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Holly Black

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Famous Holly Black Quotes

“A drop of the bloodred liquid of the blusher mushroom , which causes potentially lethal paralysis. A petal of deathsweet, which can cause a sleep that lasts a hundred years. A sliver of wraithberry, which makes the blood race and induces a kind of wildness before stopping the heart. And a seed of everapple- faerie fruit- which muddles the minds of mortals.”

FantasyHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudePoisoningThe Wicked KingPoisonsMithridatismFaerie Poisons
Book:The Wicked King
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“I start back, only to find the maze has changed itself around. The paths are not where they were before. Of course. It can't just be a normal maze. No, it's got to be out to get me. ... 'I will slice my way clean through you,' I say to the leafy walls. 'Let's start playing fair.' Branches rustle behind me. When I turn, there's a new path. 'This better be the way to the party,' I grumble, starting on it. I hope this doesn't lead to the secret oubliette reserved for people who threaten the maze.”

LostFantasyHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeMagicalThe Wicked KingMazeOubliette
Book:The Wicked King
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“I pass trays of spun-sugar animals, little acorn cups filled with wine, enormous sculptures of horn, and a stall where a bent-backed woman takes a brush and draws charms on the soles of shoes. It takes some wandering, but I finally find a collection of sculpted leather masks. They are pinned to a wall and cunningly shaped like the faces of strange animals or laughing goblins or boorish mortals, painted gold and green and every other colour imaginable.”

FantasyHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeMagicalThe Wicked KingMasksMarketThe Mandrake Market
Book:The Wicked King
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“Perhaps a necklace of tears to weep so that she won't have to? A pin of teeth to bite annoying husbands? No.' He continues to walk through the small space. He lifts a ring. 'To bring on a child?' And then, seeing my face, lifts a pair of earrings, one in the shape of a crescent moon and the other in the shape of a star. 'Ah, yes. Here. This is what you want.' 'What do they do?' I ask. He laughs. 'They are beautiful- isn't that enough?' I give him a skeptical look. 'It would be enough, considering how exquisite they are, but I bet it isn't all.' He enjoys that. 'Clever girl. They are not only beautiful, but they add to beauty. They make someone more lovely than they were, painfully lovely. Her husband will not leave her side for quite some time.' The look on his face is a challenge. He believes I am too vain to give such a gift to my sister. How well he knows the selfish human heart. Taryn will be a beautiful bride. How much more do I, her twin, want to put myself in her shadow? How lovely can I bear her to be? And yet, what better gift for a human girl wedded to the beauty of the Folk? 'What would you take for them?' I ask. 'Oh, any number of little things. A year of your life. The luster of your hair. The sound of your laugh.' 'My laugh is not such a sweet sound as all that.' 'Not sweet, but I bet it's rare,' he says, and I wonder at his knowing that. 'What about my tears?' I ask. 'You could make another necklace.' He looks at me, as though evaluating how often I weep. 'I will take a single tear,' he says finally. 'And you will take an offer to the High King for me.”

Holly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeMagicalPriceThe Wicked KingBargainingEarringsGrimsen
Book:The Wicked King
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“At least one person is going to be naked,' I say. 'You know it's true. I've never been to a single revel in Faerie where everyone had clothes on.' 'Well, if that's your plan,' she says, turning on her heels. 'Then I suppose all you need is a pretty necklace.' 'Wait,' I say. 'You're right. I don't have a dress, and I need one. Please don't go.' When Oriana turns, a hint of a smile is on her face. 'How unlike you, to say what you actually mean and have it be something other than hostile.”

FunnyNakedHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeThe Wicked KingDressRevelOriana
Book:The Wicked King
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“I go to the table. The pixie regards me with her inkdrop-black eyes, like Tatterfell’s. I notice the extra joint in her fingers as she reaches for an eggroll. “Go ahead,” she says. “There’s plenty. I used most of the hot mustard packets, though.” Roiben waits, watching me. “Mortal food,” I say, in what I hope is a neutral way. “We live alongside mortals, do we not?” he asks me. “I think she more than lives beside them,” the pixie objects, looking at me. “Your pardon,” he says, and waits. I realize they really expect me to eat something. I spear a dumpling with a single chopstick and stuff it into my mouth. “It’s good.”

