Top 450 Marie Lu Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “Don’t be afraid,” I whisper to myself, my eyes squeezed shut. “You can’t afford it.”

— Marie Lu

252. “There is something quiet and warm about this tiny, temporary bond between the girl and the dog. What must it feel like to harness joy and love, instead of fear and hate? What kind of light does that cast?”

— Marie Lu

253. “I have everything I could ever want here, Adelina,” he finally says. “You’ve handed me what feels like the world’s riches, a palace, a life of luxury.” He draws closer. “I get to be at your side. What more do I need?”

— Marie Lu

254. “I don’t know why I pause to watch Raffaele. Perhaps I have always done so, so captivated am I by his beauty. Even now, in the midst of death and destruction, he moves with the grace of someone not of this world. His attention is focused entirely on Enzo. The sight breaks my heart, and a small, lost part of me sparks with light.”

— Marie Lu

255. “Few people ever kill for the right reasons.”

— Marie Lu

256. “Maybe I should feel like a hero. But I don’t. It’s always easier to destroy than to create.”

— Marie Lu

257. “His voice seems to linger in the air, though, words I haven’t heard from him in years... and somewhere, deep in my chest, stirs the presence of a girl buried long ago.”

— Marie Lu

258. “I lean my head against my knee and close my eyes. Even the illusion of June is enough to send a stabbing pain through my chest. Hell. I miss her so much.”

— Marie Lu

259. “When the world is murky, guide yourself with your own steady light.”

— Marie Lu

260. “No, thanks,” I reply. “I don’t like fried dough.”

— Marie Lu

261. “What if that’s who I am? Be true to yourself, Violetta once told me when I was trying in vain to win Father over. But that’s something everyone says and no one means. No one wants you to be yourself. They want you to be the version of yourself that they like.”

— Marie Lu

262. “I need to address my people, and I need to look the part. I will walk out onto the balcony with my head held high, fulfilling the fantasy I’d had as a little girl in my father’s home.”

— Marie Lu

263. “Metias is gone again. He is always gone.”

— Marie Lu

264. “It will be impossible to catch all the rats, my love,” he says. His hand brushes against mine. “Sooner or later, one will squeeze through the cracks. You need to be more careful.”

— Marie Lu

265. “My limbs turn numb for an instant, and suddenly all I see is Thomas lifting his gun and pointing it at my mother, Thomas beating me to a pulp in a Batalla Hall interrogation room. My vision swims in red.”

— Marie Lu

266. “Why is love such a weakness? I wish, for an instant, that I didn’t need such a thing. I can win the same things in life with fear, with power. What is the point in searching for love, when love is nothing but an illusion?”

— Marie Lu

267. “What’s the point of keeping in touch with the girl you’re crazy about, when you’re dying?”

— Marie Lu

268. “Pain enhances beauty.”

— Marie Lu

269. “And just like that, I am linked to him again, I feel the pulse of our bond and history and love through our hands, like a wave of magic, the return of a long-lost friend. Of something meant to be.”

— Marie Lu

270. “Do you trust Anden?” I say after a moment. “Is he worth saving? Is the Republic worth saving?”

— Marie Lu

271. “None of us are saints. We can all do better.”

— Marie Lu

272. “Maybe she’ll fight better this way. Nothing motivates you like being alone and cornered on the streets.”

— Marie Lu

273. “He pauses when he finishes undoing the last button, then closes his eyes. I can see the pain slashed across his face, and the sight tears at me. The Republic’s most wanted criminal is just a boy, sitting before me, suddenly vulnerable, laying all his weaknesses out for me to see.”

— Marie Lu

274. “Zooming in on it only makes it blurrier.”

— Marie Lu

275. “I’m not loyal enough to the Republic to stamp that loyalty right on my face. Leave that to June.”

— Marie Lu

276. “How can the boy who stirred an entire nation be dying?”

— Marie Lu

277. “Once every ten years, the three moons all fall under the world’s shadow and turn scarlet, bleeding with the blood of our fallen warriors. – The New Atlas to the Moons, by Liu Xue You.”

— Marie Lu

278. “Ollie looks back at me with that universal dog wisdom.”

— Marie Lu

279. “You once said that you were tired of the horror in the world,” I say. “Well, so am I. We can still find a way to fight it, the right way. We can find a way to do this together.”

— Marie Lu

280. “No. I will never let you hurt Day like that. Not the way I’ve already hurt him.”

— Marie Lu

281. “I needed the strange calm, the absence of everything, that it brought.”

— Marie Lu

282. “That’s the thing about the Dark World: You can prepare for it all you want, but the only way to truly understand it is to head in.”

— Marie Lu

283. “One heroic act doesn’t make a man trustworthy. What if he decides to turn his blade on you?”

— Marie Lu

284. “If you have to sell your soul in your quest to make things better,” I say through gritted teeth, “then you’ll never succeed.”

— Marie Lu

285. “You have goodness in your heart, but your darkness overwhelms it all; your desire to hurt, destroy, and avenge is more powerful than your desire to love, help, and light the way.”

— Marie Lu

286. “I don’t like seeing her this delicate.”

— Marie Lu

287. “I rub the weariness from my eyes and try to ignore my headache – I could use some rest.”

— Marie Lu

288. “Don’t cry” He says, his voice firm. “You are stronger than that.”

— Marie Lu

289. “As the sun starts to rise, I watch as Raffaele bends over Enzo’s body, the two of us mourning the prince we both loved.”

— Marie Lu

290. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh before. It’s a soothing sound, both tender and unsure, reminiscent of someone who used to laugh more.”

— Marie Lu

291. “I looked into those eyes and I saw nothing. It was like staring straight into the Underworld. Like he aches to return to where he came from.”

— Marie Lu

292. “That’s the difference between the real and the virtual. Reality is where you can lose the ones you love. Reality is the place where you can feel the cracks in your heart.”

— Marie Lu

293. “Fear motivates, more than love or ambition or joy. Fear is more powerful than anything else in the world. I have spent so long yearning for things – for love, for acceptance – that I do not really need. I need nothing except the submission that comes with fear. I do not know why it took me so long to learn this.”

— Marie Lu

294. “Your strengths might make you hard to approach, and might make your words sound uglier than what you actually mean, but they also make people look up to you.”

— Marie Lu

295. “As I run my sector, I can’t help but smile. I’m free again, I can taste the wind and touch the sky.”

— Marie Lu

296. “I’ve had this dream too many times. I don’t want it taken away again.”

— Marie Lu

297. “Every bone in my body yearns to keep this boy safe, always.”

— Marie Lu

298. “You are Day’s weakness, June. He’ll listen to you.”

— Marie Lu

299. “Day, the boy from the streets with nothing except the clothes on his back and the earnestness in his eyes, owns my heart.”

— Marie Lu

300. “Make no mistake – we don’t trust each other, not by any stretch of the imagination.”

— Marie Lu