Holly Black Quotes

Holly Black

Holly Black is an American writer and editor best known for her children’s and young adult fiction. Her most recent work is the New York Times bestselling young adult Folk of the Air series. (Holly Black Quotes)

“A difference in self loathing? Please. The only difference between a gun and a rope is the time it takes to tie the knot.”
Holly Black
Zombies Vs. Unicorns Quotes

“A girl like that, Grandad said, perfumes herself with ozone and metal filings. She wears trouble like a crown. If she ever falls in love, she’ll fall like a comet, burning the sky as she goes.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“A man may daydream of how he would spend a million dollars, but playing the same game with a billion dollars sours the fantasy. There are too many possibilities. The house he once wished for with all his heart is suddenly too small. The travel, too cheap. He wanted to visit an island. Now he contemplates buying one.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“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.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“A mother shouldn’t have to threaten her son into wanting to spend time together.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“A sharp tongue is no match for a sharp tooth.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“A small smile turns up a corner of my mouth. I feel the sharpness of my teeth and roll my tongue over them. For the first time, I like the feeling.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Aaron looks like a con man who got hit with a shrink ray and you look like you’re going to Catholic school.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“Above me is the same silvery moon that shines down on you. Looking at it makes me recall the glint of your blade pressed against my throat and other romantic moments.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“After spending months living in the orderly dorms of Wallingford, where they give you a Saturday detention if your room doesn’t pass semi-regular inspections, I feel the old conflicting sense of familiarity and disgust.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“Ah coffee. The sweet balm by which we shall accomplish today’s tasks.”
Holly Black
Ironside

“Air all around him, there was air in the water, all elements were one, fire and earth, air and water. All are but one thing, not four, not two, and not three, but one.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“All elements have a counterweight. Fire is the counterweight of water. Air is the counterweight of earth. The counterweight of chaos is the soul.”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“All this nobility is really nauseating.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“And for a moment, I am viciously glad. It doesn’t feel good exactly, to be in danger, but it does feel good to be the cause of events rather than being swept along into them.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“And if I wanted to kill myself, I wouldn’t throw myself off a roof. And if I was going to throw myself off a roof, I would put on some pants before I did it.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“And if the serpent grows in monstrousness and corruption, if it poisons the land of Elfhame itself, then let me be the queen of monsters. Let me rule over that blackened land with my redcap father as a puppet by my side. Let me be feared and never again afraid.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“And now she was sixteen and felt like she had no imagination left.” (Holly Black Quotes)
Holly Black
Tithe

“And that is why you ought not dramatically vow to obey someone. They seldom ask for what you hope they will.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“And yet my heart is buried with you in the strange soil of the mortal world, as it was drowned with you in the cold waters of the undersea. It was yours before I could ever admit it, and yours it shall ever remain.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Another girl might have frozen, but I am cold all the way through.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Anyone who offers up their heart on a silver platter deserves what they get.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“Apparently you can do lots of things very skillfully while asleep, Mr. Sharpe, but attending my class does not seem to be one of them.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“As a child, Wren read lots of fairy tales. That’s why, when the monsters came, she knew it was because she had been wicked.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“As he bent closer, he realized they were words – words his wife had carved into the cave ice with the last of her dying strength. As he read them, he felt them like three hard blows in the stomach”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“As Val jumped down onto the litter-strewn concrete after them, she thought how insane it was to follow two people she didn’t know into the bowels of the subway, but instead of being afraid, she felt glad. She would make all her own decisions now, even if they were ruinous ones. It was the same pleasurable feeling as tearing a piece of paper into tiny, tiny pieces.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“At least the hem of the skirt doesn’t drag impractically on the floor. I can still run in it as I howl at the moon.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“At the window of my room, I catch my reflection in the glass. Shaggy black hair. Sneer.I look like a hungry ghost, glowering in at a world I am no longer fit to be a part of.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“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
Red Glove

“Barron’s stuck teaching me. It’s supposed to be just for a few months, until I graduate from Wallingford. Let’s see if we can stand each other that long.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“Be bold, be bold, but not too bold. Be good, but not too good. Be pretty, but not too pretty. Be honest, but not too honest. Maybe no one got lucky. Maybe it was too hard.”
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“Because I don’t like being the fool who’d been tricked. I like games, but I hate to lose.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Because you’re like a story that hasn’t happened yet. Because I want to see what you will do. I want to be part of the unfolding of the tale.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“Before, I never knew how far I would go. Now I believe I have the answer. I will go as far as there is to go. I will go way too far.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“Being in the infirmary when you’d gotten injured being awesome was totally different from being in the Infirmary for doing something dumb.”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“Believe what you can handle believing”
Holly Black
Valiant

“Better to leave him with the memory of their being a pair of monsters, wrapped in each other’s arms.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“Boys never believe I can beat them, she told me back then. But I always win in the end.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“But if you didn’t believe in monsters, then how were you going to be able to keep safe from them?”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“But in all the stories, you have a single chance; and if you miss it, then it’s gone. The door isn’t there when you go back to look. There is no second invitation to the ball. This is my chance.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“But my heart keeps beating harder, and I shrink into myself, as though if I am still enough, anxiety will stop gnawing on my insides.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“But no one chooses a future. You choose a path without being certain where it leads.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“But then a prince rides up and sees the girl and finds her beautiful. Beautiful, not despite her suffering, but because of it.”
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“But vows should never be to a crown. They should be to a ruler. And they should be of your own free will. I am your king, and beside me stands my queen. But it is your choice whether or not to follow us. Your will shall be your own.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“But your soul. Your restless soul, Cal, was never meant to have peace. It was meant to have power.”
Holly Black
The Silver Mask

