Top 500 V.E. Schwab Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “A breeze trickles through the air, carrying as much relief as a dryer vent.”

— V.E. Schwab

352. “And in the morning it looks like ghosts have danced across the kitchen, and they pretend there were two instead of one.”

— V.E. Schwab

353. “Olivia hugs the journals to her front and slips out, wondering how many ghouls there are at Gallant. One for every gravestone? Do the dead always come home?”

— V.E. Schwab

354. “Safe does not mean happy, does not mean well, does not mean kind.”

— V.E. Schwab

355. “Anoshe brought solace. And hope. And the strength to let go.”

— V.E. Schwab

356. “The Essen Tasch is itself a kind of lesson,” continued Alucard, “that it doesn’t matter what you call magic, as long as you can believe.”

— V.E. Schwab

357. “And strategy is just a fancy word for a special kind of common sense, the ability to see options, to make them where there were none. It’s not about knowing the rules. It’s about knowing how to break them.”

— V.E. Schwab

358. “She will learn in time that she can lie, and the words will flow like wine, easily poured, easily swallowed. But the truth will always stop at the end of her tongue. Her story silenced for all but herself.”

— V.E. Schwab

359. “Lila Bard knew in her bones that she was meant to be a pirate. All she needed was a working ship.”

— V.E. Schwab

360. “She pauses at MEMOIR, studying the titles on the spines, so many I’s and Me’s and My’s, possessive words for possessive lives. What a luxury, to tell one’s story. To be read, remembered.”

— V.E. Schwab

361. “A life worth having is a life worth taking.”

— V.E. Schwab

362. “Maybe we are broken. But we put ourselves back together. We survived. That’s what makes us so powerful. And as for family – well, blood is always family, but family doesn’t always have to be blood.”

— V.E. Schwab

363. “Here is a new kind of silence, rarer than the rest. The easy quiet of familiar spaces, of places that fill simply because you are not alone within them.”

— V.E. Schwab

364. “If I’m missing something, then so are you. Life is about compromises. Or did you think because you put yourself in God’s hands that He would make you all you were and more?”

— V.E. Schwab

365. “The doctors gave him a few months, and he told everyone, and do you know what they did? They couldn’t handle it. They were so caught up in their grief, they mourned him before he was even dead. There’s no way to un-know the fact that someone is dying. It eats away all the normal, and leaves something wrong and rotten in its place.”

— V.E. Schwab

366. “You are perfect, because you don’t exist.”

— V.E. Schwab

367. “So she longs for the mornings, but she settles for the nights...”

— V.E. Schwab

368. “You look like a wilted flower,” teases Addie. Sam winks and lifts her cup. “Water me, and watch me bloom.”

— V.E. Schwab

369. “Pretending not to be sad was the hardest, but looking sad made people think you were weak, and when you were already a foot too short and a measure too small, and a girl on top of that, you had to work twice as hard to convince them it wasn’t true.”

— V.E. Schwab

370. “Date. A date is something made, something planned; not a chance of opportunity, but time set aside at one point for another, a moment in the future.”

— V.E. Schwab

371. “I don’t want to stay here,” Holland answered flatly. “I want to go home.”

— V.E. Schwab

372. “I would have lost my mind.” “Oh, I did,” she says blithely. “But when you live long enough, even madness ends.”

— V.E. Schwab

373. “Eli, who believed in God and had a monster inside just like Victor, but knew how to hide it better.”

— V.E. Schwab

374. “They teach you growing up that you are only one thing at a time – angry, lonely, content – but he’s never found that to be true. He is a dozen things at once. He is lost and scared and grateful, he is sorry and happy and afraid. But he is not alone. It is beginning to rain again, the air gone damp with the metallic scent of storms in the city, and Henry doesn’t care, thinks there is something to be said for symmetry.”

— V.E. Schwab

375. “Tired can be a kind of sick, if it lasts long enough.”

— V.E. Schwab

376. “A hand shakes Adeline awake. For a moment, she is out of place, out of time. Sleep clings to her edges, and with it, the dream – it must have been a dream – of prayers made to silent gods, of deals made in the dark, of being forgotten. Her imagination has always been a vivid thing. “Wake up,” says a voice, one she has known all her life.”

