Top 500 Holly Black Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Life is like licking Honey from a Thorn.”

— Holly Black

2. “To remind me, pain is the best teacher.”

— Holly Black

3. “Every hero is the villain of his own story.”

— Holly Black

4. “If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

— Holly Black

5. “I need to stop fantasizing about running away to some other life and start figuring out the one I have.”

— Holly Black

6. “Instead, it just reminded her that sometimes there were no good choices.”

— Holly Black

7. “I’m sorry I kissed you- it was selfish and it upset you- but you can’t ask me to pretend I didnt want to.”

— Holly Black

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

— Holly Black

9. “Perhaps I am foolish, but I am not a fool.”

— Holly Black

10. “It is said we learn more from our failures than our successes.”

— Holly Black

11. “Every plan is a house of cards.”

— Holly Black

12. “If curiosity killed the cat, it was satisfaction that brought it back.”

— Holly Black

13. “Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.”

— Holly Black

14. “Those who really love you don’t mean to hurt you and if they do, you can’t see it in their eyes but it hurts them too.”

— Holly Black

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

— Holly Black

16. “I recall that your hands were on her, but her eyes were on me,′ Cardan returns.”

— Holly Black

17. “Let’s have a toast. To the incompetence of our enemies.”

— Holly Black

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

— Holly Black

19. “If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then surely you should be friend to my friend.”

— Holly Black

20. “Lie until even you believe it – that’s the real secret of lying.”

— Holly Black

21. “Changing is what people do when they have no options left.”

— Holly Black

22. “You can’t play pretend forever.”

— Holly Black

23. “Sharpen your heart.”

— Holly Black

24. “Revenge is sweet, but ice cream is sweeter.”

— Holly Black

25. “Don’t be drinking the Haterade.”

— Holly Black

26. “Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It’s disgusting, and I can’t stop.”

— Holly Black

27. “Come home and shout at me. Come home and fight with me. Come home and break my heart, if you must.”

— Holly Black

28. “If you’re the sickness, I suppose you can’t also be the cure.”

— Holly Black

29. “By you, I am forever undone.”

— Holly Black

Featured in: Romance Quotes

30. “If you hurt me, I wouldn’t cry. I would hurt you back.”

— Holly Black

31. “Sweet Jude, you’re my dearest punishment.”

— Holly Black

32. “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.”

— Holly Black

33. “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

34. “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.”

— Holly Black

35. “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

36. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.”

— Holly Black

37. “I hate you,” I breathed into his mouth. “I hate you so much that sometimes I can’t think of anything else.”

— Holly Black

38. “You have only seen the least of what I can do.”

— Holly Black

39. “Come be angry at a nearer distance.”

— Holly Black

40. “I hate being a fool. I hate the idea of my emotions getting the better of me, making me weak. But my fear of being a fool turned me into one.”

— Holly Black

41. “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

42. “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

43. “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

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

— Holly Black

45. “Mirroring behavior. When a mark takes a drink from his water glass, so should you. When he smiles, so should you. Keep it subtle, rather than creepy, and it’s a good technique.”

— Holly Black

46. “That’s family for you. Can’t live with them, can’t murder them.”

— Holly Black

47. “I have heard that for mortals, the feeling of falling in love is very like the feeling of fear. Your heart beats fast. Your senses are heightened. You grow light-headed, maybe even dizzy.”

— Holly Black

48. “All power is cursed,” I say. “The most terrible among us will do anything to get it, and those who’d wield power best don’t want it thrust upon them. But that doesn’t mean they can avoid their responsibilities forever.”

— Holly Black

49. “I’ve loved you from the first hour of our meeting. I loved you and despaired. Before I die, I want you to know that.”

— Holly Black

50. “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