“By you, I am forever undone.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Call and Tamara screamed. The car swerved, Call’s hands heedless on the wheel. That made Tamara scream even harder. All the screams woke Jasper and Aaron, who added their voices to the screaming. Havoc started to bark. Throughout all the commotion, Master Rufus just floated in the center of the car, looking annoyed and – translucent.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“Call wasn’t sure what it meant that he’d gone full Evil Overlord on Jasper but still couldn’t manage to impress him.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“Carney is like a graveyard where everyone already owns their plots and has built houses on top of them.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“Changelings are fish you’re supposed to throw back. A cuckoo raised by sparrows. They don’t quite fit anywhere.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“Changing is what people do when they have no options left.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill monsters and feel quite proud of themselves.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“Children can laugh all day and still cry themselves to sleep at night.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“Come home and shout at me. Come home and fight with me. Come home and break my heart, if you must.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Crippled things are always more beautiful. It’s the flaw that brings out beauty.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“Death has his favorites, like anyone. Those who are beloved of Death will not die.” (Holly Black Quotes)
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“Diaval,” she hissed, “we are going to follow Aurora.”
“Are we, mistress? How very different from my usual orders.” She scowled at him and he gave her a grin. It was useless trying to intimidate the raven-man these days. He knew her entirely too well.”
Holly Black
Heart of the Moors

“Did you know that bone china had real bones in it?” Poppy said, tapping a porcelain cheek. “Her clay was made from human bones. Little-girl bones. That hair threaded through the scalp is the little girl’s hair. And the body of the doll is filled with her leftover ashes.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“Do you ever feel so angry that you think you could devour the whole world and still not be satisfied?”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“Do you know why Celia and I broke up?… I said I was going to visit you in prison, and she said I couldn’t. She said if you were the Enemy of Death, you were a murderer. She said I had to choose between you and her. – Jasper”
Holly Black
The Silver Mask

“Don’t kill her! Only maim her a little!”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“Don’t be a hero, live to fight another day.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“Don’t just yell France! There are a lot of other countries.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“Don’t take it personally,” Call said. “Lots of people find me really annoying. It’s not just you.”
Holly Black
The Silver Mask

“Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“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.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“Each person seemed to have a destination, but Val was a piece of driftwood, spinning down a river, not even sure in what direction she was moving. But she knew how to make herself spin faster.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“Even from the beginning, that was the problem. People liked pretty things. People even liked pretty things that wanted to kill and eat them.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“Every child needs a tragedy to become truly interesting.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“Every hero is the villain of his own story.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“Everyone finds different lessons in stories, I suppose, but here’s one. Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“Everyone loves the guy who brings ice.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“Everyone wants magic. It’s not just me.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“Everything died in the Ice Citadel, but hope died first.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Everything smelled wet and feral like it did before a thunderstorm, and she wanted to run, swift and eager, beyond the edge of what she could see.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“Everything was strange and beautiful and swollen with possibilities.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“Fairy tales are full of girls who wait, who endure, who suffer. Good girls. Obedient girls. Girls who crush nettles until their hands bleed. Girls who haul water for witches. Girls who wander through deserts or sleep in ashes or make homes for transformed brothers in the woods. Girls without hands, without eyes, without the power of speech, without any power at all. But then a prince rides up and sees the girl and finds her beautiful. Beautiful, not despite her suffering, but because of it.”
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“Fairy tales have a moral: Stay on the path. Don’t trust wolves. Don’t steal things, not even things you think no normal person would care about. Share your food but don’t trust people who want to share their good with you; don’t eat their shiny red apples, not their candy houses, nor any of it. Be nice, always nice, and polite to everyone: kings and beggars, witches and wounded bears. Don’t break a promise.”
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“Father, I am what you made me. I’ve become your daughter after all.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“Fear is not love, but it can appear much the same.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Fire can either burn down your house or warm it.”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“Fire wants to burn. Water wants to flow. Air wants to rise. Earth wants to bind. Chaos wants to devour. Cal wants to live”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE”
Holly Black
The Modern Faerie Tales

“For what we want most, we will take almost any chance.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“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.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“Girls love cat calendars.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“Gravity pulls harder on troubles than on anything else.”
Holly Black
Zombies Vs. Unicorns Quotes

“Grounded and kept home from the Collegium for a whole year for making out with Evil Overlord Alex. Also for joining his evil army of evil.”
Holly Black
The Golden Tower

“Hands and lips and teeth, and you’d forgotten-no, you’d never known-this way of knowing someone, this dissolution of self, this autophagy.”
Holly Black
Zombies Vs. Unicorns Quotes

