Holly Black

“You sure you want to cross me?"In that moment she's her father's daughter.”

“This, the language of deception, we both understand. We were born to it, along with the curses.”

“Let me look out for you. Let your enemies become mine.”

“You are the best kind of killer, Cassel Sharpe, the kind that never has blood on his hands. The kind that never has to sicken at the sight of what he's done, or come to like it too much.”

“He looks like the good boy he's never been.”

“I know how to be the witness to her grief. I don't know how to be this kind of villain.”

“Oh- and grab the plastic bag over by my suitcase."I slug down the last of the coffee and get up. The bag contains panty hose. I put them on her desk."They're for you.""You want me to look homeless, desperate, but also kind of fabulous?”

“Sam frowns at me, suddenly serious. "You know, I thought--for most of the first year we lived together--that you were going to kill me."That makes me nearly spit out beer, I laugh so hard."No, look--living with you, it's like knowing there's a loaded gun on the other side of the room. You're like this leopard who's pretending to be a house cat."That only makes me laugh harder."Shut up," he says. "You might do normal stuff, but a leopard can drink milk or fall off things like a house cat. It's obvious you're not--not like the rest of us. I'll look over at you, and you'll be flexing your claws, or I don't know, eating a freshly killed antelope.""Oh," I say. It's a ridiculous metaphor, but the hilarity has gone out of me. I thought I did a good job of fitting in--maybe not perfect, but not as bad as Sam makes it sound."It's like Audrey," he says, stabbing the air with a finger clearly well on his way to inebriated and full of determination to make me understand his theory. "You acted like she went out with you because you did this good job of being a nice guy.""I am a nice guy."I try to be.Sam snorts. "She liked you because you scared her. And then you scared her too much.”

“Magic gives you a lot of choices," Grandad says. "Most of them are bad.”

“Telling Sam and Daneca feels like peeling off my own skin to expose everything underneath. It hurts.”

“It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up.”

“His words were still clear in her mind from that first meeting. "Whoever eats this will love you." She looked into the mirror, at her birthmark, bright as blood, at her kiss-stung lips, at the absurd smile stretching across her face.Carefully separating out the crushed pieces of shell, she pulled the dried pulp free from its cage of veins. Piece by piece, she put the sweet brown fruit in her own mouth and swallowed it down.”

“I can walk into someone's house, kiss their wife, sit down at their table, and eat their dinner. I can lift a passport at an airport, and in twenty minutes it will seem like it's mine. I can be a blackbird staring in the window. I can be a cat creeping along a ledge. I can go anywhere I want and do the worst things I can imagine, with nothing to ever connect me to those crimes. Today I look like me, but tomorrow I could look like you. I could be you.”

“But now I wonder--what if everyone is pretty much the same and it's just a thousand small choices that add up to the person you are? No good or evil, no black and white, no inner demons or angels whispering the right answers in our ears like it's some cosmic SAT test. Just us, hour by hour, minute by minute, day by day, making the best choices we can.The thought is horrifying. If that's true, then there's no right choice. There's only choice.”

“Greg stands up, wiping his mouth. "I saw your mother's trial in the paper, Sharpe. I know you're just like her.""If I was, I would make you beg to blow me," I sneer.”

“So what are you really wearing?" The words left her mouth before she could consider them. She winced.He didn't seem to mind; in fact, he flashed her one of his brief smiles. "And if I said nothing at all?""Then I would point out that sometimes, if you look at something out of the corner of your eye, you can see right through glamour," she returned.That brought surprised laughter. "What a relief to us both then that I am actually wearing exactly what you saw me in this afternoon. Although one might point out that in that outfit, your last concern should be my modesty.”

“Okay. how about that time when you smoked all that weed that you thought was laced with something? You fell into the tub, but you refused to get out because you were convinced that the back of your head was going to fall off?"That third story happened to a guy named Jace in my dorm. Me and Sam and another guy in our hall took turns reading "Paradise Lost" through the locked door. I think it made him more paranoid, though." "That's not true," he says. "Well, he *seemed* more paranoid to me," I say. "And he still gets a little weired out when any one mentions angels.”

“To remind me, pain is the best teacher”

“Ah coffee. The sweet balm by which we shall accomplish today's tasks.”

“Farewell, Father," she said. He fell back upon his chair, choking. She laughed, not with mirth or even mockery, but something that was closer to a sob. "You crafted me so sharp, I cut even myself.”

