Top 500 V.E. Schwab Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “Husband. A word like a millstone, all weight and no warmth.”

— V.E. Schwab

202. “Aut viam invenium aut faciam, and so on.” She does not know Latin yet, and he does not offer a translation, but a decade from now, she will look up the words, and learn their meaning. To find a way, or make your own.”

— V.E. Schwab

203. “There is a rhythm to moving through the world alone. You discover what you can and cannot live without, the simple necessities and small joys that define a life. Not food, not shelter, not the basic things a body needs – those are, for her, a luxury – but the things that keep you sane. That bring you joy. That make life bearable.”

— V.E. Schwab

204. “Want is for children. If this were want, I would be rid of you by now. I would have forgotten you centuries ago,” he says, a bitter loathing in his voice. “This is need. And need is painful but patient. Do you hear me, Adeline? I need you. As you need me. I love you, as you love me.”

— V.E. Schwab

205. “We all have battle scars. People in our past.”

— V.E. Schwab

206. “I will simply go where it is dark again.” Addie rises, goes to the window, and draws the curtains closed, plunging the room back into lightless black. “There,” she says, feeling her way back to him. “Now it is dark again.” Luc laughs, a soft, beautiful sound, and pulls her down into the bed.”

— V.E. Schwab

207. “But then she wakes, and sees the pink and orange dawn against the clouds, or hears the lament of a lone fiddle, the music and the melody, and remembers there is such beauty in the world.”

— V.E. Schwab

208. “He tastes like the air at night, heady with the weight of summer storms. He tastes like the faint traces of far-off woodsmoke, a fire dying in the dark. He tastes like the forest, and somehow, impossibly, like home.”

— V.E. Schwab

209. “The old gods may be great, but they are neither kind nor merciful.”

— V.E. Schwab

210. “A grounding force against a rising storm. There is still a little time, the hand on the watch a fraction of a fraction of a fraction from midnight, and he can hear Bea’s voice in his head. Only you would arrive early to your own death.”

— V.E. Schwab

211. “Am i the devil, or the darkness?”

— V.E. Schwab

212. “Olvidar es triste, desde luego. Pero que te olviden resulta solitario.”

— V.E. Schwab

213. “Heaven is a nice spot in the shade, a broad tree over my bones.”

— V.E. Schwab

214. “One day you will be old and wrinkled, and I will still love you.”

— V.E. Schwab

215. “A thief plays the game only when they think they’ll win. A pirate plays the game even when they think they’ll lose.”

— V.E. Schwab

216. “I can’t hold a pen. I can’t tell a story. I can’t wield a weapon, or make someone remember. But art,” she says with a quieter smile, “art is about ideas. And ideas are wilder than memories. They’re like weeds, always finding their way up.” “But no photographs. No film.”

— V.E. Schwab

217. “Sure I do,” countered Lila cheerfully. “There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London,” she recited, ticking them off on her fingers. “See? I’m a fast learner.”

— V.E. Schwab

218. “But humans are messy Luc. That is the wonder of them. They live and love and make mistakes, and they feel so much. And maybe – maybe I am no longer one of them.”

— V.E. Schwab

219. “Blink and you’re halfway through school, paralyzed by the idea that whatever you choose to do, it means choosing NOT to do a hundred other things, so you change your major half a dozen times before finally ending up in theology, and for a while it seems like the right path, but that’s really just a reflex to the pride on your parents faces.”

— V.E. Schwab

220. “Las palabras duelen, incluso mientras las piensa, pues el juego da paso a una necesidad, a un sentimiento demasiado genuino, demasiado peligroso.”

— V.E. Schwab

221. “And Ulysses stopped up his ears against the siren’s song,” recited Victor, pulling the plugs from his own ears as Serena collapsed to the dirt lot, “for it was death.”

— V.E. Schwab

222. “The darkness is no place to be alone.”

— V.E. Schwab

223. “If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?”

— V.E. Schwab

224. “Olivia Prior has never been a quiet girl. She has always made a point of making noise, everywhere she goes, in part to remind people that just because she cannot speak, does not mean that she is silent, and in part because she simply likes the weight of sound, likes the way it takes up space.”

