Quotes by Maggie Stiefvater

It is possible to be in love with you just because of who you are.

You two are too cute,” the counter girl said, setting two cups piled with whipped cream on the counter. She had a sort of lopsided, open smile that made me think she laughed a lot. “Seriously. How long have you been going out?”Sam let go of my hands to get his wallet and took out some bills. “Six years.”I wrinkled my nose to cover a laugh. Of course he would count the time that we’d been two entirely different species.Whoa.” Counter girl nodded appreciatively. “That’s pretty amazing for a couple your age.Sam handed me my hot chocolate and didn’t answer. But his yellow eyes gazed at me possessively—I wondered if he realized that the way he looked at me was far more intimate than copping a feel could ever be.I crouched to look at the almond bark on the bottom shelf in the counter. I wasn’t quite bold enough to look at either of them when I admitted, “Well, it was love at first sight.”The girl sighed. “That is just so romantic. Do me a favor, and don’t you two ever change. The world needs more love at first sight.

Youre like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again.

If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human.

I wish you could be kissed, Jane, he said. Because I would beg just one off you. Under all this. He flailed an arm toward the stars.

Ronan said, Im always straight.Adam replied Oh, man, thats the biggest lie youve ever told.

Sam came around the side of the car and stopped dead when he saw me. “Oh my God, what is THAT?” I used my thumb and middle finger to flick the multicolored pom-pom on top of my head. “In my language, we call it a HAT. It keeps my ears warm.” “Oh my God,” Sam said again, and closed the distance between us. He cupped my face in his hands and studied me. “It’s horribly cute.” He kissed me, looked at the hat, and then he kissed me again. I vowed never to lose the pom-pom hat.

Youre asking me to define an abstract concept that no one has managed to explain since time began. You sort of sprang it on me, Gansey said. Why do we breathe air? Because we love air? Because we dont want to suffocate. Why do we eat? Because we dont want to starve. How do I know I love her? Because I can sleep after I talk to her. Why?

When she opened her eyes, she was both in her body and watching it, nowhere near the cavity of the tree. The Blue that was before her stood inches from a boy in an Aglionby sweater. There was a slight stoop to his posture, and his shoulders were spattered darkly with rain. It was his fingers that Blue felt on her face. He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Tears coursed down the other Blues face. Though some strange magic, Blue could feel them on her face as well. She could feel, too, sick, rising misery shed felt in the churchyard, the grief that felt bigger than her. The other Blues tears seemed endless. One drop slid after another, each following an identical path down her cheeks.The boy in the Aglionby sweater leaned his forehead against Blues. She felt the pressure of his skin against hers, and suddenly she could smell mint. Itll be okay. Gansey told the other Blue. She could tell that he was afraid. Itll be okay.Impossibly, Blue realized that this other Blue was crying because she loved Gansey. And that the reason Gansey touched her like that, his fingers so careful with her, was because he knew that her kiss could kill him. She could feel how badly the other Blue wanted to kiss him, even as she dreaded it. Though she couldnt understand why, her real, present day memories in the tree cavity were clouded with other false memories of their lips nearly touching, a life this other Blue had already lived.Okay, Im ready- Ganseys voice caught, just a little. Blue, kiss me.

Adam smiled cheerily. Ronan would start wars and burn cities for that true smile, elastic and amiable.

And then I opened my eyes and it was just Grace and me - nothing anywhere but Grace and me - she pressing her lips together as though she were keeping my kiss inside her, and me, holding this moment that was as fragile as a bird in my hands.

Right now, its hard to imagine that it is raining anywhere in the world.

Many, many readers have written asking me wistfully about the nature of Sam and Graces relationship, and I can assure you, that sort is absolutely real. Mutual, respectful, enduring love is completely attainable as long as you swear you wont settle for less.

