Quotes from Libba Bray

Why is it that some secrets can drown you while some pull you close to others in a way you never want to lose?

How terrible it is to have no cares, no longings. I do not fit. I feel too deeply and want too much. As cages go, it is a gilded one, but I shall not live well in it or any cage for that matter.

I run after her, not really giving chase. I'm running because I can, because I must. Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.

I wish to live for myself. I should never want to be trapped.

I hate this place," Tiara whimpered. "It's super creepy. Like a haunted Chuck E. Cheese's where the games all want to kill you and you never get your pizza.

I've been poked and prodded in places I'd always prided myself on keeping untouched for that one special doctor who gives me a ring and a promise someday.

We're comfortable with women in certain roles but not comfortable with women expressing anger or fully accepting their power. The most daring question a woman can ask is, 'What do I want?'

Women who have power are always feared.

We're still expected to color within the lines of accepted femininity, and women who step out of those lines are usually attacked, whether verbally or physically.

I must remember to forgive myself. Because there's an awful lot of gray to work with. No one can live in the light all the time."-A Great and Terrible Beauty

Please do not strain yourself, Miss Doyle. I won't have my girls going cross-eyed in the name of art.

But we can't go back. We can only go forward.

What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?

We're all strangers connected by what we reveal, what we share, what we take away--our stories. I guess that's what I love about books--they are thin strands of humanity that tether us to one another for a small bit of time, that make us feel less alone or even more comfortable with our aloneness, if need be.

We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.

And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.

People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept.

You can never really know someone completely. That's why it's the most terrifying thing in the world, really—taking someone on faith, hoping they'll take you on faith too. It's such a precarious balance, It's a wonder we do it at all. And yet..

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We're each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We've got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.

I should never be left alone with my mind for too long.

We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.

There are no safe choices. Only other choices.

Sometimes we seek that which we are not yet ready to find.

I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment.