Cassandra Clare

“Magnus snapped his fingers again, menacingly. "Get up.""Or you'll be the next one to go up in smoke," said Simon with relish."There's no need to clarify my finger snap. The implication was clear in the snap itself.”

“It's my cologne. Eau de Recent Injury." (Jace)”

“I've always been told my presence brightened up any room. One might think that went doubly for dank underground cell." (Jace)”

“Despite my staggering good looks, you actually don't like me that way..." (Jace)”

“Not at all. My services are also available to gentlemen in distress. It's an equal opportunity fetish." (Sebastian)”

“Anger, Tessa thought, was satisfying in its own way, when you gave in to it. There was something gratifying about shouting in a blind rage until your words ran out.”

“Like letting spiders live because they eat mosquitoes, Clary thought. "So they're good enough to let live, good enough to make your food for you, good enough to flirt with-but not really good enough? I mean, not as good as people.”

“Clary turned instant traitor against her gender. "Those girls on the other side of the car are staring at you."Jace assumed an air of mellow gratification. "Of course they are," he said. "I am stunningly attractive.""Haven't you ever heard that modesty is an attractive trait?""Only from ugly people," Jace confided. "The meek may inherit the earth, but at the moment it belongs to the conceited. Like me.”

“As she looked, the smoke puffing out of the chimney stopped curling upward and began to take on the shape of a wavering black question mark.Sebastian laughed. "I think that means, Who's there?"Clary pulled her coat closer around her. "It looks like something out of a fairy tale.""Are you cold?" Sebastian put his arm around her. Immediately the smoke curling from the chimney stopped forming itself into question marks and began puffing out in the shape of lopsided hearts.”

“I wouldn't cut you out of my life Clary, any more than I would cut off my right hand and give it to someone as a Valentine's Day gift."Gross," said Clary. "Must you?"Simon grinned. "I must.”

“The Queen touched her lips thoughtfully with a single long white finger. 'The Fair Folk, unlike humans, do not concern themselves overmuch with liking. Love, perhaps, and hate. Both are useful emotions. But liking . . ." She shrugged elegantly.”

“Enough, both of you,' Clary said. 'You can't be complete jerks to each other forever, you know.'Technically,' said Simon, 'I can.'Jace made an inelegant noise; after a moment Clary realized that he was trying not to laugh, and only semi-succeeding.”

“He'd woken up the next day in the city hospital with Magnus Bane staring down at him with an odd expression--it could have been deep concern or merely curiosity, it was hard to tell with Magnus.”

“She could ask for anything, she thought dizzily, anything--an end to pain or world hunger or disease, or for peace on earth. But then again, perhaps these things weren't in the power of angels to grant, or they would already have been granted. And perhaps people were supposed to find these things for themselves.”

“Clary closed her eyes. Remembering the way Jace had looked at her the night she'd freed Ithuriel, she couldn't help but imagine the way he'd look at her now if he saw her trying to lie down to die on the sand beside him. He wouldn't be touched, wouldn't think it was a beautiful gesture. He'd be angry at her for giving up. He'd be so--disappointed.”

“So we all have to do that?' Maia said. 'Get drawn on, I mean.'Only if you're going to fight,' Isabelle said, looking at the other girl coldly. 'You don't look eighteen yet.'Maia smiled tightly. 'I'm not a Shadowhunter. Lycanthropes are considered adults at sixteen.'Well, you have to get drawn on, then,' said Isabelle. 'By a Shadowhunter. So you'd better look for one.'But--' Maia, still looking over at Alec and Magnus, broke off and raised her eyebrows. Simon turned to see what she was looking at--and stared.Alec had his arms around Magnus and was kissing him, full on the mouth. Magnus, who appeared to be in a state of shock, stood frozen. Several groups of people--Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike--were staring and whispering. Glancing to the side, Simon saw the Lightwoods, their eyes wide, gaping at the display. Maryse had her hand over her mouth.Maia looked perplexed. 'Wait a second,' she said. 'Do we all have to do that, too.”

“No. I wanted to tell you that I was proud of you."Clary slewed around to look at her mother. "You were?"Jocelyn nodded. "Of course I was. The way you stood up in front of the Clave like that. The way you showed them what you could do. You made them look at you and see the person they loved most in the world, didn't you?""Yeah," Clary said. "How did you know?""Because I heard them all calling out different names," Jocelyn said softly. "But I still saw you.”

“Tell you what.' Alec reached for a second seraph blade. 'We live through this, and I promise I'll introduce you to my whole family.'Magnus raised his hands, his fingers shining with individual azure flames. They lit his grin with a fiery blue glow. 'It's a deal.”

“She'd always had such contempt for mundanes, the way all Shadowhunters did--she'd believed that they were soft, stupid, sheeplike in their complacency. Now she wondered if all that hatred didn't just stem from the fact that she was jealous. It must be nice not worrying that every time one of your family members walked out the door, they'd never come back.”

“She'd been impressed by his looks at first--those sharply planed cheekbones and those black, fathomless eyes--but his affable, sympathetic personality grated on her now. She didn't like boys who looked as if they never got mad about anything. In Isabelle's world, rage equaled passion equaled a good time.”

“Clary hadn't realized quite how disheveled she looked: her coat streaked with dust, her hair snarled from the wind. She tried to smooth it down discreetly and caught Jace's grin in the next mirror. For some reason, due doubtless to a mysterious Shadowhunter magic she didn't have a hope of understanding, his hair looked perfect.”

