard time reconciling with the idea that a person who makes them smile can still be capable of terrible things. Which is why, although she’s accusing me of being a murderer, she seems more annoyed than actually worried about getting murdered. Daneca seems to persist in a belief that if I would just listen and understand how bad my bad choices are, I’d stop making them.

It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.

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.

I think Bob appreciated my outfit. He made me buy the more expensive pendant. You might think that was to my disadvantage, but I accept that status comes with a price.” “Not usually so immediately.” I shake my head. “You better not be hitting on federal agent ladies. They’ll arrest you.” His grin widens. “I like handcuffs.” I groan. “There is something seriously wrong with you.” “Nothing that a night being worked over by a hot representative of justice couldn’t fix.

He runs to the sink to spit it out. I grin. There’s nothing quite as funny as someone else’s misery.

Some promises aren’t worth keeping.

God, I hate you,” she says. “So much. Why do boys think that it will be better to lie and tell a girl how much they loved her and how they only dumped her for her own good? That they only tried to rearrange her brain for her own good? Does it make you feel better, Cassel? Does it? Because from my perspective, it really sucks.

She wants me to take out Patton.” Barron’s brows draw together. “Take out? As in transform him?” “No,” I say. “As in take out to dinner. She thinks we’d make a good couple.

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

She sits up. I can’t read her expression, but her cheeks look a little pink. “I didn’t think you were going to be here.” “I live here.

I can’t help feeling a little bit competitive and a little bit disappointed in myself that I’m already so far behind. After all, Yulikova thinks Barron has a real future with the Bureau. She told me so. I told her that sociopaths are relentlessly charming. I think she figured I was joking.

Boys never believe I can beat them, she told me back then. But I always win in the end.

Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs. What no one told me, with all those warnings, is that even after you’ve fallen, even after you know how painful it is, you’d still get in line to do it again.

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

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

She wears trouble like a crown. If she ever falls in love, she’ll fall like a comet, burning the sky as she goes.

Ruthless. That’s my girl.