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Holly Black

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Famous Holly Black Quotes

“Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop.' I am shocked in to silence. 'Maybe you should shoot me after all,' he says, covering his face with one long-fingered hand. ... He doesn't look up as I walk around the desk to him. I place the tip of the blade against the bottom of his chin, as I did the day before in the hall, and I tilt his face toward mine. He shifts his gaze with obvious reluctance. The horror and shame on his face look entirely too real. Suddenly, I am not so sure what to believe. I lean toward him, close enough for a kiss. His eyes widen. The look in his face is some commingling of panic and desire. It is a heady feeling, having power over someone. Over Cardan, who I never thought had any feelings at all. 'You really do want me,' I say, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath as it hitches. 'And you hate it.' I change the angle of the knife, turning it so it's against his neck. He doesn't look nearly as alarmed by that as I might expect. Not nearly as alarmed as when I bring my mouth to his.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“...kissing Locke never felt the way that kissing Cardan does, like taking a dare to run over knives, live an adrenaline strike of lightning, like the moment when you've swum too far out in the sea and there is no going back, only cold black water closing over your head. Cardan's cruel mouth is surprisingly soft, and for a long moment after our lips touch, he's still as a statue. His eyes close, lashes brushing my cheek. I shudder, as you're supposed to when someone walks over your grave. Then his hands come up, gentle as they glide over my arms. If I didn't know better, I'd say his touch was reverent, but I do know better. HIs hands are moving slowly because he is trying to stop himself. He doesn't want this. He doesn't want to want this. He tastes like sour wine. I can feel the moment he gives in and gives up, pulling me to him despite the threat of the knife. He kisses me hard, with a kind of devouring desperation, fingers digging in to my hair. Our mouths slide together, teeth over lips over tongues. Desire hits me like a kick to the stomach. It's like fighting, except what we're fighting for is to crawl inside each other's skin. That's the moment when terror seizes me. What kind of insane revenge is there in exulting in his revulsion? And worse, far worse, I like this. I like everything about kissing him- the familiar buzz of fear, the knowledge I am punishing him, the proof he wants me. The knife in my hand is useless. I throw it at the desk, barely registering as the point sinks in to the wood. He pulls back from me at the sound, startled. HIs mouth is pink, his eyes dark. He sees the knife and barks out a startled laugh. Which is enough to make me stagger back. I want to mock him, to show up his weakness without revealing mine, but I don't trust my face not to show too much. 'Is that what you imagined?' I ask, and am relieved to find that my voice sounds harsh. 'No,' he said tonelessly. 'Tell me,' I say. He shakes his head, somewhere chagrined. 'Unless you're really going to stab me, I think I won't. And I might not tell you even if you were going to stab me.' I get up on Dain's desk to put some distance between us. My skin feels too tight, and the room seems suddenly too small. He almost made me laugh there.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“This is not how I meant to begin. I meant to give you wine and fruit and cheese. I meant to tell you how your hair is as beautiful as curling woodsmoke, your eyes the exact colour of walnuts. I thought I could compose an ode about it, but I am not very good at odes.' I laugh, and he covers his heart as though stung by cruelty”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“Cardan pulls a pin from his coat, a glittering, filigree thing in the shape of an acorn with an oak leaf behind it. For a delirious moment, I think he's going to give it to Locke in exchange for leaving me there. That seems impossible, even to my wild mind. Then Cardan takes hold of my hand, which seems even less possible. His fingers are overwarm against my skin. He stabs the point of his pin into my thumb. 'Ow,' I say, pulling away from him and putting the injured digit in my mouth. My own blood is metallic against my tongue. 'Have a nice walk home,' he tells me. ... I suck on my injured thumb, feeling odd. My head is still swimming, but not like it was. Something's wrong. A moment later, I realise what. There's salt in human blood. My stomach lurches.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“It's funny how you get under his skin.' At first, I'm not sure I heard him right. I almost ask whom he's talking about, because I can't quite believe he's admitting that high and mighty Cardan is affected by anything. 'Like a splinter?' I say. 'Of iron. No one else bothers him quite the way you do.' He picks up a towel and wets it, then kneels down beside me and carefully wipes my face. I suck in a breath when the cold cloth touches the sensitive part of my eye, but he is far gentler than I would have been to myself. His face is solemn and focused on what he's doing. He doesn't seem to notice my studying him, his long face and sharp chin, his curling red-brown hair, the way his eyelashes catch the light. Then he does notice. He's looking at me, and I'm looking back at him, and it's the strangest thing, because I thought Locke would never notice anyone like me. He is noticing, though. He's smiling like he did that night at the Court, as though we share a secret. He's smiling as if we're sharing another one. 'Keep it up,' he says. I wonder at those words. Can he really mean them? As I make my way back to the tournament and my sisters, I can't stop thinking of Cardan's shocked face, nor can I stop considering Locke's smile. I am not altogether sure which is more thrilling and which more dangerous.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“I remember how angry she was when Taryn and I gave in to Faerie and started having fun. Crowns of flowers on our heads, shooting bows and arrows at the sky. Eating candied violets and falling asleep with our heads pillowed on logs. We were children. Children can laugh all day and still cry themselves to sleep at night. But to hold a blade in my hand, a blade like the one that killed my parents, and think it was a toy, she'd have to believe I was heartless.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“Cardan is lying on a blanket, his head tipped back and his loose white shirt unbuttoned. Although it is still early in the night, he appears to be very drunk. HIs mouth is flaked with gold. A horned girl I don't know is kissing his throat, and another, this one with daffodil hair, presses her mouth against the calf of his leg, just above the top of his boot. ... Cardan's gaze goes to me. His eyes are barely open, but I can see the shine of them, wet as tar. He watches me as the girl kisses his mouth, watches me as she slides her hand beneath the hem of his silly, ruffly shirt.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“An ombre ball gown, its colour deepening from white near my throat, through palest blue to deepest indigo at my feet. Over that is stitched the stark outlines of trees, the way I see them from my window as dusk is falling. The seamstress has even sewn on little crystal beads to represent stars. This is a dress I could never have imagined, one so perfect that for a moment, looking at it, I can think of nothing but its beauty.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“Playing hide-and-seek under the table? Crouching in the dirt? Typical of your kind, but far beneath my dignity.' He laughs unsteadily, like he expects I am going to laugh, too. I don't. I ball up my fist and punch him in the stomach, right where I know it will hurt. He staggers to his knees. The goblet drops to the dirt, making a hollow clanking sound. 'Ow"' he shouts, and lets me tug him under the table. 'We'll get out of here without anyone noticing,' I tell him. 'We stay under the tables and make our way to the steps to the upper levels of the place. And don't tell me it's beneath your dignity to crawl. You're so drunk you can barely stand anyway.' I hear him snort. 'If you insist,' he says.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“I glance back and see that he has stopped moving. He's sitting on the ground, looking at his hand. Looking at his ring. 'He despised me.' His voice sounds light, conversational. Like he's forgotten where he is. 'Balekin?' I ask, thinking of what I saw at Hollow Hall. 'My father.' Cardan snorts. 'I didn't much know the others, my brothers and sisters. Isn't that funny? Prince Dain- he didn't want me in the palace, so he forced me out.' I wait, not sure what to say. It's disturbing to see him like this, behaving as though he might have emotions. After a moment, he seems to come back to himself. His eyes focus on me, glittering in the dark. 'And now they're all dead.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“His eyes narrow on the blood, and he points the wooden stick at me. 'You seem to have cut yourself.' I wonder if he's surprised that I'm alive. I wonder if he watched the tower the whole time during his luncheon, waiting for the amusing spectacle of me jumping to my death. I take the knife out from under my tunic and show it to him, stained a flinty red. I smile. 'I could cut you, too.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“I missed you," I whisper against his skin and feel dizzy with the intimacy of the admission, feel more naked than when he could see every inch of me. "In the mortal world, when I thought you were my enemy, I still missed you." "My sweet nemesis, how glad I am that you returned." He pulls my body against his, cradling my head against his chest. We are still lying on the floor, although a perfectly good bed is right next to us.”