“Hate that felt so good that he welcomed being consumed by it. Not a heart of stone, but a heart of fire.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“Have you ever heard this one? When you drive past a cemetery, you have to hold your breath. If you don’t, the spirits of the newly dead can get in your body through your mouth and then they can possess you.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway.” (Holly Black Quotes)
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“Hazel never cried. She was forged from iron; she never broke.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“He could no more lie than any of the Folk, but stories were the closest thing to lies the Folk could tell.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“He liked the way the story unfolded as he wrote, liked the way the answers just came to him sometimes, out of the blue, like they were true things just waiting to be discovered by him.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“He looks every inch a spy from the Court of Shadows, down to the sneaky smile pulling at the corner of his beautiful mouth.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“He no longer had a sense of up or down. One was always suspended, fighting against the current or giving in to it.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“He ought to have been taught better than to let his emotions show on his face. Instead, he assumed that others would care about his feelings, so he didn’t bother to hide them.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“He was ruinously beautiful in the way that knives and scalpels can be beautiful”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“He was saying that the end of the world wasn’t an accident; it was a joke.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“He was starting to worry that there weren’t any good guys. Just people with longer or shorter Evil Overlord lists.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“He wondered if it had occurred to Tamara to ask him to dance, but he knew she would always choose Aaron first. He’d accepted it a long time ago. He didn’t even really mind.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“He wondered whether growing up was learning that most stories turned out to be lies.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“He’s quiet then. We lie next to each other, twin corpses waiting for burial.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“Her mother bent close, the smell of whiskey and beer and sweat as familiar as any perfume to Kaye.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“He’s the kind of beautiful that makes people want to smash things.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“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
White Cat

“His mouth curls into a smile. His eyes shine with wicked intent. “Look at them all, your subjects. A shame not a one knows who their true ruler is.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“His song began to change. It grew softer, sweeter, like the morning after a long cry, when your head still hurt but your heart was no longer broken.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“His voice had a faint trace of an accent she couldn’t place – one that made her pretty sure he was no local kid infected the night before.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“I always have a plan,” she said, rising her eyebrows. “Sometimes, even, a scheme. You should be taking lessons from me.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“I am a good enough thief to steal a shadow from a tower,” she told him. “I can steal back your heart.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“I am going to keep on defying you. I am going to shame you with my defiance. You remind me that I am a mere mortal and you are a prince of Faerie. Well, let me remind you that means you have much to lose and I have nothing. You may win in the end, you may ensorcell me and hurt me and humiliate me, but I will make sure you lose everything I can take from you on the way down. I promise you this is the least of what I can do.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“I am not so arrogant as to have begun my fight with a troll in the middle of the night. And I definitely wouldn’t have managed to talk her to death.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“I can learn to live with guilt. I don’t care about being good.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“I can walk into someone’s house, kiss their wife, sit down at their table, and eat their dinner. I can lift a passport at an airport, and in twenty minutes it will seem like it’s mine. I can be a blackbird staring in the window. I can be a cat creeping along a ledge. I can go anywhere I want and do the worst things I can imagine, with nothing to ever connect me to those crimes. Today I look like me, but tomorrow I could look like you. I could be you.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“I did it to get what I want. Maybe I should regret that, but I can’t. Sometimes you do the bad thing and hope for the good result.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“I don’t know,” Call said. He was starting to worry that there weren’t any good guys. Just people with longer or shorter Evil Overlord lists.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“I don’t want to be a vampire’ she told herself. But in her dreams, she kind of did.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“I feel like a constellation of wounds, held together with string and stubbornness.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“I get why he chose her. I just wish she had chosen me.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like DYING.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“I hate that you can do what you’re supposed to do and I can’t. I hate that you’re going to leave me behind. I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like dying. It feels like each one of you is being possessed and I’m next.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“I haul around and slap him. It’s a stinging blow, smearing the gold on his cheekbone and causing his skin to redden. We stare at each other for long moments, breathing hard. His eyes are bright with something entirely different from anger. I am in over my head. I am drowning.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“I have lied and I have betrayed and I have triumphed. If only there was someone to congratulate me.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don’t even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I’m going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn’t involve dying.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“I haven’t had a very good day. I think I might still be hung over and everyone’s dead and my root beer’s gone.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“I kissed him on the mouth, and then I threatened to kiss him some more if he didn’t do exactly what I wanted.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“I like all the things that make you monstrous.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“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.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“I made you believe that you were what I wanted you to become.” (Holly Black Quotes)
Holly Black
Red Glove

“I need to stop fantasizing about running away to some other life and start figuring out the one I have.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“I need you to be happy. I need one of us to be happy.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“I tell people everything. People only believe what they can handle. That’s how I know who to trust.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“I think I really am back this time, Call, Aaron’s voice said. Now what the heck are we going to do?”
Holly Black
The Silver Mask