Jude DuarteJudeRoibenKayeKaye FierchLord Roiben
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“He steeples his long fingers. “Someday, I will ask your king for a favor.” “You want me to agree to something without even knowing what it is?” I blurt out. His stoic face gives little away. “Now we understand each other exactly.” I nod. What choice do I have? “Something of equal value,” I clarify. “And within our power.” “This has been a most interesting meeting,” Lord Roiben says with a small, inscrutable smile. As I stand to leave, Kaye winks an inkdrop eye at me. “Luck, mortal.”

Jude DuarteJudeRoibenKayeKaye FierchLord Roiben
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“I squeeze his arm as Heather sticks the food in the oven. “Of course she will. Think of being here with Vivi as an apprenticeship. You learn what you need to know, and then you come home.” “How will I know when I’ve learned it, since I don’t know it now?” he asks. The question sounds like a riddle. “Come back when returning feels like a hard choice instead of an easy one,” I answer finally. Vivi looks over, as though she’s overheard. Her expression is thoughtful.”

JudeOakVivi
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“Let me make you an offer, little goat. We spar. If you lose, my cap is returned to me, unburnt. I continue to hunt as I have. And you give me your littlest finger.' 'To eat?' I ask, taking the flame away from the hat. 'If I like,' she returns. 'Or to wear like a brooch. What do you care what I do with it? The point is that it will be mine.”

FunnyHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeThe Queen Of NothingOfferGrima MogSparLittle Finger
Book:The Queen of Nothing
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“Furnished in elaborate velvets, silks, and brocades, it's a riot of scarlet and deep blues and greens, everything rich and dark, like overripe fruit. The patterns on the material are the sorts of things I have become accustomed to- intricate braids of briars, leaves that might also be spiders when you looked at them from another angle, and a depiction of a hunt where it is unclear which of the creatures is hunting the other.”

PatternsHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeThe Cruel PrinceDescriptiveChairFurnishingsElaborate
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“Hollow Hall is a stone manor with a tall, crooked tower, the whole thing half-covered in vines and ivy. There's a balcony on the second floor that seems to have a rail of thick roots in place of iron. A curtain of thinner tendrils hangs down from it, like a scraggly beard clotted with dirt. There is something misshapen about the estate that ought to make it charming but instead makes it ominous.”

Holly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeThe Cruel PrinceOminousManorHollow HallMisshapen
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“Faeries are twilight creatures, and I have become one, too. We rise when the shadows grow long and head to our beds before the sun rises. It is well after midnight when we arrive at the great hill at the palace of Elfhame. To go inside, we must ride between two trees, an oak and a thorn, and then straight in to what appears to be the stone wall of an abandoned folly. I've done it hundreds of times, but I flinch anyway. My whole body braces, I grip the reins hard, and my eyes mash shut. When I open them, I am inside the hill. We ride on through a cavern, between pillars of roots, over packed earth. Then are dozens of the Folk here, crowding around the entrance to the vast throne room, where Court is being held- long-nosed pixies with tattered wings; elegant, green-skinned ladies in long gowns with goblins holding up their trains; tricksy boggans; laughing foxkin; a boy in an owl mask and a golden headdress; an elderly woman with crowns crowding her shoulders; a gaggle of girls with wild roses in their hair; a bark-skinned boy with feathers around his neck; a group of knights all in scarab-green armour. Many I've seen before; a few I have spoken with. Too many for my eyes to drink them all in, yet I cannot look away. I never get tired of this- of the spectacle, of the pageantry. Maybe Oriana isn't entirely wrong to worry that we might one day get caught up in it, be carried away by it, and forget to take care. I can see why humans succumb to the beautiful nightmare of the Court, why they willingly drown in it. I know I shouldn't love it as I do, stolen as I am from the mortal world, my parents murdered. But I love it all the same.”

Holly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeThe Cruel PrinceFaeriesSpectacleGoblinsOrianaThe Folk
Book:The Cruel Prince
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“And if the serpent grows in monstrousness and corruption, if it poisons the land of Elfhame itself, then let me be the queen of monsters. Let me rule over the blackened land with my redcap father as a puppet by my side. Let me be feared and never again afraid. Only out of his spilled blood can a great ruler rise. Let me have everything I ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed, and eternal misery along with it. Let me live on with an ice shard through my heart.”

MiseryHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteJudeQueenThe Queen Of NothingRulerFearedSerpent King
Book:The Queen of Nothing
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