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Book:The Queen of Nothing
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“I hate you," I whisper before he can speak. He tilts my face to his. "Say it again," he says as the imps comb my hair and place the ugly, stinking crown on my head. His voice is low. The words are for me alone. I pull out of his grip, but not before I see his expression. He looks as he did when he was forced to answer my questions, when he admitted his desire for me. He looks as though he's confessing.”

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Book:The Wicked King
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“What was it like?" I ask. "Being a serpent." He hesitates. "It was like being trapped in the dark," he says. "I was alone, and my instinct was to lash out. I was perhaps not entirely an animal, but neither was I myself. I could not reason. There was only feelings--hatred and terror and the desire to destroy." I start to speak, but he stops me with a gesture. "And you." He looks at me, his lips curving in something that's not quite a smile; it's more and less than that. "I knew little else, but I always knew you." And when he kisses me, I feel as though I can finally breathe again.”

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Book:The Queen of Nothing
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“You didn't hear the story I told," he goes on. "A shame. It featured a handsome boy with a heart of stone and a natural aptitude for villainy. Everything you could like." She laughs. "You really are terrible, you know that? I don't even understand why the things you say make me smile." He lets himself lean against her, lets himself hear the warmth in her voice. "There is one thing I did like about playing the hero. The only good bit. And that was not having to be terrified for you." "The next time you want to make a point," Jude says, "I beg you not to make it so dramatically." His shoulder hurts, and she may be right about the iron poisoning. He certainly feels as though his head is swimming. But he smiles up at the trees, the looping electrical lines, the streaks of clouds. "So long as you're begging," he says.”

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Book:How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories
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“And I decided to play the hero. See how it felt. To try." "And?" she asks. "I didn't like it," he admits. "Henceforth, I think we should consider our roles as monarchs to be largely decorative. It would be better for the low Courts and the solitary Folk to work things out on their own." "I think you have iron poisoning," she tells him, which could possibly be true but is still a hurtful thing to say when he is making perfect sense.”

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Book:How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories
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“Do you know what mortal means? It means born to die. It means deserving of death. That’s what you are, what defines you—dying. And yet here you stand, determined to oppose me even as you rot away from the inside out, you corrupt, corrosive mortal creature. Tell me how that is. Do you really think you can win against me? Against a prince of Faerie? - Cardan Greenbriar”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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“After our kiss, I am such a fool over you that I can hardly contain myself,' I tell him with as much sarcasm as I can muster. 'All I want to do is nice things that make you happy. Sure, I'll make whatever bargain you want, so long as you kiss me again. Go ahead and run. I definitely won't shoot you in the back.' He blinks a few times. 'Hearing you lie outright is a bit disconcerting.' 'Then let me tell you the truth. You're not going to run because you've got nowhere to go.”

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Book:The Cruel Prince
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