“I think you have iron poisoning,” she tells him, which could be true but is still a hurtful thing to say when he is making perfect sense.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“I thought love was just supposed to happen when you least expected it, like a sap to the skull.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“I thought weirdness was a good thing. I don’t mean that defensively, either. I thought it was something to be cultivated.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“I thought you needed to be tougher. But I’ve been thinking that protecting somebody by hurting them before someone else gets the chance isn’t the kind of protecting that anybody wants.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“I want to have some reaction. I want to tremble or feel nauseated. I want to be the person who begins to weep. I want to be anyone but the person I am, who looks around to be sure no one saw, who wipes off my knife in the dirt, wipes off my hand on his clothes, and gets out of there before the guards come.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“I want you and I hate wanting things and I especially hate admitting I want them.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“I wanted to be in love like in the storybooks and songs and ballads. Love that hits you like a lightning bolt. And I’m sorry, because yeah, I get that you think I’m ridiculous. I get that you think I’m hilarious. I know, I get that you’re mocking me. I get how stupid I am, but at least I know.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“I was anguished seeing your blushes and shining eyes. Jealousy wasn’t a spice to me then. It was the whole meal and I was gagging it down.”
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“I will guard you from Death, for I have no fear of him.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“I wonder about death, I who may never know it. It looks much like ecstacy, the way they open their mouths as they drown, the way their fingers dig into your skin. Their eyes are wide and startled and they trash in your hands as though with an excess of passion.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“I wonder if he really could rationalize what I did to him, really treat betrayal like the slight transgression of a recalcitrant business partner. I wonder if I hurt him. If he can rationalize what I did to him, it’s easy to imagine how he rationalized what he did to me.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“I wonder what the kid I was then would think of the people we are now.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“I would settle for even his worst self, his cruelest trickster self, if only he could be here. -Jude Duarte”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“I’m just surprised your parents let you go online,” Call said. It was such a regular, non-fancy way to waste time. When he imagined her outside the Magisterium, having fun, he imagined her riding a polo pony, although he wasn’t exactly sure what that was or how it was different from a regular pony.”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“If curiosity killed the cat, it was satisfaction that brought it back.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“If he thought I was bad, I would be worse. If he thought I was cruel, I would be horrifying.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“If he’s half as taken with you as you are with yourself, I imagine he’ll be well pleased.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“If life were like a video game, she would have used her power move to whip Jen in the air and knock her against the wall with two strikes of a lacrosse stick. Of course, if life really were like a video game, Val would probably have to do that in a bikini and with giant breasts, each one made of separately animated polygons.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“If Oak is the sunlight filtering through trees in the woods, all shifting gold and shadow, then Tiernan seems like those same woods in winter, the branches barren and cold.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“If she was going to die, she might as well die sarcastic. She’d seen a lot of old movies, and that was definitely the way to go out.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“If she’d known she was going to die at his hands, she would have dressed up.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“If someone were hitting Aaron over the head, he would thank them for stopping.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then surely you should be friend to my friend.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“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.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“If you don’t know why you’re apologizing, your apology probably sucks.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“If you don’t, the spirits of the newly dead can get in your body through your mouth and then they can possess you.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“If you hurt me, I wouldn’t cry. I would hurt you back.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“If you love someone, you’re not supposed to want them to come back. Better a peaceful sleep in the earth than the life of a zombie–not really dead but not really alive, either.”
Holly Black
Zombies Vs. Unicorns Quotes

“If you were going to get someone’s soul, Call thought, it would be nice if you also got their superior penmanship.”
Holly Black
The Silver Mask

“If you’re the sickness, I suppose you can’t also be the cure.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“I’m afraid my voice is going to break. I am afraid she is going to hear how much this hurts.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“I’m afraid that whatever I touch is spoilt by the contact.” “I’m not scared of being spoiled,” Val said.” (Holly Black Quotes)
Holly Black
Valiant

“I’m not very good at explaining things,” she said. “But I think you have beautiful eyes. I love the gold in them. I love that they’re different from my eyes- I see mine all the time and I’m bored with them.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“I’m the best kind of thief, the kind that leaves behind items equal in value to those he’s stolen.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“In general, her family wasn’t very good at talking about important stuff. And of all of them, she was the least good at it. When she tried, it felt like all the chains on all her imagined safes and trunks started rattling”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“In the mortal world, when I thought you were my enemy, I still missed you.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“Instead, I try to imagine someone she might fall in love with. Maybe it will be a merrow, and he will give her the gift of breathing underwater and a crown of pearls and take her to his bed under the sea. Actually, that sounds amazing. Maybe I am making all the wrong choices.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“It can be brave to hate. Sometimes it’s like hope.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“It had a pale body and crept on all fours, with claws as long as one of her fingers.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“It is hard to explain the savagery of hope.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“It is said we learn more from our failures than our successes.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“It seems hopeless to fight something so vast. It seems ridiculous to believe we can win.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“It turns out that having kissed someone, the possibility of kissing hangs over everything, no matter how terrible an idea it was the first time.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“It was a voice so full of emotion that it sounded like no emotion at all.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“It was good to be hugged. Even by a monster.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“It’s hard to come up with a scheme to thwart some other scheme you don’t even know about.”
Holly Black
Ironside

“It’s hard to look at Barron now, but I do. He’s smirking. His black hair and black suit make him into a shadow, as if I conjured some dark mirror of myself.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“It’s the flaw that brings out beauty.”
Holly Black
The Modern Faerie Tales

“It’s you I love,” he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.” He walks to the door to the royal chambers, as though to end the conversation. “You probably guessed as much,” he says. “But just in case you didn’t.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“It’s not fair. We had a story, and our story was important. And I hate that both of you can just walk away and take part of my story with you and not even care. I hate that you can do what you’re supposed to do and I can’t. I hate that you’re going to leave me behind. I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like dying. It feels like each of you is being possessed and I’m next.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“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
Tithe

