Laini Taylor

“A man once said, 'All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.' Mark Twain, you know. He had a fine mustache. Men of wisdom so often do.”

“Karou saw them with her human eyes, this army she had rendered more monstrous than ever nature had, and she knew what the world would see in them if they flew to fight the Dominion: demons, nightmares, evil. The sight of the seraphim would be heralded as a miracle. But chimaera? The apocalypse.”

“Once upon a time, the sky knew the weight of angel armies on the move, and the wind blew infernal with the fire of their wings.”

“She tried to pray, but she had only ever prayed at night, and it seemed to her that the moons made poor protectors when angels chose to hunt by day.”

“One world on its own is a strange enough seethe of coiling, unknowable veins of intention and chance, but two? Where two worlds mingle breath through rips in the sky, the strange becomes stranger, and many things may come to pass that few imaginations could encompass.”

“Dead souls dream only of death. Small dreams for small men. It is life that expands to fill worlds. Life is your master, or death is”

“As long as he had life, who deserved it so little, he would use it, wield it, and do whatever he could in its name, even if it was not, was never, enough”

“It was brave," countered Issa. "It was rare. It was love, and it was beautiful.”

“Soon, everything else would come rushing at him. Like the ground to a falling man, it would come rushing up and hit him all at once - the place, the company, her words; one implication would lead to another and shatter him - but around that intake of breath the world hung silent and bright, so bright, and Akiva only knew this one thing, and held on to it and wanted to live inside of it and stay there forever. Karou was alive.”

“It thrilled through her like her nerves were channeling starlight. He was safe.”

“It was interesting the way a small hate could grow inside a big hate and take it over.”

“These soldiers had done what they had done, and been done unto in return. This was how it went.In the cycle of slaughter, reprisal begat reprisal, forever.”

“Perhaps Fate laid out your life for you like a dress on a bed, and you could either wear it or go naked.”

“The choice I mean is to protect our own innocents from the seraphim, instead of slaughtering theirs.""There are no innocent seraphim, said the wolf.""That's what they say when they kill our children.”

“A thousand things might have stopped me from being here right now, but instead, a thousand things brought me here.”

“Magic?" Akiva had asked. "What bird does this come from, that its bone are made of magic?""Oh, it's not magic. The wishes don't really come true.""Then why do it?"She shrugged. "Hope? Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”

“You really think joy is easier to come by than pain? What have you had more of?”

“Light coursed through Karou and darkness chased it-burning through her, chilling her, shimmer and shadow, ice and fire, blood and starlight, rushing, roaring, filling her.”

“Was there another life she was meant to be living? At times she felt a keen certainty that there was ― a phantom life, taunting her from just out of reach. A sense would come over her while she was drawing or walking, and once while she was dancing slow and close with Kaz, that she was supposed to be doing something else with her hands, with her legs, with her body. Something else. Something else. Something else.”

“You have only to begin, Lir. Mercy breeds mercy as slaughter breeds slaughter. We can’t expect the world to be better than we make it.”

“Be your own place of safety, she told herself, straightening. No crossbar in the world could protect her from what lay ahead, and neither could a tiny knife ticked in her boot - though there her tiny knife would most certainly remain - and neither could a man, not even Akiva. She had to be her own strength, complete unto herself.”

“A dream dirty and bruised is better than no dream at all.”

“What can a soldier do when mercy is treason, and he is alone in it?”

“I love bookshelves, and stacks of books, spines, typography, and the feel of pages between my fingertips. I love bookmarks, and old bindings, and stars in margins next to beautiful passages. I love exuberant underlinings that recall to me a swoon of language-love from a long-ago reading, something I hoped to remember. I love book plates, and inscriptions in gifts from loved ones, I love author signatures, and I love books sitting around reminding me of them, being present in my life, being. I love books. Not just for what they contain. I love them as objects too, as ever-present reminders of what they contain, and because they are beautiful. They are one of my favorite things in life, really at the tiptop of the list, easily my favorite inanimate things in existence, and ... I am just not cottoning on to this idea of making them ... not exist anymore. Making them cease to take up space in the world, in my life? No, please do not take away the physical reality of my books.”

“Take up a weapon and you become an instrument with as pure a purpose as the weapon itself: to find arteries and open them, limbs and sever them; to take what is alive and deliver it unto death.”

“Brimstone once told me that to stay true in the face of evil is a feat of strength.”

“I am one of billions. I am stardust gathered fleetingly into form. I will be ungathered. The stardust will go on to be other things someday and I will be free.”

“He wanted to tell her that everything he had done he had done because he was broken, because watching her die had destroyed him, but there was no way to say it that didn’t sound like he was trying to pin the blame outside himself”

“Bitter, bitter, this desolation of angels.”

“Imagine if [Juliet] woke up and he was still alive, but..." She swallowed, waiting out a tremor in her voice. "But [Romeo] had killed her whole family. And burned her city. And killed and enslaved her people.”

“When an essential one comes along, you’ll know,”

“Is it good or bad?" she asked Issa. The wrong question, she knew. She just couldn't help herself."It's both, sweet girl," said Issa. "like everything.”

“Thank you to the world for being a wild and inspiring place, full of odd creatures, strange people, and mysterious cities. I hope by and by to know you better.”

“So," he called to her back, "Just out of curiosity, you know, purely conversation and all, at what age will you be entertaining offers of marriage?""You think it'll be so easy?" she called back over her shoulder. "No way. There will be tasks. Like in a fairy tale.""Sounds dangerous.""Very, so think twice.""No need," he said. "You're worth it.”

