Quotes by Holly Black

Cant get away from your own self.

We labor under so many illusions about ourselves until were stripped bare. Being infected, being a vampire, its always you. Maybe its more you than ever before. You, distilled. You, boiled down like a sauce. But its you as you always were, deep down inside.

He had read lots of stories where heroes succeeded in spite of long odds, where they accomplished a task that everyone else had failed at. He wondered for the first time about all the people whod gone before those heroes, about whether theyd been at each others throats, before everything had gone wrong. He wondered if there was a point where they realized they werent going to make it, werent going to beat those long odds--that in the legend that would follow, they were going to be the nameless people that failed.

She knew what it felt like to tremble like that before touching someone -- desire so acute that it became despair.

Baby, she says in a harsh whisper, in this world, lots of people will try to grind you down. They need you to be small so they can be big. You let them think whatever they want, but you make sure you get yours. You get yours.

Kiss my ass Rath Roiben Rye

The moment she was cursed, I lost her. Once it wears off- soon- she will be embarrassed to remember things that she said, things she did, things like this. No matter how solid she feels in my arms, she is made of smoke.

I know how to be the witness to her grief. I dont know how to be this kind of villain.

Her tragedy, if she had one, was to be as normal and average as any child ever born.

Some things exist whether you believe in them or not

Lie until even you believe it - thats the real secret of lying

The most important thing for any con artist is never to think like a mark. Marks think they can get something for nothing. Marks think they can get what they don’t deserve and could never deserve. Marks are stupid and pathetic and sad. Marks think they’re going to go home one night and have the girl they’ve loved since they were a kid suddenly love them back. Marks forget that whenever something’s too good to be true, that’s because it’s a con.

Tana would sit near the door to the basement with fingers in her ears, tears and snot running down her face as she cried and cried and cried. And little Pearl would toddle up, crying, too. They cried while they ate their cereal, cried while they watched cartoons, and cried themselves to sleep at night, huddled together in Tanas little bed. Make her stop Pearl said, but Tana couldnt.

There’s a tipping point with lies, a point where you’ve said something so many times that it feels truer than the truth.

I can learn to live with guilt. I dont care about being good.

Once someones hurt you, its harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesnt stop you from wanting them. Sometimes I actually think it makes the wanting worse.

Dont know. Dont care. Im hopping on a bus and going until I cant go any farther. Until I find a place that feels like home.Hes quiet for a long time. How will you know what home feels like?It hangs in the air between us, as frozen as our breaths. I dont have an answer.

If you keep it, Daneca says, hell have his claws in you.Everyone has their claws in me. Everyone.

Youre yourself, Tana said, grinning. More purely yourself than anyone I know. And if you cant see who that is anymore, then see yourself the way I see you.

Who cares about a test? There will be a million more quizzed in your life.