Quotes by Holly Black

Im sorry, she said to each of the dead as she unzipped and unfastened their things, Im sorry Courtney. Im sorry Marcus. Im sorry Rachel. Im sorry Jon. Im sorry Im alive and youre dead. Im sorry I was asleep. Im sorry I didnt save you and now Im taking your things. Im sorry. Im sorry. Im sorry.

You said you were allowed to lose it, some part of her reminded herself. Not yet, not yet.

Behind Tana there was the sounds of splintering wood, as though something very large had hot the door. No, she said softly, Oh no. No. Leave me, said Gavriel. .....Shut up or I might, she told him.

In the dream, Tanas mother loved her more than anyone or anything. More than death.

please,Tana,please. -lots of characters in The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

His voice had a faint trace of an accent she couldnt place - one that made her pretty sure he was no local kid infected the night before.

In those stories, one is often asked to do something unimaginably terrible to the creature. Cut off its head, say. A test. Not a test of love. A test of trust. Trust lifts the spell.

Im not good at having friends. I mean, I can make myself useful to people. I can fit in. I get invited to parties and I can sit at any table I want in the cafeteria.But actually trusting someone when they have nothing to gain from me just doesnt make sense.All friendships are negotiations of power.

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

Ben was taking her through the storm of grief. He was singing her through the rage and despair. He was singing her through the terrible loneliness, because there was no way to shut off grief, no way to cast it aside or fight against it. The only way to end grief was to go through it.As she realized that, his song began to change. It grew softer, sweeter, like the morning after a long cry, when your head still hurt but your heart was no longer broken.

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

I survive at the edge of friends circles.

He must have been handsome when he was alive and was handsome still, although made monstrous by his pallor and her awareness of what he was. His mouth looked soft, his cheekbones as sharp as blades, and his jaw curved, giving him an off-kilter beauty. His black hair a mad forest of dirty curls.

Im going to take off your gag. And if you try to bite me or grab me or anything, Ill hit you with this thing as hard as I can as many times as I can. Understood?

That was seven years ago. The doctors told her father the memory would fade, like the big messy scar on her arm, but neither ever did.

He let out a hiss of pain,then smiled that crooked, sheepish smile he always fell back on when he was caught doing something bad. Sorry. I-I didnt mean to. I just- Ive been lying here for hours, thinking about blood.

His wax-white skin was cool to the touch when she brushed his neck to find the knot of cloth. Shed never been this close to a vampire,never realized what it would be like to be so near to someone who didnt breathe, who could be as still as any statue. His chest neither rose not fell. Her hands shook.

Better to leave him with the memory of their being a pair of monsters, wrapped in each others arms.

Magic gives you a lot of choices, Grandad says. Most of them are bad.

It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up.