— V.E. Schwab

225. “For every shadow, there must be light.”

— V.E. Schwab

226. “Barron’s kindness was like a curse, because she knew she had done nothing to deserve it.”

— V.E. Schwab

227. “Easy when you didn’t care, when people came onto the page and walked away again, back to their own stories, and you could imagine whatever you wanted for them, if you cared enough to write it in your head. Barron.”

— V.E. Schwab

228. “A house like this has too much history, and history always brings it’s share of ghosts. But it’s not a bad thing,” he adds, packing up his kit. “Ghosts were people once, and people come in all ways, good and bad and what’s between. Sure, maybe some are out to frighten, but others, I think, are just watching, wishing they could help.”

— V.E. Schwab

229. “Even rocks wear away to nothing.”

— V.E. Schwab

230. “When everything slips through your fingers, you learn to savor the feel of nice things against your palm.”

— V.E. Schwab

231. “Addie has had three hundred years to practice her father’s art, to whittle herself down to a few essential truths, to learn the things she cannot do without.”

— V.E. Schwab

232. “SYDNEY Clarke died on a cool March day. It was just before lunch, and it was all Serena’s fault.”

— V.E. Schwab

233. “His parents meant well, of course, but they always told him things like cheer up, or it will get better, or worse, it’s not that bad, which is easy to say when you’ve never had a day of rain.”

— V.E. Schwab

234. “I remember you.” Three words, large enough to tip the world.”

— V.E. Schwab

235. “There are days when she mourns the prospect of another year, another decade, another century. There are nights when she cannot sleep, moments when she lies awake and dreams of dying. But then she wakes, and sees the pink and orange dawn against the clouds, or hears the lament of a lone fiddle, the music and the melody, and remembers there is such beauty in the world.”

— V.E. Schwab

236. “Put the right words into the world, never know what you’ll catch.”

— V.E. Schwab

237. “I am not some genie, bound to your whim.” He pushes off the tree. “Nor am I some petty forest spirit, content with granting favors for mortal trinkets. I am stronger than your god and older than your devil. I am the darkness between stars, and the roots beneath the earth. I am promise, and potential, and when it comes to playing games, I divine the rules, I set the pieces, and I choose when to play. And tonight, I say no.”

— V.E. Schwab

238. “Tell you what,” said Victor. “You remember me, and I’ll remember you, and that way we won’t be forgotten.”

— V.E. Schwab

239. “Don’t you remember, she told him then, when you were nothing but shadow and smoke? Darling, he’d said in his soft, rich way, I was the night itself.”

— V.E. Schwab

240. “Paris, France July 29, 1719.”

— V.E. Schwab

241. “I am stronger than your god and older than your devil. I am the darkness between stars, and the roots beneath the earth.”

— V.E. Schwab

242. “Why would anyone trade a lifetime of talent for a few years of glory?” Luc’s smile darkens. “Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because vision weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades.” He leans close, twists a lock of her hair around one finger. “Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”

— V.E. Schwab

243. “I see someone who cares,” she says slowly. “Perhaps too much. I see someone lost, and hungry. The kind of person who feels like they’re wasting away in a world full of food, because they can’t decide what they want.”

— V.E. Schwab

244. “Victor knew he was playing a dangerous game. The odds were terrible, the stakes monumental. It was Russian roulette, except that a bullet would be a cleaner end.”

— V.E. Schwab

245. “Blink, and the years fall away like leaves.”

— V.E. Schwab

246. “Some people were matches, a bit of light and no heat. And some were furnaces, all heat but little light. And then, once in a blue moon, there was a bonfire, something so hot and bright you couldn’t stand too near without burning.”

— V.E. Schwab

247. “But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things – she would go mad. She has gone mad.”

— V.E. Schwab

248. “Delilah Bard – always a thief, recently a magician, and one day, hopefully, a pirate – was running as fast as she could.”

— V.E. Schwab

249. “She was the kind of pretty that steals your breath, and the kind you can’t really capture in a photo, because the magic is in the movement.”

— V.E. Schwab

250. “The earth beneath your feet does not care you will be king. Nor the water in your cup. Nor the air you breath. You must speak to them as equal.”

— V.E. Schwab