“It’s the flaw that brings out the beauty.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“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.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Jasper just kept looking angry and staring up at the sky as if hoping to be saved by a helicopter or an air elemental, or maybe an elemental driving a helicopter.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“Jasper,” said Call. “Tell me something, and please answer honestly.” Jasper nodded. “Is this the Assembly’s new strategy for torturing me until I give them information?”
Holly Black
The Silver Mask

“Just because I am to protect you does not give you governance over me.”
Holly Black
Ironside

“Just had my first kiss in a stronghold of the Enemy of Death, in a room full of his dead brother’s stuff, Call thought. Story of my life.”
Holly Black
The Silver Mask

“Kaye wondered if everyone felt like there was a monster underneath their skin. It was obvious that the relief wasn’t the largest part of what he felt. It was obvious that he was in pain, that he’d been crying. And yet it was what he was dwelling on, an imperfect mourning.”
Holly Black
The Modern Faerie Tales

“Kill him before he makes you love him.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“Kiss me again,” he says, drunk and foolish. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“Knowledge and action are one and the same.”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“Let me look out for you. Let your enemies become mine.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“Let our King be made from ice. He wished it too, wished for the ice that encased the branches out on the hill to freeze his heart.”
Holly Black
Ironside

“Let’s start with a love story. Or maybe it’s another horror story. It seems like the difference is mostly in where the ending comes.”
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“Let’s have a toast. To the incompetence of our enemies.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“Lie until even you believe it – that’s the real secret of lying”
Holly Black
White Cat

“Life is like licking Honey from a Thorn”
Holly Black
Ironside

“Like all schools, we are always interested in learning, in research, in pushing the limits of knowledge. But we must balance that with our duty to protect the world, even from ourselves.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“Looking back, Val knew she had a habit of trusting too much, being too passive, too willing to believe the best of others and the worst of herself.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“Love changes us, but we change how we love too.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“Love is stupid. All we do is break one another’s hearts.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Love was a family religion, passed down to her when she’d been too young to protect herself from belief.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“Magic gives you a lot of choices,” Grandad says. “Most of them are bad.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“Magic is seldom so convenient as to conform to our preferences.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Marks forget that whenever something’s too good to be true, that’s because it’s a con.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“Maybe by the time they were in their Silver Year, Master Rufus would communicate complicated theories of magic by the lifting of a single bushy eyebrow.”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“Maybe it isn’t the worst thing to want to be loved, even if you’re not. Even if it hurts. Maybe being human isn’t always being weak.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Mine. The language of love is like that, possessive. That should be the first warning that it’s not going to encourage anyone’s betterment.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“Mock me all you like. Whatever I imagined then, now it is I who would beg and grovel for a kind word from your lips.” His eyes are black with desire. “By you, I am forever undone.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Moments before she planted a massive kiss right on his mouth. Call’s eyes went wide. Hers were closed as she leaned into him. They stood like that for a moment. Call was aware that people were staring at them — Tamara looking shocked, and Aaron, standing near her, started to laugh. Call was pretty sure Aaron was laughing at the fact that Call, having no idea where to put his hands, was waving his arms around like a squid underwater.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“More and more I feel like the boy who cut off his nose to spite his face.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It’s disgusting, and I can’t stop.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“My father used to tell me that once begun, a battle was a living thing and no one could control it.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more that I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked. I am a walking bruise, an open sore. If Oak is masked, I am a face with all the skin ripped off. Over and over, I have told myself that I need to guard against my own yearnings, but that hasn’t worked.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“My sister thinks that she’s the only one who can take poison, but I am poison,’ he whispers, eyes half-closed, talking to himself. ‘Poison in my blood. I poison everything I touch.” (Holly Black Quotes)
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Neither loyalty nor love should be compelled”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“Never met a bad decision she wasn’t willing to double down on. Had fingers made for picking pockets, a tongue for lying, and a shriveled cherry pit for a heart.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“Nice things don’t happen in storybooks,” Taryn says. “Or when they do happen, something bad happens next. Because otherwise the story would be boring, and no one would read it.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“No one remembers the language they took in high school.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“No trouble ever got fixed late at night,” he said. “Midnight is for regrets.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“Nobody ever really sees me the way I am, underneath everything. But she did. She does.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“None of that seemed real, but the world would certainly be cooler with something so unreal in it.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“Nothing he says is a lie, but all his words are riddles.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Now come on. Let’s find the baby unicorns and get out of here.”
Holly Black
Zombies Vs. Unicorns Quotes

“Now, if anyone in the Refectory bothers you, you can chop off their head, Aaron thought cheerfully.”
Holly Black
The Golden Tower

“Of course, that was probably a problem with being an Evil Overlord. You didn’t regret the right things.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“Oh, God, Call thought. Tamara’s father. And he’d just kissed Tamara. Was that why Mr. Rajavi was here? Don’t be totally ridiculous, said Aaron. Do you think he’s psychic or something? Kimiya was grounded for making out with Evil Overlord Alex — Tamara had said so. Mr. Rajavi had a well-established policy of not liking his children making out with Evil Overlords.”
Holly Black
The Golden Tower

