Maggie Stiefvater

“It was the stop that happened when you made up your mind to confess, but your mouth betrayed you in the end.”

“Don't cry pretty girl. Who you are is why you're so good at everything. You won't let yourself be otherwise. And thats what fascinates me." Duke- Lament”

“at last no one decided And no one knocked And no one jumped upAnd no one opened And there stood no one And no one entered And no one said: welcomeAnd no one answered: at last”

“The fact was, by the time she got to high school, being weird and proud of it was an asset. Suddenly cool, Blue could've happily had any number of friends. And she had tried. But the problem with being weird was that everyone else was 'normal'".”

“Matchy matchy”

“Delia was an overbearing cake with condescending frosting, and frankly, I was on a diet.”

“I was thinking about attraction. I have this theory on it. On love." She wouldn't look at me.I swallowed, but managed, "This ought to be good."Nuala shot me a hard look. "Shut up. I don't think love has anything to do with how the other person is. I mean, maybe a little. I think what really matters is you yourself. Like, you know, let's say you lo- really liked a self-involved ass. That doesn't matter. What matters is how that ass makes you feel. If you feel like the best person in the world when you're with him, that's what makes you like him. It really isn't about how nice a person he is at all."I ran my tongue over my bottom lip. "I like it. It's like the selfish person's guide to love. It's not you, baby, it's me I'm in love with.”

“Sullivan hung at my shoulder. "Is she a student?""No." I brushed her hair out of her face. "Fix her."He laughed, a little helplessly. "You have such faith in me.”

“When they say "my heart skipped a beat," they're full of crap. Really, what they mean is, your heart sort of stutters and thinks about stopping for a second before it remembers that beating is good for it.”

“I'm just not a good psychic. I can tell when something's not right, sometimes, but I can't tell what it is, or when it is, or if I'm supposed to do anything about it. I've tried to make it make sense, but I can't. It's just feelings instead of words.”

“I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't had to fake gratitude for a gift, and now that I actually was grateful, thank you didn't seem to cut it.”

“There's nothing to be sorry for," Beck said. "You didn't know any better. And Ulrik was the only one who liked those damn doritos. You did us all a favor.”

“I try very hard to keep my eyes from darting to Sean because I'm quite certain that no one will be able to miss how I look at him and how I find him looking back.”

“His wife's a brand of Christian that forbids a gathering that involves young women dancing in the streets but not races where men die”

“World of words lost on the living / I take my place with the walking dead /Robbed of my voice I'm always giving /Thousands of words to this nameless dread.”

“I like you better this way." For some reason, admitting this made her face go hot right away; she was very glad that he still had his face pressed into his pillow and the other boys were still in Noah's room. "Crushed and broken," Gansey said. "Just the way women like 'em.”

“She watched his throat move, and then, he reached out and touched her face. "You sure are pretty," he said. "It's the stone," she replied immediately. Her skin felt warm; his fingertip touched just the very edge of her mouth. "It's flattering." Adam gently pulled the stone out of her hand and a set it on the floorboards between them. Through his ingers he threaded one of the flyaway hairs by her cheek. "My mother used to say, 'Don't throw compliments away, so long as they're free." HIs face was very earnest. "That one wasn't mean tho cost you anything, Blue." Blue plucked at the hem on her dress, but she didn't look away from him. "I don't know what to say when you say things like that." "You can tell me if you want me to keep saying them." She was torn by the desire to encourage him and the fear of where it would lead. "I like when you say things like that." Adam asked, "But what?" "I didn't say but." "You meant to. I heard it.”

“I have to walk dogs." "Oh," Gansey replied, sounding deflated. "Well, okay." "But it'll only take an hour." "Oh," he repeated, about fourteen shades brighter. "Shall I pick you up, then?”

“When she opened her eyes, she was both in her body and watching it, nowhere near the cavity of the tree. The Blue that was before her stood inches from a boy in an Aglionby sweater. There was a slight stoop to his posture, and his shoulders were spattered darkly with rain. It was his fingers that Blue felt on her face. He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Tears coursed down the other Blue's face. Though some strange magic, Blue could feel them on her face as well. She could feel, too, sick, rising misery she'd felt in the churchyard, the grief that felt bigger than her. The other Blue's tears seemed endless. One drop slid after another, each following an identical path down her cheeks.The boy in the Aglionby sweater leaned his forehead against Blue's. She felt the pressure of his skin against hers, and suddenly she could smell mint. It'll be okay. Gansey told the other Blue. She could tell that he was afraid. It'll be okay.Impossibly, Blue realized that this other Blue was crying because she loved Gansey. And that the reason Gansey touched her like that, his fingers so careful with her, was because he knew that her kiss could kill him. She could feel how badly the other Blue wanted to kiss him, even as she dreaded it. Though she couldn't understand why, her real, present day memories in the tree cavity were clouded with other false memories of their lips nearly touching, a life this other Blue had already lived.Okay, I'm ready- Gansey's voice caught, just a little. Blue, kiss me.”

“Of course, she could still walk away. She won't, he thought. She has to feel it, too. He said, " I've always liked the name Jane." Blue's eyes widened. "Ja--what? Oh! No, no, You can't go around naming people other things because you don't like their real name. "I like Blue just fine,"Gansey said. He didn't believe she was really offended; her face didn't look like it had at Nino's when they'd first met, and her ears were turning pink. He thought possibly, he was getting a little better at not offending her, although he couldn't seem to stop teasing her. "Some of my favorite shirts are blue. However, I also like Jane." "I'm not answering to that.”

