Quotes from Holly Black

He's the kind of beautiful that makes people want to smash things.

A girl like that, Grandad said, perfumes herself with ozone and metal filings.

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.

There was a young lady of Niger Who smiled as she rode on a tiger; They returned from a ride With the Lady inside And the smile on the face of the tiger.

She can't help it. She loves the con. I tell myself I'm not like her, but I have to admit I love it too.

Prince Balekin smiles back as though their smiles could duel without the rest of them even being involved.

You should tell him, I say. Which is not bad advice, I think. Not advice I would take myself, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad.

After that, she wasn't sure what the game was or if she'd imagined it. All she knew was that she had lost.

He closes his eyes. When he opens them, he releases my hand and turns so I cant see his face. ¨I can see why you thought what you did. I suppose I am not an easy person to trust. And maybe I ought not to be trusted, but let me say this: i trust you.¨ Page 162

It demeans you to cover rotten meat with honey. I know what I am. What would you want with a monster?" "Everything.

A mortal had woven it, a man who, having caught sight of the Seelie queen, had spent the remainder of his short life weaving depictions of her. He had died of starvation, raw, red fingers staining the final tapestry.

If they were real, then maybe the world was big enough to have magic in it. And if there was magic — even bad magic, and Zach knew it was more likely that there was bad magic than any good kind — then maybe not everyone had to have a story like his father's, a story like the kind all the adults he knew told, one about giving up and growing bitter.

Someone's really sold you a bill of goods. Plenty of mortals are better at plenty of stuff than the Folk. Why do you think we steal them away?

I don't want to be a vampire' she told herself. But in her dreams, she kind of did.

He looks at me and blinks, as through a fog. "This is an absolutely terrible idea," he says with a kind of amazement in his voice. "Yes," I tell him, kicking off my boots. -Cardan and Jude

I am not weak, he wanted to shout, but he wasn't sure he could say that aloud, either

It's not that I want you to be a certain way--don't you want a boyfriend?" "Why bother with that? Let's find incubi." "Incubi?" "Demons. Plural. Like octopi. And we're much more likely to find them"--her voice dropped conspiratorially--"while swimming naked in the Atlantic a week before Halloween than practically anywhere else I can think of.

Each of you will have a chance to play it, and whosoever plays most sweetly, you will have it. For art is more than virtue or vice.

Most of all, I hate you because I think of you.

It's hard to come up with a scheme to thwart some other scheme you don't even know about.

I've missed the rush of power that comes with playing a game like this, of strategy and cunning. I hate to admit it, but I've missed risking my neck. There's no room for regrets when you're busy trying to win. Or at least not to die.

Telling Sam and Daneca feels like peeling off my own skin to expose everything underneath. It hurts.

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.

The first boy I fell in love with didn't know I loved him, but he managed to break my heart anyway.