Voicemail #1: “Hi, Isabel Culpeper. I am lying in my bed, looking at the ceiling. I am mostly naked. I am thinking of … your mother. Call me.”Voicemail #2: The first minute and thirty seconds of “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” by the Bee Gees. Voicemail #3: “I’m bored. I need to be entertained. Sam is moping. I may kill him with his own guitar. It would give me something to do and also make him say something. Two birds with one stone! I find all these old expressions unnecessarily violent. Like, ring around the rosy. That’s about the plague, did you know? Of course you did. The plague is, like, your older cousin. Hey, does Sam talk to you? He says jack shit to me. God, I’m bored. Call me.”Voicemail #4: “Hotel California” by the Eagles, in its entirety, with every instance of the word California replaced with Minnesota. Voicemail #5: “Hi, this is Cole St. Clair. Want to know two true things? One, you’re never picking up this phone. Two, I’m never going to stop leaving long messages. It’s like therapy. Gotta talk to someone. Hey, you know what I figured out today? Victor’s dead. I figured it out yesterday, too. Every day I figure it out again. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like there’s no one I can —”Voicemail #6: “So, yeah, I’m sorry. That last message went a little pear-shaped. You like that expression? Sam said it the other day. Hey, try this theory on for size: I think he’s a dead British housewife reincarnated into a Beatle’s body. You know, I used to know this band that put on fake British accents for their shows. Boy, did they suck, aside from being assholes. I can’t remember their name now. I’m either getting senile or I’ve done enough to my brain that stuff’s falling out. Not so fair of me to make this one-sided, is it? I’m always talking about myself in these things. So, how are you, Isabel Rosemary Culpeper? Smile lately? Hot Toddies. That was the name of the band. The Hot Toddies.”Voicemail #20: “I wish you’d answer.

I could still smell her on my fur. It clung to me, a memory of another world.I was drunk with it, with the scent of her. Id got too close.The smell of summer on her skin, the half-recalled cadence of her voice, the sensation of her fingers on my fur. Every bit of me sang with the memory of her closeness.Too close.I couldnt stay away.

What are you wishing for? Grace interrupted. To kiss you, I said to her.

Hed only been gone two seconds, but the room got brighter when they were together, as if they were two elements that became brilliant in proximity. At Sams clumsy efforts to carry the vacuum, Grace smiled a new smile that I thought only he ever got, and he shot her a withering look full of the sort of subtext you could only get from a lot of conversations whispered after dark.It made me think of Isabel, back at her house. We didnt have what Sam and Grace had. We werent even close to having it. I didnt think what we had could get to this, even if you gave it a thousand years.

Ronans second secret was Adam Parrish.

In the darkness, he is invisible, but I can still feel him beside me. Sometimes you dont have to see something to know it is there.

Cole,” I said, “do you think I’m lovable?”“As in ‘cuddly and’?”“As in ‘able to be loved,’” I said.Cole’s gaze was unwavering. Just for a moment, I had the strange idea that I could see exactly what he had looked like when he was younger, and exactly what he’d look like when he was older. It was piercing, a secret glimpse of his future. “Maybe,” he said. “But you won’t let anybody try.”I closed my eyes and swallowed. “I can’t tell the diference between not fighting,” I said,“and giving up.”Despite my eyelids being tightly shut, a single, hot tear ran out of my left eye. I was so angry that it had escaped. I was so angry.Beneath me, the bed tipped as Cole edged closer. I felt him lean over me. His breath, warm and measured, hit my cheek. Two breaths. Three. Four. I didn’t know what I wanted. Then I heard him stop breathing, and a second later, I felt his lips on my mouth. It wasn’t the sort of kiss I’d had with him before, hungry, wanting, desperate. It wasn’t the sort of kiss I’d had with anyone before. This kiss was so soft that it was like a memory of a kiss, so careful on my lips that it waslike a memory of a kiss, so careful on my lips that it was like someone running his fingers along them. My mouth parted and stilled; it was so quiet, a whisper, not a shout. Cole’s hand touched my neck, thumb pressed into theskin next to my jaw. It wasn’t a touch that said “I need more”. It was a touch that said “I want this.”It was all completely soundless. I didn’t think either of us was breathing.Cole sat back up, slowly, and I opened my eyes. His expression, as ever, was blank, the face he wore when something mattered.He said, “That’s how I would kiss you, if I loved you.