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Holly Black

Holly Black Quotes

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AllHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteCardan GreenbriarJudeCardanThe Stolen HeirSurenWrenThe Cruel Prince

Famous Holly Black Quotes

“Would you forswear a promise for me?" He is smiling to me as though he is teasing. "What promise?" He sweeps me around him, my leather slippers pirouetting over the packed earth. In the distance, a piper begins to play. "Any promise," he says lightly, although it is no light thing he is asking. "I guess it depends," I say, because the real answer, a flat no, isn't what anyone wants to hear.”

HonestCruel Prince
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“I'm going to keep on defying you. I am going to shame you with my defiance. You remind me that I am a mere mortal and you are a prince of Faerie. Well, let me remind you that means you have much to lose and I have nothing. You may win in the end, you may ensorcell me and hurt me and humiliate me, but I will make sure you lose everything I can take from you on the way down. I promise you this - this is the least of what I can do.”

Holly BlackThe Cruel PrinceCruel Prince
Book:The Cruel Prince / The Wicked King / The Queen of Nothing
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“I can see the sea that encircles the island and beyond it, the bright lights of human cities and towns through the ever-present mist. I have never looked directly from our world in to theirs. Locke puts his hand against my back, between my shoulder blades. 'At night, the human world looks as though it's full of fallen stars.”

Holly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeThe Cruel PrinceLockeLightsFallen StarsHuman World
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“Wait,' he says, taking a step toward me. 'I want to see you again.' I groan, too exasperated for surprise. I am standing here in a borrowed blanket, boots, and mall-bought underwear. I am smeared in soil, and I have just made a fool of myself. 'Why?' He looks at me as though he sees something else entirely. There's an intensity in his gaze that makes me stand up a little straighter, despite the dirt. 'Because you're like a story that hasn't happened yet. Because I want to see what you will do. I want to be part of the unfolding of the tale.”

Holly BlackVillainThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeThe Cruel PrinceLockeCuriousityRun Away NowVomit Inducing
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“Once upon a time, there was a girl named Taryn. She suffered many indignities at the hands of the magical people called the Folk, yet she never was anything but kind, no matter how they despised her. Then one day, a fox-haired faerie boy looked upon her and saw her virtue and her loveliness, so he took her to be his bride. And on his arm, dressed in a gown as bright as the stars, the other Folk saw her for the first time. They knew that they’d misjudged her and…”

LockeTaryn Duarte
Book:The Lost Sisters
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“The boy's friends come over to lead him away, and at that moment, improbably, Locke's gaze lifts. His tawny fox eyes meet mine and widen in surprise. I am immobilised, my heart speeding. I brace myself for more scorn, but then one corner of his mouth lifts. He winks, as if in acknowledgement of being caught out. As if we're sharing a secret. As if he thinks I am not loathly, as though he does not find my mortality contagious.”

SurpriseHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeThe Cruel PrinceEye ContactLockeWink
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“Fairy tales are full of girls who wait, who endure, who suffer. Good girls. Obedient girls. Girls who crush nettles until their hands bleed. Girls who haul water for witches. Girls who wander through deserts or sleep in ashes or make homes for transformed brothers in the woods. Girls without hands, without eyes, without the power of speech, without any power at all. But then a prince rides up and sees the girl and finds her beautiful. Beautiful, not despite her suffering, but because of it. And when I saw that note in my bag, I thought that maybe I was no longer stuck in a fairy tale, maybe I could be the hero of one.”

HeroHopefulHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirFairy TalesLockeTaryn DuarteTarynThe Lost SistersGirls Who Endure
Book:The Lost Sisters
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“I think I understand now what you meant when you said I have to give up my mortal qualms. And I am willing to do that. But I want you to marry me.' 'Ah.' He sat down on the couch, looking stunned with lack of sleep. 'And so you came here in the middle of the night?' 'I hope that you love me,' I tried to sound the way Oriana did when she forbade us to do things- stern, but not unkind. 'And I will try to live as the Folk do. But you ought to marry me even if neither of those things were true, because otherwise I might ruin your fun.' 'My fun?' he echoed. Then he sounded worried. Then he sounded awake. 'Whatever game you are playing with Nicasia and Cardan,' I said. 'And with me. Tell Madoc we're to be wed and tell Jude about your real intentions or I will start shaping stories of my own.' ... I realised that Locke might teach me lessons, but he wasn't going to like what I did once I learned them. 'You promised-' he began, but I cut him off. 'Not a marriage of a year and a day, either,' I said. 'I want you to love me until you die.' He blinked. 'Don't you mean until you did? Because you're sure to.' I shook my head. 'You're going to live forever. If you love me, I will become a part of your story. I will live on in that.' He looked at me in a way he'd never done before, as though evaluating me all over again. Then he nodded. 'We will marry,' he said, holding up his hand. 'On three conditions. The first is that you will tell no one about us until the coronation of Prince Dain.' That seemed like a small thing, the waiting. 'And during that time, you must not renounce me, no matter what I say or do.' I know the nature of faerie bargains. I should have heard this as the warning that it was. Instead, I was only glad that two of his conditions seemed simple enough to fulfill. 'What else?' Be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest that your heart's blood should run cold. 'Only this,' Locke said. 'Remember we don't love the way that you do.”