“Once someone’s hurt you, it’s harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn’t stop you from wanting them. Sometimes I actually think it makes the wanting worse.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“Once upon a time, there was a human girl stolen away by faeries, and because of that, she swore to destroy them.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“Once, there was a girl who vowed she would save everyone in the world, but forgot herself.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“One fine day, in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight. Back to back they faced each other. They pulled out their swords and shot one another. One deaf cop, on the beat heard the noise, and came and shot the two dead boys.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“One night you will ask me for something I cannot give.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“Our tragedy is that we forget it might be someone else first.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“People buy what they’re told to buy. They don’t know it’s ugly, or maybe they do and they think that there’s something wrong with thinking that.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“People like Aaron act all nice until suddenly they explode and banish some annoying geezer into the void.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“Perhaps it is Oak who is the fool, who caught a wolf and thought that by putting it in a gown and speaking to it as though it were a girl, it would become one.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Playing the villain was the only thing he’d ever really excelled at.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“Poisonous jealousy thrummed through my veins.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“Protecting somebody by hurting them before someone else gets the chance isn’t the kind of protecting that anybody wants.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“Really it was a pretty good talk. About the best I could expect from my sociopath amnesiac jerk of an older brother.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“Remember that I’m still a monster. I can listen to you scream and cry and beg and I still won’t let you out.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“Remember what your father said about magic, boy. It’ll cost you everything.”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“Remember, all you really get to control is yourself.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“Revenge on everybody. That would fill her time. That would keep her busy. Keep her from feeling her feelings. If she couldn’t be responsible or careful or good or loved, if she was doomed to be a lit match, then Charlie might as well go back to finding stuff to burn.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“Secrets hurt the keeper more than you think.”
Holly Black
The Silver Mask

“She didn’t know how much she’d been hoping that he still loved her, until she felt how much it hurt to realize he didn’t.”
Holly Black
Ironside

“She feels like someone has planted a tree in her chest and then pressed fast foward on the world, branches growing and twisting and pushing her apart from the inside.”
Holly Black
Zombies Vs. Unicorns Quotes

“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
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“She knew what it felt like to tremble like that before touching someone – desire so acute that it became despair.”
Holly Black
Ironside

“She looks honestly upset, but then, I’ve learned that I can’t read her. The problem with a really excellent liar is that you have to just assume they’re always lying.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“She loved him so much that it already hurt. It already felt like he’d broken her heart.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“She sat in the dew-damp grass and ripped up clumps of it, tossing them in the air and feeling vaguely guilty about it. Some gnome ought to pop out of the tree and scold her for torturing the lawn.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“She should tell him no, but instead she seemed to be running toward trouble, leaving no stone unturned, no boy unkissed, no crush abandoned, and no bad idea unembraced.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“She tastes like every dark thought I’ve ever had.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“She turned to me, head titled, her expression pure confusion. As though I had no reason to be afraid of a broken heart. She had no idea how dangerous a broken heart could be. You do, though. You know.” (Holly Black Quotes)
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“She waited. Sometimes silence kept people talking. Sometimes if they talked enough, they wouldn’t notice when you didn’t.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“She wears trouble like a crown. If she ever falls in love, she’ll fall like a comet, burning the sky as she goes.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“She went to all the parties and kissed all the boys, shoring up fun against despair, against the suffocating terror that loomed over her.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“She wished it was an unfamiliar feeling, that ache, the urge that made her hit the gas when she ought to hit the brake.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“She’s going to want to wear your skull for a hat,” Oak warns. There is an uncomfortable shifting among the ex-falcons. Perhaps they are recalling their own choice to denounce her, their own punishment. “And Cardan is going to laugh and laugh when she does.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“So long as there really was nothing wrong with his soul.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“Some promises aren’t worth keeping.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“Some things exist whether you believe in them or not”
Holly Black
Valiant

“Some things seem too terrible to seem possible. Soon he may learn the worst thing he can imagine is only the beginning of what they are willing to do to him.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Someone could cut through the mess in our house and look at it like one might look at rings on a tree or layers of sediment. They’d find the black-and-white hairs of a dog we had when I was six, the acid-washed jeans my mother once wore, the seven blood-soaked pillowcases from the time I skinned my knee. All our family secrets rest in endless piles.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“Sometimes he forgot how small she was, because her bravery loomed so large in his mind.”
Holly Black
The Silver Mask

