Maggie Stiefvater

“Sorry for hurting you, she said right in my ear, but it wasn't really an apology, because you don't bite someone's earlobe to tell them you're sorry.”

“If you're reading this, I'm either a wolf for good, or you're Ulrik and you should get the hell out of my stuff.”

“Food," I suggested. "Sleep. That's what I need. To get the hell away from here."Cole frowned at me, as if I'd suggested "ducks" and "yoga".”

“...and we sat like that, one creature in two bodies, for a long time, until I forgot what I'd been upset about and I was myself again.”

“What I need is for your mother to have thought a little harder nine months before your birthday.”

“I folded my hands back on my desk, and as I did, I saw Paul's slanted handwriting standing out against my blocky, square printing on my skin. He'd managed to find room to squeeze in the words females hurt my brain on my left hand. I raised an eyebrow at him and he gave me a look like, well it's true, isn't it?”

“My friend is having his period," I told the pizza guy, and handed him his tip. "He needs Britney and extra cheese to get him through it. I'm trying to be supportive.”

“This summer-sweet night is only one minute upon one minute upon anotherBeautiful cacophony, sugar upon lips, dancing to exhaustionI thought of you, before this minute upon another minute upon anotherUntil, numb, my lips fell onto the mouth of another, and I was undone.~from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter which is a fictional book in Ballad: A gathering of faerie”

“Because I knew it wasn't for forever." Grace touched his hair and he bent his head to kiss her, quiet as a secret.”

“I think every now and then about Sean’s thumb pressed against my wrist and daydream about him touching me again. But mostly I think about the way he looks at me – with respect – and I think that’s probably worth more than anything.”

“I didn't understand how someone could be both God and the devil. How the same person could destroy you and save you. When everything I was, good and bad, was knotted with threads of his making, how was I supposed to know whether to love or hate him?”

“The room went dark and, after a moment, Grace whispered that she loved me, sounding a little sad. I wrapped my arms tightly around her shoulders, sorry that loving me was such a complicated thing.”

“I started down but Sam caught my arm and knelt down himself to look. "For crying out loud," he said. "It's a racoon." "Poor thing," I said. "It could be a rabid baby-killer," Cole told me primly. "Shut up," Sam said pleasantly.”

“I wanted a library like this...[] A cave of words that I'd made myself.”

“Then I began to play. Variations on a G major chord, the most wonderful chord known to mankind, infinitely happy. I could live inside a G major chord, with Grace, if she was willing. Everything uncomplicated and good about me could be summed up by that chord.”

“When we kissed, it didn't matter that I had been a wolf hours ago, or that I would be a wolf again. It didn't matter that a thousand snares were laid for us as soon as we left this moment. All that mattered was this: our noses touching, the softness of his mouth, the ache inside me.”

“Jack had been a jerk that night, even though I tried not to remember that part. It felt like I wasn't missing him properly if I let myself remember how much I'd despised him sometimes. Instead I tried to remember what he looked like grinning and dirty in the driveway, though these days it felt more like I was remembering a memory of a memory of his smile instead of the smile itself. When I thought too hard about that, it made me feel weightless and untethered.”

“Unrequited love," I'd say. He'd look at me sideways in that cunning way he did and say, "what about it?" and I'd reply, "it's not your color." Pithy. Just to show him that I'd noticed. Or maybe I'd show myself to her and say, "Guess I'm not the only one who uses humans around here." And then I'd summon some of Owain's hounds to chew off the bottom bits of her legs. Then she wouldn't fit just right into his arms. She'd be too short. It'd be like hugging a midget. Nuala- pg. 75”

“It (suicide) became a possibility like Maybe when I grow up, I will be dead. Life was a cake that looked good on the bakery shelf but turned to sawdust and salt when I ate it.”

“Everything mattered and nothing did, and I was tired of trying to find out how both of those things were true. I was an itch that I'd scratched so hard I was bleeding. I had set out to do the impossible, whatever the impossible might be, only to find out that it was living with myself. Suicide became an expiration date, the day after which I no longer had to try.”

“Looking at him like that, I felt like I needed something from him, or somebody, and that probably meant that he also needed something from me, or somebody, but the revelation was like looking at spots on a slide. Knowing that it meant something to somebody wasn't the same as it meaning something to you.”

“He was jingling his keys in the pocket of his coat -- one of those barn coats described as rugged and classic and four hundred dollar that were usually worn by people who spend more time in Land Rovers than barns.”