— V.E. Schwab

377. “But life is pointless without pleasure.”

— V.E. Schwab

378. “Adeline had wanted to be a tree. To grow wild and deep, belong to no one but the ground beneath her feet, and the sky above, just like Estele. It would be an unconventional life, and perhaps a little lonely, but at least it would be hers. She would belong to no one but herself.”

— V.E. Schwab

379. “Henry wonders, as they wait in the queue, if some people have natural style, or if they simply have the discipline to curate themselves every day.”

— V.E. Schwab

380. “Walking beneath the copper canopies, she saw that they were dappled to look like trees, starlight shining through the leaves, and Lila thought, once more, what a strange world she’d stumbled into, and how glad she was to be there.”

— V.E. Schwab

381. “Pain can be beautiful,” he says, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “It can transform. It can create.”

— V.E. Schwab

382. “She shook her head, baffled and amused. “Jesus, Marcella, anyone ever told you that you’re batshit crazy?” Marcella pursed her lips. “Several times,” she said. “It’s an insult men love to aim at ambitious women.”

— V.E. Schwab

383. “But the sorrow has faded, replaced by stubborn rage, and she resolves to kindle it, to shield and nurture the flame until it takes far more than a single breath to blow it out.”

— V.E. Schwab

384. “Spells are for witches, and witches are too often burned.”

— V.E. Schwab

385. “Go to parties!” said Maggie. “Drink cheap beer! Make bad choices! Date pretty girls!” He leaned back in his chair. “Do pretty girls count as bad choices, or are those two separate things?”

— V.E. Schwab

386. “He is a gruff old man, but Addie likes him. Sees the sadness in his anger, the guardedness of grief.”

— V.E. Schwab

387. “She moves among the books as if they’re friends. And perhaps, in a way, they are.”

— V.E. Schwab

388. “Books feed hungry minds. Tips feed the cat?”

— V.E. Schwab

389. “Everyone has a mix of humanity and magic in them.”

— V.E. Schwab

390. “Fear belongs to those with more to lose.”

— V.E. Schwab

391. “What a waste of life, to stand around and think so much on every little thing.”

— V.E. Schwab

392. “Belief is a bit like gravity. Enough people believe a thing, and it becomes as solid and real as the ground beneath your feet. But when you’re the only one holding on to an idea, a memory, a girl, it’s hard to keep it from floating away.”

— V.E. Schwab

393. “He didn’t realize how much connective tissue was made up of guilt. Without the weight of it, he feels dizzy and light.”

— V.E. Schwab

394. “She hates this part. She shouldn’t have lingered. Should have been out of sight as well as out of mind, but there’s always that nagging hope that this time, it will be different, that this time, they will remember.”

— V.E. Schwab

395. “Anyone who follows me online knows I have a rather fraught relationship with stories. Or rather, with bringing them to life. With holding up the whole messy beast until my arms shake and my head hurts and I know if I drop it now, before it’s ready, it will shatter, and I’ll have to sweep it up, and I’ll lose at least a few of the pieces along the way. And so, while I held up Addie’s story, so many people held up me.”

— V.E. Schwab

396. “Ignorance is only bliss if you want to get caught.”

— V.E. Schwab

397. “Victor had never been good, or sweet – he’d always had a sharp edge; Eli had been drawn to the metallic glint of it –.”

— V.E. Schwab

398. “But what is safe? Tombs are safe. Merilance was safe. Safe does not mean happy, does not mean well, does not mean kind.”

— V.E. Schwab

399. “Memories are stiff, but thoughts are freer things. They throw out roots, they spread and tangle, and come untethered from their source. They are clever, and stubborn, and perhaps – perhaps – they are in reach.”

— V.E. Schwab

400. “Hate was too simple a word. He and Eli were bonded, by blood and death and science. They were alike, more so now than ever. And he had missed Eli. He wanted to see him. And he wanted to see him suffer. He wanted to see the look in Eli’s eyes when he lit them up with pain. He wanted his attention.”

— V.E. Schwab