“Sometimes I go down and stare at it, trying to see my parents in the tide lines of dried blood. I want to feel something, something besides a vague queasiness. I want to feel more, but every time I look at it, I feel less.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“Sometimes it is worth any amount of suffering just to prevent giving your parents the opportunity to be right.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to be mad at the people close to us,” Vivi said, “than to be mad at the people who deserve it.”
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“Sometimes life gives us the terrible gift of our own wishes come true.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Stories can justify anything. It doesn’t matter if the boy with the heart of stone is a hero or a villain; it doesn’t matter if he got what he deserved or if he didn’t. No one can reward him or punish him, save the storyteller.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“That was how she felt, right then. As if there was too much of her, as if her skin was tight with muchness. She felt ripe to bursting.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“That’s family for you. Can’t live with them; can’t murder them. Unless Barron rats me out to Yulikova. Then I really might.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“That’s your problem in a nutshell. You’re judgmental. Everyone makes mistakes. They trust the wrong people. They fall in love. Not you, though. And that’s why it’s so hard to ask you for forgiveness.”
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“That’s what heroes did. They ran straight toward danger and didn’t ever give up.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“That’s what I’ve been for years. An unsister. An undaughter. An unperson. A girl with a hole for a life. How appropriate to have my tongue cut out, when silence has been my refuge and my cage.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“The Alkahest is gone. If he’s the one who got it, they’re not going to bother with prison. He’ll be dead as soon as they find him.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“The downside of letting everyone know you’re going to be all alone so they can attack you is that everyone knows you’ll be all alone so they can attack you.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“The Folk adore Cardan, and they’re terrified of my sister, two excellent things. I hope they rule Elfhame for a years and then pass it down to one of a dozen offspring. No need for me to be involved.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“The Folk doubtlessly learned this lesson long ago. They do not need to deceive humans. Humans will deceive themselves.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“The human soul is the opposite of chaos, of nothingness. The soul is everything.”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“The job of every generation is to discover the flaws of the one that came before it. That’s part of growing up, figuring out all the ways your parents and their friends are broken. So pity the first people to reach puberty after a zombie apocalypse, who would have some truly heavy lifting in this department…You become whatever they fear the most. Now THAT’S evolution”
Holly Black
Zombies Vs. Unicorns Quotes

“The moment she was cursed, I lost her. Once it wears off- soon- she will be embarrassed to remember things that she said, things she did, things like this. No matter how solid she feels in my arms, she is made of smoke.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“The more powerful you become, the more others will find ways to master you. They’ll do it through those you love and those you hate. They will find the bit and the bridle that fits your mouth and will make you yield. ”
Holly Black
Ironside

“The more you love her, the crazier you get. My love was great. My crimes were greater.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“The odd thing about ambition is this: You can acquire it like a fever, but it is not so easy to shed.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“The only way to end grief was to go through it.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“The prince opens his tawny fox eyes and looks around. When he sees me, he slumps back down, as though relieved that I am still here.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“The row of dolls watched her impassively from the bookshelf, their tea party propriety almost certainly offended.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“The truth is messy. It’s raw and uncomfortable. You can’t blame people for preferring lies.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“The universe belongs to the curious.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“The whole place looks straight out of a fairy tale, the kind where love is a simple thing. never the cause of pain.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“There was a princess, Aurora, named for the dawn. Her hair was as golden as the crown that would one day rest upon her head. Her eyes were as wide and soft as those of a doe. From the time of her birth, no one could look upon her and not love her.”
Holly Black
Heart of the Moors

“There was something in the set of his jaw that made her think of how she’d described him to Adeline, as a lake that was still on the surface, with a whole drowned town inside.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“There’s a tipping point with lies, a point where you’ve said something so many times that it feels truer than the truth.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“There’s nothing like a gunshot to make you the life of the party.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“There’s people who do things and people who never do—who say they will someday, but they just don’t. I want to go on a quest. I’ve always wanted to go on a quest. And now that I have one, I’m not backing down from it. I’m not going home until it’s complete.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“They all yelled in excitement. Tamara yelled because she was happy. Aaron yelled because he liked it when other people were happy, and Call yelled because he was sure they were going to die.”
Holly Black
The Iron Trial

“They are twilight creatures, beings of dawn and dusk, of standing between one thing and another, of not quite and almost, of borderlands and shadows.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“They are two people who ought to have, by all rights, remained enemies forever.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“They loved him because he was a prince and a faerie and magical and you were supposed to love princes and faeries and magical people.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“They say that nameless things change constantly -that names fix them in place like pins. But without a name, a thing isn’t quite real either.”
Holly Black
Ironside

“They wore their strange beauty like war paint.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“Think of it like the best mac and cheese you’ve ever had. No neon yellow Velveeta and bread crumbs. I’m talking gourmet cheddar, the expensive stuff from Vermont that crackles as it melts into the crust on top. Imagine if right before you were about to tear into it, the mac and cheese starts talking to you?” (Holly Black Quotes)
Holly Black
Zombies Vs. Unicorns Quotes

“This house feels unfamiliar and disturbingly full of possibilities.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“This place is a place, neither safe, nor unsafe.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“This, the language of deception, we both understand. We were born to it, along with the curses.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“Though he means me harm, I will miss him. I will miss the way he moves through the world, as though nothing could be so terrible that he might not laugh at it.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Three is an odd configuration of sisters. There’s always one on the outside.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“Trees of ice grow blue fruits the size of peaches, encased in a frozen crust. Some have fallen and split open like candy apples. The scent is that of honey and spice and sap. The leaves of the trees give off a haunting sound not unlike wind chimes when the air blows through the branches.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“Try to think of it as the end scene in Star Wars where everyone cheers and Princess Leia puts medals on Han and Luke.” Call”
Holly Black
The Bronze Key