“Once upon a time, there were two moons, who were sisters.Nitid was the goddess of tears and life, and the sky was hers. No one worshipped Ellai but secret lovers.”

“I'm going to be the scariest grandma in the world.”

“Like attracts like, beauty finds beauty, and freaks look on from the smoking section, aching.”

“And just so you know, the invaders are always the bad guys. Always.”

“HELLO. Hello hello hello hello hello hello.Hello?Damn, now I've gone and done it. I've made hello go all abstract and weird. It looks like an alien rune now, something an astronaut would find engraved on a moon rock and go, A strange moon word! I must bring this back to Earth as a gift for my deaf son! And which would then--of course--hatch flying space piranhas and wipe out humanity in less than three days, SOMEHOW sparing the astronaut just so he could be in the final shot, weeping on his knees in the ruins of civilization and crying out to the heavens, It was just helloooooooo!Oh. Huh. It's totally back to normal now. No more alien doom. Astronaut, I just kept you from destroying Earth,YOU'RE WELCOME.”

“Magic won't save us. The power it would take to conjure on such a scale, the tithe would destroy us. The only hope...is hope. You don't need tokens for it- it's in your heart or nowhere. And in your heart, child, it had been stronger than I have ever seen.”

“Once upon a time, [...]. There was a world that was perfectly made and full of birds and striped creatures and lovely things like honey lilies and star tenzing and weasels—[...] And this world already had light and shadow, so it didn't need any rouge stars to come and save it, and it had no use for bleeding suns or weeping moons, either, and most important, it had never known war, which is a terrible and wasteful thing that no world needs. It had earth and water, air and fire, all four elements, but it was missing the last element. Love.[...] And so this paradise was like a jewel box without a jewel. There it lay, day after day of rose-colored dawns and creature sounds and strange perfumes, and waited for lovers to find it and fill it with their happiness. The end.[...]The story is unfinished. The world is still waiting.”

“Once upon a time, there was only darkness, and there were monsters vast as worlds who swam in it. They were the Gibborium, and they loved the darkness because it concealed their hideousness. Whenever some other creature contrived to make light, they would extinguish it. When stars were born, they swallowed them, and it seemed that darkness would be eternal. But a race of bright warriors heard of the Gibborium and traveled from their far world to do battle with them. The war was long, light against dark, and many warriors were slain. In the end, when they vanquished the monsters, there were a hundred left alive, and these hundred were the godstars, who brought light to the universe.They made the rest of the stars, including our sun, and there was no more darkness, only endless light. They made children in their image- seraphim - and sent them down to beat light to the worlds that spun in space, and all was good. But one day, the last of the Gibborium, who was called Zamzumin, persuaded them that shadows were needed, that they would make the light seem brighter by contrast, and so the godstars brought shadows into being.But Zamzumin was a trickster. He needed only a shred of darkness to work with. He breathed life into the shadows, and as the godstars had made the seraphim in their own image, so did Zamzumin make the chimaera in his, and so they were hideous, and forever after the seraphim would fight on the side of light, and the chimaera for dark, and they would be enemies until the end of the world.”

“Once upon a time, before chimaera and seraphim, there was the sun and the moons. The sun was betrothed to Nitid, the bright sister, but it was demure Ellai, always hiding behind her bold sister, who stirred his lust. He contrived upon her bathing in the sea and he took her. She struggled, but he was the sun, and he thought he should have what he wanted. Ellai stabbed him and escaped, and the blood of the sun flew like sparks to earth, where it became seraphim- misbegotten children of fire. And like their father, they believed it their due to want, and take, and have.As for Ellai, she told her sister what had passed, and Nitid wept, and her tears fell to earth and became chimeara, children of regret. When the sun came again to the sisters, neither would have him. Nitid put Ellai behind her and protected her, though the sun, still bleeding sparks, knew Ellai was not as defenseless as she seemed. He plead with Nitid to forgive him but she refused, and to this day he follows the sisters across the sky, wanting and wanting and never having, and that will be his punishment, forever.Nitid is the goddess of tears and life, hunts and war, and her temples are too many to count. It is she who fills wombs, slows the hearts of the dying, and leads her children against the serephim. Her light is like a small sun; she chases away shadows.Ellai is more subtle. She is a trace, a phantom moon, and there are only a handful of nights she alone takes the sky. There are called Ellai nights, and they are dark and star-scattered and good for furtive things. Ellai is the goddes of assassins and secret lovers. Temples to her are few, and hidden, like the one in the requiem grove in the hills above Loramendi.”

“—Tú no eres tonta, Madrigal —dijo Brimstone—. Si hay algo que deseas, persíguelo. La esperanza tiene poder. No la malgastes en cosas sin sentido.”

“¿Ves lo que pasa cuando titubeas? Que otros toman las decisiones por ti.”

“—Eso no es paz. La paz es más que ausencia de guerra. La paz es concordia. Armonía.”

“Her face was luminous and hopeful; she'd go into the dark with him in a heartbeat, sharp teeth and all. Human girls were stupid that way. No, not stupid. Primal in their skin, without even knowing it. The things that made thier pulse quicken were all the wrong things, but Mihai didn't take advantage of it, except for the free tea.”

“—¡Oye! Puede que mi cuerpo sea pequeño, pero mi espíritu es grande. Por eso llevo zapatos con plataforma. Para estar a la altura de mi alma.”

“The worst moment of one's life could be seared into the memory, brighter than any joy.”

“Love makes a person do strange things.”