Quotes from Holly Black

There is no banquet too abundant for a starving man.

She wears trouble like a crown. If she ever falls in love, she'll fall like a comet, burning the sky as she goes.

The curse is broken. The king is returned." He's every bit as terrifying as any serpent. I don't care. I run into his arms. Cardan's fingers dig into my back. He's trembling, and whether it is from ebbing magic or horror, I am not sure. But he holds me as though I am the only solid thing in the world.

I need you to be happy. I need one of us to be happy.

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

Once upon a time, there was a human girl stolen away by faeries, and because of that, she swore to destroy them.

That's what mortal means," I say with a sigh that I don't have to fake. "We die. Think of us like shooting stars, brief but bright.

Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway.

No matter how careful I am, eventually I'll make another misstep. I am weak. I am fragile. I am mortal.

Mortals are fragile,' I say. 'Not you,' he says in a way that sounds a little like a lament. 'You never break.

I can't trust the people I care about not to hurt me. And I'm not sure I can trust myself not to hurt them, either.

He rises from the throne. "Come, have a seat." His voice is replete with danger, lush with menace. The flowering branches have sprouted thorns so thickly that petals are barely visible. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" he asks. "What you sacrificed everything for. Go on. It's all yours.

Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs. What no one told me, with all those warnings, is that even after you've fallen, even after you know how painful it is, you'd still get in line to do it again.

The Folk doubtlessly learned this lesson long ago. They do not need to deceive humans. Humans will deceive themselves.

I love you like in the storybooks. I love you like in the ballads. I love you like a lightning bolt. I've loved you since the third month you came and spoke with me. I loved that you made me want to laugh. I loved the way you were kind and the way you would pause when you spoke, as though you were waiting for me to answer you. I love you and I am mocking no one when I kiss you, no one at all.

I get why he chose her. I just wish she had chosen me.

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.

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

You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that.

A heart of stone can still be broken.

That boy is your weakness.

You don't think monster girls and wicked boys deserve love?

What they don't realize is this: Yes, they frighten me, but I have always been scared, since the day I got here. I was raised by the man who murdered my parents, reared in a land of monsters. I live with that fear, let it settle into my bones, and ignore it. If I didn't pretend not to be scared, I would hide under my owl-down coverlets in Madoc's estate forever. I would lie there and scream until there was nothing left of me. I refuse to do that. I will not do that.

Cardan grins at me as though we've been great friends all our lives. I forgot how charming he can be--and how dangerous that is.