Top 500 Holly Black Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “I hate you because your father loves you even though you’re a human brat born to his unfaithful wife, while mine never cared for me, though I am a prince of Faerie. I hate you because Locke used you and your sister to make Nicasia cry after he stole her from me. Besides which, after the tournament, Balekin never failed to throw you in my face as the mortal who could best me.”

— Holly Black

202. “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

203. “Plunge a heated sword into oil, and any small flaw will turn into a crack. But quenched in blood as you were, none of you broke. You were only hardened.”

— Holly Black

204. “Seelie and Unseelie, Wild Folk and Shy Folk, I am glad to have you march under my banner, glad of your loyalty, grateful for your honor.” His gaze goes to me. “To you, I offer honey wine and the hospitality of my table. But to traitors and oath breakers, I offer my queen’s hospitality instead. The hospitality of knives.”

— Holly Black

205. “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

206. “They took lots of things they had no right to.”

— Holly Black

207. “And to coddle your ego, I have made myself less. I have made myself small, I have kept my head down. But it wasn’t enough to make you leave Taryn and me alone, so I’m not going to do that anymore. “I am going to keep on defying you. I am going to shame you with my defiance.”

— Holly Black

208. “Flattery will get you everywhere,” Sam says, “Except, apparently, off a roof.”

— Holly Black

209. “Space is so dark that looking out at it confounds the brain. The more you stare at the vastness of it, at the hanging stars and the swirling galaxies, the more you start to notice how imprecise words like ‘dark’ and ‘black’ and ‘endless’ are. There are so many gradients of shadow, all of them terrifying to me. That’s why I keep the lights on.”

— Holly Black

210. “When you don’t know what you’re searching for, you have to look absolutely everywhere.”

— Holly Black

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

— Holly Black

212. “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

213. “I am the Queen of Elfhame. Even though I am the queen in exile, I am still the queen. And that means Madoc isn’t just trying to take Cardan’s throne. He’s trying to take mine.”

— Holly Black

214. “Anyone who offers up their heart on a silver platter deserves what they get.”

— Holly Black

215. “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

216. “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

217. “Most of all, I hate you because I think of you.”

— Holly Black

218. “We love until we do not. For us, love doesn’t fade gradually. It snaps like a branch bent too far.”

— Holly Black

219. “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

220. “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

221. “We may not die from age, but we grow weary with it.”

— Holly Black

222. “I have said that he has the power to deliver a compliment and make it hurt. So, too, he can say something that ought to be insulting and deliver it in such a way that it feels like being truly seen.”

— Holly Black

223. “She took a deep breath, “Last chance. Are you in need of rescuing?” His expression turned very strange, almost as if she’d struck him, “yes,” he said finally. -Tana and Gavriel-page 33- chapter 5.”

— Holly Black

224. “Nicasia’s wrong about me. I don’t desire to do as well in the tournament as one of the fey. I want to win. I do not yearn to be their equal. In my heart, I yearn to best them.”

— Holly Black

225. “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

226. “Well fine, then. I could send you out to win my favor. Possibly on a quest involving bringing a large mug of coffee and a doughnut. Or the wholesale slaughter of all my enemies. I haven’t decided which.”

— Holly Black

227. “He smiled, a real smile, the kind real boys gave real girls. “It’s been a very long time since anyone worried for me.”

— Holly Black

228. “There was a brittleness in her tone, and Baphen was uncomfortably reminded that some prophecies are fulfilled by the very actions meant to prevent them.”

— Holly Black

229. “You think a lizard is trying to kill me? And he faked a note from Celia? – Call.”

— Holly Black

230. “Better she never be a bride than wind up a widow.”

— Holly Black

231. “Children can laugh all day and still cry themselves to sleep at night.”

— Holly Black

232. “In the mortal world, when I thought you were my enemy, I still missed you.”

— Holly Black

233. “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

234. “I thought of how proud he was when he took the marks- cutting the skin of his throat in a long slash and then packing it with ashes until keloid scars rose up. He called it his second smile.”

— Holly Black

235. “Crowns of flowers on our heads, shooting bows and arrows at the sky. Eating candied violets and falling asleep with our heads pillowed on logs. We were children. Children can laugh all day and still cry themselves to sleep at night.”

— Holly Black

236. “I can’t believe he said that and then just walked out, leaving me reeling. I am going to STRANGLE him.”

— Holly Black

237. “Some people have stuffed animals,” Aaron said with a shrug. “Other people have knives.”

— Holly Black

238. “Just another dull night in Fairfold, where everyone’s a lunatic or an elf.”

— Holly Black

239. “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

240. “I thought I was supposed to be good and follow the rules,” I say. “But I am done with being weak. I am done with being good. I think I am going to be something else.”

— Holly Black

241. “I’ve wanted this and feared it, and now that it’s happening, I don’t know how I will ever want anything else.”

— Holly Black

242. “If you want my advice,” he says slowly, “love doesn’t grow well, fed on pain. Grant me that I know that at least.”

— Holly Black

243. “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

244. “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

245. “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

246. “I stand in front of my window and imagine myself a fearless knight, imagine myself a witch who hid her heart in her finger and then chopped her finger off.”

— Holly Black

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

— Holly Black

248. “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.”

— Holly Black

249. “I am not sure I sleep, but I do dream.”

— Holly Black

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

— Holly Black