Holly Black Quotes

152 Sourced Quotes

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.

Holly Black
Let her alone,' said the enkanto, 'or I will curse you blind, lame, and worse.' The old man laughed. 'I'm a curse breaker, fool.' The elf grabbed one of the Jim Beam bottles from the table and slammed it down, so that he was holding a jagged glass neck. The elf smiled a very thin smile. 'Then I won't bother with magic.

Holly Black
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.

Holly Black
Oh- and grab the plastic bag over by my suitcase." I slug down the last of the coffee and get up. The bag contains panty hose. I put them on her desk. "They're for you." "You want me to look homeless, desperate, but also kind of fabulous?

Holly Black
She suddenly understood why she had let him kiss her in the diner, why she had wanted him at all. She wanted to control him. He was every arrogant boyfriend that had treated her mother badly. He was every boy that told her she was too freaky, who had laughed at her, or just wanted her to shut up and make out. He was a thousand times less real than Roiben.

Holly Black
The truth is messy. It's raw and uncomfortable. You can't blame people for preferring lies.

Holly Black
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.

Holly Black
They say that nameless things change constantly—that names fix them in place like pins.

Holly Black
Memory is slippery. It bends to our understanding of the world, twists to accommodate our prejudices. It is unreliable. Witnesses seldom remember the same things. They identify the wrong people. They give us the details of events that never happened. Memory is slippery, but my memories suddenly feel slipperier.

Holly Black
Once, there was a girl who vowed she would save everyone in the world, but forgot herself.

Holly Black
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.

Holly Black
He's the kind of liar who totally forgets what he told you the last time, but he believes every single lie with such conviction that sometimes he can convince you of it.

Holly Black
Nevermore," Lolli said. "That's what Luis calls it, because there are three rules: Never more than once a day, never more than a pinch at a time, and never more than two days in a row.

Holly Black
You can always count on your family to love you. And to betray you. And then to feel guilty about it.

Holly Black
I consider kissing her right there on the dirty couch, but self-preservation stops me. Once someone hurts you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you wanting them. Sometimes I actually think it makes the wanting worse

Holly Black
Little mouse," a voice said through the keyhole. "Don't you know the more you wriggle, the greater the cat's delight?

Holly Black
They think you can't feel anything, because they've forgotten how. You're very, very dangerous, I get that, and you're prone to some very theatrical brooding, but don't let yourself mistake that for some kind of inner corruption. They see themselves in you and are blinded.

Holly Black
You set me up," I say. "One big con. You can't blame me because I turned out not to be gullible enough. You can't blame the mark. That's not how it works. Have some respect for the nature of the game.

Holly Black
She knew she shouldn't feel that way about a monster, but right then, she wanted nothing more than a monster of her very own.

Holly Black
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.

Holly Black
Clever girl. You play with fire because you want to be burnt.

Holly Black
You better get over here with my car, Grandad says. Before I call the cops and tell them you stole it. Sorry, I say contritely. Then the rest of what he said sinks in and I laugh. Wait, did you just threaten me with calling the police? Because that I'd like to see.

Holly Black
You are the only thing I have that is neither duty nor obligation, the only thing I chose for myself. The only thing I want.

Holly Black
Maybe it was that nearly everyone else was dead and she felt a little bit dead too, but she figured that even a vampire deserved to be saved. Maybe she ought to leave him, but she wasn't going to.

Holly Black
It's starting to sink in," Corny said. "I can almost look at you without wanting to bang my head against the wall.

Holly Black
Downstairs, Grandad's warning Barron about something. His voice swells, and I catch the words, "In my day we were feared. Now we're just afraid.

Holly Black
She says that what you did was a cry for help." "It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety.

Holly Black
He was saying that the end of the world wasn't an accident; it was a joke.

Holly Black
In her dreams, blood tasted like fizzy strawberry soda. If you drank it too fast, you got brain freeze. When she was older, after she'd licked a cut on her finger, the taste of that became the taste in her dreams: copper and tears.

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

Holly Black