Top 500 Leigh Bardugo Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “No mourners, no funerals. Another way of saying good luck. But it was something more. A dark wink to the fact that there would be no expensive burials for people like them, no marble markers to remember their names, no wreaths of myrtle and rose.”

— Leigh Bardugo

152. “Matthias was dreaming again. Dreaming of her. The storm raged around him, drowning out Nina’s voice. And yet his heart was easy. Somehow he knew that she would be safe, she would find shelter from the cold. He was on the ice once more, and somewhere he could hear the wolves howling. But this time, he knew they were welcoming him home.”

— Leigh Bardugo

153. “You’re very welcome, Nina Zenik. You may repay me in the customary way.” “Waffles?” “Lots of them.”

— Leigh Bardugo

154. “They were twin souls, soldiers destined to fight for different sides, to find each other and lose each other too quickly. She would not keep him here. Not like this.”

— Leigh Bardugo

155. “Nina glanced from Inej to Kaz and saw they both wore the same expression. Nina knew that look. It came after the shipwreck, when the tide moved against you and the sky had gone dark. It was the first sight of land, the hope of shelter and even salvation that might await you on a distant shore.”

— Leigh Bardugo

156. “When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.”

— Leigh Bardugo

157. “Nina, little red bird. Don’t go.”

— Leigh Bardugo

158. “No, Alina. You came here for Ravka. For the firebird. To lead the Second Army.” He tapped the sun over his heart. “I came here for you. You’re my flag. You’re my nation. But that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”

— Leigh Bardugo

159. “I will have you without armor. Those were the words she’d said to Kaz aboard the Ferolind, desperate for some sign that he might open himself to her, that they could be more than two wary creatures united by their distrust of the world.”

— Leigh Bardugo

160. “Why can a Grisha possess but one amplifier? I will answer this question instead: What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.”

— Leigh Bardugo

161. “A liar, a thief, and utterly without conscience. But he’ll keep to any deal you strike with him.”

— Leigh Bardugo

162. “Matthias suspected that Brekker would drag the girl back from hell himself if he had to. Jesper.”

— Leigh Bardugo

163. “You’re not weak because you can’t read. You’re weak because you’re afraid of people seeing your weakness. You’re letting shame decide who you are.”

— Leigh Bardugo

164. “Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.”

— Leigh Bardugo

165. “Fear is a phoenix. Words Liliyana had spoken to her years ago and that Zoya had repeated to others many times. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.”

— Leigh Bardugo

166. “Kaz Brekker was gone, and Dirtyhands had come to see the rough work done.”

— Leigh Bardugo

167. “Jesper ran a finger up Wylan’s forearm, and Wylan flushed a vibrant pink. Matthias couldn’t help but sympathize with the boy. He knew what it was to be out of your depth, and he sometimes suspected they could forgo all of Kaz’s planning and simply let Jesper and Nina flirt the entirety of Ketterdam into submission.”

— Leigh Bardugo

168. “Like calls to like.”

— Leigh Bardugo

169. “Besides, she was the Wraith – the only law that applied to her was gravity, and some days she defied that, too.”

— Leigh Bardugo

170. “Maybe I liked your stupid face.”

— Leigh Bardugo

171. “Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark?”

— Leigh Bardugo

172. “I love a little righteous comeuppance,” said Jesper. “Jogs the liver!”

— Leigh Bardugo

173. “The life you live, the hate you feel – it’s poison. I can drink it no longer.”

— Leigh Bardugo

174. “Despise your heart. I wanted to. I didn’t want to grieve anymore, to feel loss or guilt, or worry. I wanted to be hard, calculating. I wanted to be fearless.”

— Leigh Bardugo

175. “He knew the look of a man defending his home with nothing but a rock in his hand.”

— Leigh Bardugo

176. “You’ll get what’s coming to you some day, Brekker.” “I will,” said Kaz, “if there’s any justice in the world. And we all know how likely that is.”

— Leigh Bardugo

177. “What is infinite?” she recited. I knew that text well. “The universe and the greed of men,” I quoted back to her.”

— Leigh Bardugo

178. “Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself.”

— Leigh Bardugo

179. “We can endure all kinds of pain. It’s shame that eats men whole.”

— Leigh Bardugo

180. “Fear is a powerful ally, but feed it too often, make it too strong, and it will turn on you.”

— Leigh Bardugo

181. “Inej would find her own way in. The rules of fair play among the gangs were from Per Haskell’s time. Besides, she was the Wraith – the only law that applied to her was gravity, and some days she defied that, too. The.”

— Leigh Bardugo

182. “He’d lied. He did like the way she talked.”

— Leigh Bardugo

183. “You’ve cheated death many times. Greed may do your bidding, but death serves no man.”

— Leigh Bardugo

184. “She smiled then, her cheeks red, her cheeks scattered with some kind of dust. It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again.”

— Leigh Bardugo

185. “He’d told her they would fight their way out. Knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. She would fight for him, but she could not heal him. She would not waste her life trying.”

— Leigh Bardugo

186. “Men mock the gods until they need them, Kaz.”

— Leigh Bardugo

187. “The volcra, the nichevo’ya, they were my monsters, all of them. And he was my monster, too.”

— Leigh Bardugo

188. “But they were his first friends, his only friends, and Wylan knew that even if he’d had his pick of a thousand companions, these would have been the people he chose.”

— Leigh Bardugo

189. “You wouldn’t know a good time if it sidled up to you and stuck a lollipop in your mouth.”

— Leigh Bardugo

190. “Matthias was dreaming again. Dreaming of her.”

— Leigh Bardugo

191. “You have crumbs on your cleavage.” “Don’t care,” she said, taking another bite of cake. “So hungry.” Kaz.”

— Leigh Bardugo

192. “You are strong enough to survive the fall.”

— Leigh Bardugo

193. “He grinned at her, his smile sudden and jarring as a thunderclap, his eyes the near-black of bitter coffee. “We’ll be kings and queens, Inej. Kings and Queens.”

— Leigh Bardugo

194. “The thought filled me with grief, grief for the dreams we’d shared, for the love I’d felt, for the hopeful girl I would never be again.”

— Leigh Bardugo

195. “I don’t hold a grudge. I cradle it. I coddle it. I feed it fine cuts of meat and send it to the best schools. I nurture my grudges, Rollins.”

— Leigh Bardugo

196. “Joost had two problems: the moon and his mustache.”

— Leigh Bardugo

197. “Facts are for the unimaginative.”

— Leigh Bardugo

198. “This was the kiss he’d been waiting for. It was a gunshot. It was prairie fire. It was the spin of Makker’s Wheel.”

— Leigh Bardugo

199. “Kaz heaved a sigh as he braced himself for three painful flights of stairs. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Please, my darling Inej, treasure of my heart, won’t you do me the honor of acquiring me a new hat?” Inej.”

— Leigh Bardugo

200. “Ravka was many things to him: a grand lady who required constant courting, a stubborn child unwilling to stand on its own, and most often, a drowning man – the more Nikolai struggled to save it, the harder it fought. But with the help of the scientists and soldiers at the Gilded Bog, he might just drag his country to shore yet.”

— Leigh Bardugo