“It occurred to me that there was a story behind the scar -- maybe not as dramatic as the story of my wrists, but a story nonetheless -- and the fact that everyone had a story behind some mark on their inside or outside suddenly exhausted me, the gravity of all those untold pasts.”

“Of course he was a part of what I hated about myself. Everything was a part of what I hated about myself. It wasn't really personal.”

“He had a carrying, congressional sort of voice, the kind that sounded good saying things like Less of a tax burden on the middle class and Thank you for your donation and Honey, could you bring me my sweater with the duck on it?”

“The place smelled like Sam -- or, I guess, he smelled like the store. Like ink and old building and something more leafy than coffee but less interesting than weed. It was all very ... erudite. I felt surrounded by conversations I had no interest in participating in.”

“So here's my theory, and this is such crap science, I don't have to tell you. It's science without microscopes, blood tests, or reality.”

“One day a wolf bit a man and the man caught it. Magic or science, it's all the same. The only thing magical about it is that we can't explain it." ~Sam”

“Are you high? Why are you never wearing a shirt?""I sleep naked," Cole said. He put both milk and sugar in my coffee. "As the day goes on, I put on more and more clothing. You should've come over an hour ago.”

“[I]t just makes me tired even thinking about it. It reminds me of that feeling I had before I left. Like my lungs were made of lead. Like I can't even think about starting to care about anything. Like I either wish that they were all dead, or I was, because I can't stand the pull of all that history between us. That's before I even pick up the phone. I'm so tired I never want to wake up again. But I've figured out now that it was never them that made me feel that way. It was just me, all along.”

“It was one frayed rope thrown across the chasm between us. Not enough to get across, but maybe just enough to tell that it wasn't as wide as I'd originally thought.”

“Humming and singing my new song, I led them up and down the stairs, pressing my fingers against the wall like I was about to push it over; down to the lobby, where I stood in a pot plant; and finally into the alley behind the studio, where I jumped on top of the car that had brought us from the hotel, leaving dents in the roof so the car would remember me.”

“I wasn't sure if I admired him for feeling everything so hard and fiercely, or if I was contemptuous of him for having so much emotion that he had to spill it out every window of the house.”

“There are tiny, dirty rabbit holes that you have not been down that I have. I have taken people down into those tunnels with me, and they've never come out.”

“When I say panni here, everyone says Bless you.”

“I'm bored. I need to be entertained. Sam is moping. I may kill him with his own guitar. It would give me something to do and also make him say something. Two birds with one stone!”

“My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar.”

“I was against felonies when a misdemeanor would do.”

“I always listen to you. Except when I don't.”

“Cole made a hissing sound. "Are you inside yet? God bless America and all her sons. What is taking you so long?" The front door was locked. "Here, talk to Grace" "Mommy isn't going to give a different answer than Daddy," Cole said, but I handed her the phone anyway.”

“she's the only thing that's made my life worth living and if that's all I get, a few months with her- a few days, it's more than I've ever hoped for(Luke)”

“It was a strangely disorienting feeling, to have something you'd relied on for so long start to change, like finding out that gravity no longer worked on Mondays.”

“The front door was locked. "Here, talk to Grace," I said. "Mommy isn't going to give me a different answer than Daddy," Cole said, but I handed her the phone anyway.”

“Cole sat back up, slowly, and I opened my eyes. His expression, as ever, was blank, the face he wore when something mattered. He said, "That's how I would kiss you, if I loved you.”

“The guitar," I said, "will only obey its master.""Yeah," Cole agreed, "but Grace isn't here." He grinned at me slyly.”

“There was something striking about her posture; something about the tilt to her head. She was like a beautiful and lonely piece of art, lovely but unreachable.”

“I stare at him. "You can't risk not winning. Not because of me." Sean doesn't lift his eyes from the counter. "We make our move when you make yours. You on the inside, me on the outside. Corr can come from the middle of the pack; he's done it before. It's one side you won't have to worry about." I say, "I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick." Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, "It's late for that, Puck.”

“We sat like that for a long while, and when we stood up, all my sad things were in boxes, and Beck was my father.”

“She doesn't know any better, what a girl like her needs is a man with both his legs on the land. A man who will hold her down so that she doesn't fly away. She doesn't know yet that someone like you looks better on the shelf than in your hand.”

“A frightening menagerie, my emotions areToo many and varied to numberLike creatures they crawl and they fly aboveTearing my body asunder.”