“Watching my back is the perfect opportunity to stick a knife in it.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“Waves tossed themselves against the shore, dragging grit and sand between their nails as they were slowly pulled back out to sea.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“We all want stupid things. That doesn’t mean we should have them.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“We all wind up drawn to what we’re afraid of, drawn to try to find a way to make ourselves safe from a thing by crawling inside of it, by loving it, by becoming it.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“We are all capable of great self-deception when it serves us.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“We are, largely, who we remember ourselves to be. That’s why habits are so hard to break. If we know ourselves to be liars, we expect not to tell the truth. If we think of ourselves as honest, we try harder.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“We have lived in our armor for so long, you and I. And now I am not sure if either of us knows how to removes it.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“We labor under so many illusions about ourselves until we’re stripped bare. Being infected, being a vampire, it’s always you. Maybe it’s more you than ever before. You, distilled. You, boiled down like a sauce. But it’s you as you always were, deep down inside.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“We love until we do not. For us, love doesn’t fade gradually. It snaps like a branch bent too far.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“What could I become if I stopped worrying about death, about pain, about anything? If I stopped trying to belong? Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“What makes you feel safe when you go to sleep at night? Being able to check and see that your secrets are still hidden.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“What other stuff do they teach you at federal agent school?” I ask. It shouldn’t bother me that he’s fitting in so well. So what if he’s faking it? Good for him. I guess what bothers me is him faking it better than I am.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“What she did know was that normal was a lot more tempting when it was out of reach.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“Whatever you love, that is your weakness”
Holly Black
Ironside

“When a man tells you he’s going to hurt you, believe it. They always warn you and they’re always right.”
Holly Black
The Modern Faerie Tales

“Whoever controls the king, controls the kingdom”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“With him, I am forever a night-blooming flower, attracted and repelled by the heat of the sun.”
Holly Black
The Stolen Heir

“With no good ideas, she was going to go for the bad one.”
Holly Black
Book of Night

“Would an Evil Overlord drink the last cup of coffee in the pot? Which book would an Evil Overlord take out from the library? Was dressing in all black a definite Evil Overlord move, or a legitimate choice on laundry day?”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“Would you believe it’s harder to find a virgin than a unicorn in New York?”
Holly Black
Zombies Vs. Unicorns Quotes

“Would you like to know what it’s like to have your wings again? Imagine falling, except instead of hitting the ground, you soar. Imagine beginning to believe that love is never a lie, even if there are liars. Imagine recalling that cracked bone grows back stronger. That scars are beautiful. You might not be quite who you were when you lost the power of flight. But it is only in having your wings resting heavy on your back again that you realize you always and forever belonged to the sky. You were always strong and fierce and full of magic. Even when you were stranded on the ground.”
Holly Black
Heart of the Moors

“You and your sister are very dear to each other. To show your regard, you give each other lovely bouquets of lies.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“You are more dangerous than daybreak.”
Holly Black
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“You are the best kind of killer, Cassel Sharpe, the kind that never has blood on his hands. The kind that never has to sicken at the sight of what he’s done, or come to like it too much.”
Holly Black
Red Glove

“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
Ironside

“You better have kissed him! You better have kissed him so hard that he just about choked on your tongue. And if not, you better go kiss him like that right now.”
Holly Black
The Darkest Part of the Forest

“You broke the Madden brothers. I remember them, Joesph, and I remember what you did to them.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“You can break a thing, but you cannot always guide it afterward into the shape you want.”
Holly Black
Tithe

“You can’t go around making plans that have you getting killed as a by-product. Eventually one of them is going to work.” (Holly Black Quotes)
Holly Black
Black Heart

“You can’t play pretend forever.”
Holly Black
Doll Bones

“You didn’t get what you deserved, but you don’t have to live inside that one story forever. No one’s heart has to remain stone.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“You didn’t hear the story I told,” he goes on. “A shame. It featured a handsome boy with a heart of stone and a natural aptitude for villainy. Everything you could like.”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“You don’t think monster girls and wicked boys deserve love?”
Holly Black
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“You have a real talent for getting your ass kicked.”
Holly Black
White Cat

“You have carried my heart in your hands tonight,” he said. “But I have felt as if you have carried it long before that.”
Holly Black
Valiant

“You love him, too, I think. You’ve loved him since before you were a prisoner of the Undersea. You loved him when you agreed to marry him. Once this is over, I will find the bravery to tell him.”
Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing

“You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring. The first lesson is to make yourself that strong.”
Holly Black
The Wicked King

“You really do want me,’ I say, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath as it hitches. ‘And you hate it.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“You remind me that I am a mere mortal and you are a prince of Faerie. Well, let me remind you that means you have much to lose and I have nothing.”
Holly Black
The Cruel Prince

“You want me to say something? Okay. Sometimes I think I am what you made me. And sometimes I don’t know who I am at all. And either way I’m not happy.”
Holly Black
Black Heart

“You were mad at me for lying to you. Don’t lie to us now.”
Holly Black
The Copper Gauntlet

“You’re awful.” He said it as though he was delighted. “And the worst part is that you believe otherwise.”
Holly Black
The Lost Sisters

“You’re going to get all the things you think you can’t have,” she says quietly, reaching out to rub red lipstick from my cheek. “You just don’t know it yet.”
Holly Black
Red Glove