Quotes from Laini Taylor

looking up at the stars, he had accepted life as a medium for action. Something to wield like a tool. One's own life: an instrument for the shaping of the world.

I miss sunrise even more. The green scent of dawn in the forest? The color blushing back into the world, different every day.

These soldiers had done what they had done, and been done unto in return. This was how it went. In the cycle of slaughter, reprisal begat reprisal, forever.

What does "true" even mean when it comes to a face? Only souls are true, and when you spill them to the air they melt away ...

Beautiful men and women with distorted shadows came and scorched their handprints onto doors before vanishing skyward, drafts of heat billowing behind them with the whumph of unseen wings. Here and there, feathers fell, and they were like tufts of white fire, disintegrating to ash as soon as they touched the ground.

You're doing so well." At being Thiago, she meant. "It's a little eerie." "Eerie," he repeated. "Convincing. A few times I almost forgot--" He didn't let her finish. "Don't forget. Not ever. Not for a second." He drew in breath. "Please." So much behind that word. Please don't forget I'm not a monster. Please don't forget what I gave up. Please don't forget me.

My face responds without authorization from my brain, so the resulting smile feels like the biggest, most unguarded, goofiest smile I've ever unleashed in my entire life. I didn't even know my face could do this. It's like there were hidden zippers in my cheeks. Jesus. This must be what feelings are. This is why people write poems! I get it now. I get it, and I want more.

It was no small thing to shed a lifetime of nonbeing and suddenly be seen .

The way he looked at her, she felt like some kind of miracle, as though his dreamer's eyes cast her in their glow of wonder.

The truth, she found, felt smooth, like a skipping stone in the palm of your hand.

Magic won't save us. The power it would take to conjure on such a scale, the tithe would destroy us. The only hope...is hope. You don't need tokens for it- it's in your heart or nowhere. And in your heart, child, it had been stronger than I have ever seen.

And so Grief and Shame abided in adjoining rooms with the door shut between them, holding their pain in their arms instead of each other.

This gown, is it cut from shadow?" the general asked. "I can barely feel it between my fingers." Not for want of trying, thought Madrigal. "Perhaps it is a reflection of the night sky," he suggested, "skimmed from a pond?" She supposed that he was being poetic. erotic, even. In return, as unerotically as possible- more like complaining of a stain that wouldn't come out-she said, "Yes, my lord. I went for a dip, and the reflection clung.

Ziri's soul felt like the high roaming wind of the Adelphas Mountains and the beat of stormhunters' wings, like the beautiful, mournful, eternal song of the wind flutes that had filled their caves with music he could not possibly remember. It felt like home.

There was, between her and Mik, a fairy-tale promise: that when he had performed three heroic tasks, he could ask for her hand. She'd meant it in jest, but he'd taken it to heart, and was only one task down out of three—though secretly Zuzana accepted his fixing the air-conditioning in their last hotel room as a heroic act and counted it.

You should have seen them, Thyon said. "It was surreal." As an afterthought, he added, "Though I can't believe none of them rode the dragon." "I know!" said Ruza. "What was Azareen's thinking, choosing a winged horse when she could have a dragon?" "I don't think she was really focused on which creature was best," said Tzara. "You shouldn't have to focus on it," said Ruza. "It's instinctive. Dragons are always best.

Lazlo. You have to wake up now, my love. And he did.

Or...perhaps Fate laid out your life for you like a dress on a bed, and you could either wear it or go naked.

I don't know many rules to live by," he'd said. "But here's one. It's simple. Don't put anything unnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles—drug or tattoo—and… no inessential penises, either.

Am I the only non-idiot on the planet?" "Yes, Morgan Toth, you are," Gabriel piped up. "Will you be our king?

he collected the stories like treasure.

but one can't be irredeemable who shows reverence for books.

She gave the words back to him, murmuring, and kept them, too. You could do that: Give them back and keep them. "I love you" is generous that way.

You needn't trouble yourself. He's only a librarian.