“If you had gone around the table last night ticking off the Ten Commandments and asking for a show of hands to indicate transgression, you would have thought we were doing the wave. A gloss of the New Testament rules and you would have heard the rotator cuffs snapping. But if you had asked a simpler question -- "Who among you is proud of this?" -- I think you would have seen no hands, and this is what I love about that crew. Chipped and profane, they have taught me that there is a certain vocabulary you learn only through attrition and heartache.”

“The questions I would have liked to ask people were: ‘Are you in love? What are you reading?”

“Excuse me? You're the one who was out to mislead me with your alluring bimbo slinkiness! What if I had believed your act last night? What if I had fallen deeply and madly in love with you? You would have had the blood of my love-sickness on your hands, Leila Folger.”

“What do you think it would have been like if Valentine had brought you up along with me? Would you have loved me?"Clary was very glad she had put her cup down, because if she hadn't, she would have dropped it.Sebastian was looking at her not with any shyness or the sort of natural awkwardness that might be attendant on such a bizarre question, but as if she were a curious, foreign life-form."Well," she said. "You're my brother. I would have loved you. I would have...had to.”

“What is it the I'll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask. Not forgiveness, which isn't yours to bestow. Only a listener, perhaps; only someone who will see me. Don't prettify me though, whatever else you do: I have no wish to be a decorated skull. But I leave myself in your hands. What choice do I have? By the time you read this last page, that- if anywhere- is the only place I will be.”

“And yet I know I am too young, that we're too young, for me to live my life only as it relates to you. If you had asked me to marry you the night you first told me about your acceptance, I would have embraced Princeton as part of a larger plan that involved me. I probably would have reacted differently.I might even had said yes.Alas, you didn't ask me then. You made plans for your future without me in mind, And that's okay. But how can you now ask me to arrange my life around you?”