“I would remain nearer you for what time there is.""Gone in one faerie sigh," she quoted.Leather-clad fingers brushed over her short hair, rested on her cheek. "I can hold my breath.”

“We got it." Val grinned and lifted her fist. "Wonder twin powers activate!" Ruth grinned back, knocking her fist into Val's. "Shape of two fucking lunatics.”

“And if I wanted to kill myself, I wouldn't throw myself off a roof. And if I was going to throw myself off a roof, I would put on some pants before I did it.”

“My head is pounding. I wish the mints were aspirin.”

“I can't trust the people I care about not to hurt me. And I'm not sure I can trust myself not to hurt them, either.”

“You have a real talent for getting your ass kicked.”

“I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don't even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I'm going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn't involve dying.”

“We have about three hours of homework a night, and our evening study period is only two hours, so if you want to spend the break at half-past-nine not freaking out, you have to cram. I'm not sure that the picture of the wide-eyed zombie girl biting out the brains of senior douchebag James Page is part of Sam's homework, bit if it is, his physics teacher is awesome.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere," Sam says, "Except, apparently, off a roof.”

“Don't be drinking the Haterade.”

“You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that.”

“Marks forget that whenever something's too good to be true, that's because it's a con.”

“The row of dolls watched her impassively from the bookshelf, their tea party propriety almost certainly offended.”

“She thought of something her mother had told her when she'd finally broken up with one of her most dysfunctional boyfriends. When a man tells you he's going to hurt you, believe it. They always warn you and they're always right.”

“I envy what I fear and hate what I envy.”

“Life is like licking Honey from a Thorn”

“Those who really love you don't mean to hurt you and if they do, you can't see it in their eyes but it hurts them too.”

“If I'm not a murderer," asked Corny, "how come I keep killing people?”

“I swear to fucking God, I will spray you again,”

“Kaye: You know what the sun looks like?Janet: No, What?Kaye: Like he slit his wrists in a bathtub and the blood is all over the water.Janet: That's gross, Kaye.Kaye: And the moon is just watching. She's just watching him die. She must have driven him to it.”

“Yeah, the whole family knows. It's no big deal. One night at dinner I said, 'Mom, you know the forbidden love that Spock has for Kirk? Well, me too.' It was easier for her to understand that way.”

“It’s sweet. All this trouble for a kitty.”

“You in trouble?” Sam asks. The way he says it, I wonder if he’s thinking about how to get out of here if I am.”

“You better get over here with my car,” Grandad says. “Before I call the cops and tell them you stole it.”“Sorry,” I say contritely. Then the rest of what he said sinks in and I laugh.“Wait, did you just threaten me with calling the police? Because that I’d like tosee.”

“On the way out to the car, Philip turns to me.“How could you be so stupid?I shrug, stung in spite of myself.“I thought I grew out of it.”Philip pulls out his key fob and presses the remote to unlock his Mercedes. I slide into the passenger side, brushing coffee cups off the seat and onto the floor mat, where crumpled printouts from MapQuest soak up any spilled liquid.“I hope you mean sleepwalking,” Philip says, “since you obviously didn’t grow out of stupid.”

“She suddenly understood why she had let him kiss her in the diner, why she had wanted him at all.She wanted to control him.He was every arrogant boyfriend that had treated her mother badly. He was every boy that told her she was too freaky, who had laughed at her, or just wanted her to shut up and make out. He was a thousand times less real than Roiben.”

“Sam counts the money carefully. I watch him in the mirror. “You know what I wish?” he asks when he’s done.“What?”“That someone would convert my bed into a robot that would fight other bed robots to the death for me.”That startles a laugh out of me. “That would be pretty awesome.”A slow, shy smile spreads across his mouth. “And we could take bets on them. And be filthy rich.”I lean my head against the frame of the stall, looking at the tile wall and the pattern of yellowed cracks there, and grin. “I take back anything I might haveimplied to the contrary. Sam, you are a genius.”

“I’m Lila, and yes, he’s crazy. But you must have noticed that before now. He was crazy back when I knew him, and he’s obviously gotten crazier overtime.”

“Librarians are hot. They have knowledge and power over their domain...It is no coincidence how many librarians are portrayed as having a passionate interior, hidden by a cool layer of reserve. Aren't books like that? On the shelf, their calm covers belie the intense experience of reading one. Reading inflames the soul. Now, what sort of person would be the keeper of such books?”

“Once someone's hurt you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you from wanting them.”