“Magnus looked at her meditatively. 'I think,' he said, 'there isn't much that Jace wouldn't do for you, if you asked him.'Clary opened her mouth and then shut it again. She thought of the way Magnus had always seemed to know how Alec felt about Jace, how Simon felt about her. Her feelings for Jace must be written on her face even now, and Magnus was an expert reader. She glanced away.”

“The horse grunted softly. He had huge teeth, Clary noticed uneasily; each one the size of a Pez dispenser. She imagined those teeth sinking into her leg and thought of all the girls she'd known in middle school who'd wanted ponies of their own. She wondered if they were insane.”

“The front door shut, leaving Alec sitting in the half-lit garden, alone. He closed his eyes for a moment, the image of a face hovering behind his lids. Not Jace's face, for a change. The eyes set in the face were green, slit-pupiled. Cat eyes.”

“Maybe you should call him,' Simon suggested, trying not to think too hard about how weird it was to be giving a demon hunter advice about possibly dating a warlock.”

“Shadowhunters were brought up to handle anything, weren't they?”

“Mene mene tekel upsharin,' Jace said with a faint smile. 'You don't recognize it? It's from the Bible, vampire. The old one. That's your book, isn't it?'Just because I'm Jewish doesn't mean I've memorized the Old Testament.'It's the Writing on the Wall. "God hath numbered thy kingdom, and brought it to an end; thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." It's a portent of doom--it means the end of an empire.”

“She had thought she was going to save her mother, and now there was going to be nothing for her to do but sit by her mother's bedside, hold her limp hand, and home someone else, somewhere else, would be able to do what she couldn't.”

“I don't see how Clary is something we have in common,' Simon said, although he did. Nevertheless, this wasn't a conversation he particularly wanted to have with Jace now, or, in fact, ever. Wasn't there some sort of manly code that precluded discussions like this--discussions about feelings?”

“Nothing less than 7 inches.”

“Only mundanes say they're sorry when what they mean is "I share your grief,"' Jace observed.”

“Stop. I don't do you favors, Alec. I do things for you because - well, why do you think I do them?"Something rose up in Alec's throat, cutting off his response. It was always like this when he was with Magnus. It was as if there were a bubble of pain or regret that lived inside his heart, and when he wanted to say something, anything, that seemed meaningful or true, it rose up and choked off his words. "I need to get back to the ship," he said, finally.”

“Clary screamed out loud as he fell like a stone-And landed lightly on his feet just in front of her. Clary stared with her mouth open as he rose up out of a shallow crouch and grinned at her. "If I made a joke about just dropping in," he said, "would you write me off as a cliché?”

“I get the feeling," Alec said, and smiled, "she hasn't forgiven me for betraying you, as she sees it.""Good girl," said Jace with appreciation."I didn't betray you, idiot.""It's the thought that counts.”

“But unlike you," said Jace, "there is nothing of hell in us.""You are mortal; you age; you die," the Queen said dismissively. "If that is not hell, pray tell me, what is?”

“under his dripping hair, he was as white as parchment, his hands clenched at his sides so tightly that they were shaking. It seemed clear that some terrible turmoil was ripping him apart from the inside out.”

“Waiting for a special occasion to kill me? Christmas is coming.”

“I see that you are working this vampire angle with some success. And kudos. Lots of girls love that sensitive-undead thing. But I'd drop the whole musician angle if I were you. Vampire rock stars are played out, and besides, you can't possible be very good.”

“I never said that. I just didn't correct you when you were, you know, wrong. Anyway, I just saved you from being burned to death, so I figure you're not allowed to be mad." -Jace”

“Stop it." Isabelle tapped a booted foot in the shallow water at the lake's edge. "Both of you. In fact, all three of you. If we don't stick together in the Seelie Court, we're dead.""But I haven't-," Clary started."Maybe you haven't, but the way you let those two act..." Isabelle indicated the boys with a disdainful wave of her hand."I can't tell them what to do!""Why not?" the other girl demanded. "Honestly, Clary, if you don't start utilizing a bit of your natural feminine superiority, I just don't know what I'll do with you.”

“I'm all right,' Jace protested, but his hand gripped Alec's sleeve tightly. 'I can stand.' It looks to me like you're using a wall to prop you up. That's not my definition of "standing."'It's leaning,' Jace told him. 'Leaning comes right before standing.”

“Jace hated it when other people were worried on his behalf. It made him feel like maybe there really was something to worry about.”

“She took out a shiny folded pamphlet, the kind they kept stacked in clear plastic stands in hospital waiting rooms. "How to Come Out to Your Parents," she read out loud. "LUKE. Don't be ridiculous. Simon's not gay, he's a vampire.”

“You disappear so completely into your head sometimes," he said. "I wish I could follow you."You do, she wanted to say. You live in my head all the time.”

“I know you feel inhuman, and as if you are set apart, away from life and love, but... I promise you, the right man won't care.”

“Sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.”

“Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.”

“Not everything that's true needs to be said.”

“I've heard the word 'fear'. I simply choose to believe it doesn't apply to me.”

“Clary felt suddenly annoyed. "When the self-congratulatory part of the evening is over, maybe we could get back to saving my best friend from being exsanguinated to death?""Exsanguinated," said Jace, impressed. "That's a big word.""And you're a big-""Tsk tsk," he interupted. "No swearing in church.”