ThreatWarningHolly BlackProposalLockeRed FlagsTaryn DuarteTarynThe Lost SistersBribing
Book:The Lost Sisters
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“Once upon a time, there was a girl named Taryn and she had a faerie lover who came to her at night. He was generous and adoring, but visited only in the dark. He asked for two things: one, for her to keep their meetings secret, and two, never to look upon his face fully. And so, night after night she took delight in him but, after some time had passed, wondered what his secret could be.”

Holly BlackLoverFaerieToxic RelationshipsSecretiveLockeRed FlagsTaryn DuarteTarynThe Lost Sisters
Book:The Lost Sisters
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“Whom have you fallen in love with?' I ask. 'Well, there was you,' the prince says. 'When we were children.' 'Me?' I ask incredulously. 'You didn't know?' He appears to be merry in the face of my astonishment. 'Oh yes. Though you were a year my senior, and it was hopeless, I absolutely mooned over you. When you were gone from Court, I refused any food but tea and toast for a month.' I cannot help snorting at the sheer absurdity of his statement. He puts a hand to my heart. 'Ah, and now you laugh. It is my curse to adore cruel women.”

LoveCuteCrushHolly BlackThe Stolen HeirOakOak GreenbriarPuppy Love
Book:The Stolen Heir
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“I thought love was a fascination, or a desire to be around someone, or wanting to make them happy. I believed it just happened, like a slap to the face, and left the way the sting from such a blow fades. That’s why it was easy for me to believe it could be false or manipulated or influenced by magic. Until I met you, I didn’t understand to feel loved, one has to feel known. And that, outside of my family, I had never really loved because I hadn’t bothered to know the other person. But I know you. And you have to come back to me, Wren, because no one gets us but us. You know why you’re not a monster, but I might be. I know why throwing me in your dungeon meant there was still something between us. We are messes and we are messed up and I don’t want to go through this world without the one person I can’t hide from and who can’t hide from me.”

Oak Greenbriar
Book:The Prisoner’s Throne
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“Would you consider actually marrying me?” She looks up at him, obviously surprised and a little suspicious. “Really?” He presses a kiss to her hair. “If you did, I would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to prove the sincerity of my feelings.” “What’s that?” she asks, peering up at him. “Become a king of some place instead of running away from all royal responsibility.” She laughs. “You wouldn’t rather sit by my throne on a leash?” “That does seem easier,” he admits. “I would make an excellent consort.” “Then I’ll have to marry you, Prince Oak of the Greenbriar line,” Wren says, with a sharp-toothed smile. “Just to make you suffer.”

SurenOak Greenbriar
Book:The Prisoner’s Throne
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“Do you want-?' he starts, but she is already pushing up her dress. 'I want,' she says. 'That's my problem. I want and I want and I want.' 'What do you want?' he asks, voice soft. 'Everything. Charm me. Rip me open. Ruin me. Go too far.' He shudders at her words, shaking his head against them. She goes on, whispering against his skin. 'You cannot understand. I am a chasm that will never be full. I am hunger. I am need. I cannot be sated. IF you try, I will swallow you up. I will take all of you and want more. I will use you. I will drain you until you are nothing more than a husk.' 'Use me, then,' he whispers, mouth on her throat. Then her lips are against his, and there is no more talking for a long time.”

WantHungerHolly BlackThe Stolen HeirSurenWrenOakOak GreenbriarWantingThe Prisoners Throne
Book:The Prisoner’s Throne
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“What I feel is not like the ballads.' 'No an affliction, then?' Oak raises an eyebrow. 'No fever?' Tiernan gives him an exasperated look- one with which the prince is very familiar. 'It is more feeling that there is a part of me I have left somewhere and I am always looking for.' 'So he's liking a missing phone?' 'Someone ought to pitch you into the sea,' ...”

LoveFunnyHolly BlackOther HalfThe Stolen HeirOakOak GreenbriarThe Prisoners ThroneMissing PieceTiernan
Book:The Prisoner’s Throne
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“My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more than I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked. I am a walking bruise, an open sore. If Oak is masked, I am a face with all the skin ripped off. Over and over, I have told myself that I need to guard against my own yearnings, but that hasn't worked. I must try something new.”

LoveWeaknessHolly BlackYearningThe Stolen HeirSurenWrenOakOak GreenbriarStarved Of Love
Book:The Stolen Heir
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