“At one store, Gansey had started to pay for Blue's potato chips and she'd snatched them away. "I don't want you to buy me food!" Blue said. "If you pay for it, then it's like I'm... be---be---" "Beholden to me?" Gansey suggested pleasantly. "Don't put words into my mouth." "It was your word." "You assumed it was my word. You can't just go around assuming." "But that is what you meant, isn't it?" She scowled. "I'm done with this conversation.”

“He smiled tolerantly at her. Rubbing his smooth chin its recently assassinated chin hairs, he studied her. She barely came up to Ronan's shoulder, but she was every bit as big as he, every bit as present.”

“I thought I heard---" Gansey broke off. His eyes dropped to where Adam held Blue's hand. Again his face was somewhat puzzled by the fact of their hand-holding. Adam's grip tightened, although she didn't think he meant for it to.”

“Blue stretched her hand out. Adam took it without hesitation, like he'd been waiting for her to offer it. He said in a low voice, just for her, "My heart is beating like crazy right now." Strangely enough, it was not his fingers twined in hers that affected Blue the strongest, it was where his warm wrist pressed against hers above their hands.”

“She breathed. "This is lovely."It was for Adam, not Gansey, but she saw Gansey glance over his shoulder at her.”

“The journal and Gansey were clearly long acquainted, and he wanted her to know. This is me. The real me.”

“He was uncomfortable with the idea that use might not like him.”

“Blue." It was Ronan's voice, for the first time, and everyone, even Helen, twisted their head towards him. His head was cocked in a way that Gansey recognized as dangerous. Something in his eyes was sharp as he stared at Blue. He asked, "Do you know Gansey?" ... Blue looked defensive under their stares. She said reluctantly. "Only his name." With his fingers loosely together, elbows on his knees, Ronan leaned forward across Adam to be closer to Blue. He could be unbelievably threatening. "And how is it," he asked," you came to know Gansey's name?”

“With Blue here, he was beginning to feel as if possibly he'd overdone it with the helicopter. He wondered if it would make Blue feel better or worse to know that it was Helen's helicopter, that he hadn't paid anything today for the use of it. Probably worse. Remembering his vow to at least do no harm with his words, he kept his mouth shut.”

“At the door to the helicopter, Gansey looked bad over his shoulder at them, his smile complicated when he saw them holding hands.”

“Don't take this the wrong way," Blue replied. Her cheeks felt a little warm, but she was well into this conversation and she couldn't back down now. "Because I know you're going to think I feel bad about it, and I don't." "All right." "Because I'm not pretty. Not in the way Aglionby boys seem to lie." "I go to Aglionby," Adam said. Adam did not seem to go to Aglinoby like other boys went to Aglionby. "I think you're pretty," he said.”

“I watched her and I watched the birds' shadows flit across her face, and I...wanted. I wanted more happy memories to hang up on the ceiling, so many happy memories with this girl that they would crowd the ceiling and flap out into the hall and burst out of the house.”

“She screamed, the high scream that was neither human nor animal but something terrible in between, the sort of sound that you never forget no matter how many beautiful things you hear afterward.”

“As always, there was an all-American war hero look to him, coded in his tousled brown hair, his summer-narrowed hazel eyes, the straight nose that ancient Anglo-Saxons had graciously passed on to him. Everything about him suggested valor and power and a firm handshake.”

“How do you know I wouldn't have just been happy with the truth? I don’t care if my father was a deadbeat named Butternut. It doesn't change anything right now.”“His name wasn't really Butternut, was it?” Gansey asked Adam in a low voice.”

“I’ve been dead for seven years, that’s as warm as they get.”

“Well,” said Ronan, “I hope he likes it. I’ve pulled a muscle.”Gansey scoffed, “Doing what? You were standing watch.”“Opening my hood.”

“I fell asleep to the scent of my wolf. Pine needles, cold rain, earthy perfume, coarse bristles on my face.”

“Dory is what Mum used to call a "strong-looking woman," which means that, from the back, she looked like a man, and, from the front, you preferred the back”

“The dog pranced delightedly around his feet as if he'd been gone to another planet instead of merely underneath a car.”

“In the end, he was nobody to Adam, he was nobody to Ronan. Adam spit his words back at him and Ronan squandered however many second chances he gave him. Gansey was just a guy with a lot of stuff and a hole inside him that chewed away more of his heart every year.”

“Did no one tell him that pain lives in this sand, dug in and watered with our blood?”

“Mum said that I shouldn't be moved to do anything by someone with sweet words, but Tommy Falk doesn't seem to be trying to persuade me of anything, so I let his compliment slip down nice and easy. It's quite agreeable and I'd be happy enough with another.”

“Gabe crouches over the radio, trying to get it to pick up one of the mainland music stations, which only works when the weather is just right and the appropriate slain sacrifices have been made.”

“The truth is that I did feel bad before, but now my patience is at a thread. It's not as if I can go back and undo the past.”

“It's only because I've lived with brothers that I realize, after a moment, that he's not looking outside but rather inside, wrestling with something inside himself. And there's nothing for it but to wait.”

“I don't think I'd like to argue with you," I say. "I think it would be a very dissatisfying pastime.”

“I don't trust the ocean, either; it would kill me as soon as not. It doesn't mean I'm afraid of it.”

“I seem at once cursed to say precisely what I'm thinking to him and unable to tell what he thinks about it.”

“The tourists always seem to want something. On Thisby, it's less about wanting, and more about being." I wonder after I say it if he'll think I sound like have no drive or ambition.”