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Holly Black

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Famous Holly Black Quotes

“Madoc says you will duel for love,' I say. 'Whose?' he asks, frowning. There is no banquet too abundant for a starving man. I shake my head. 'It's you I love,' he says. 'I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn't have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.' He walks to the door to the royal chambers as though to end the conversation. 'You probably guessed as much,' he says. 'But just in case you didn't.' He opens the door to prevent me from responding. Abruptly, we are no longer alone. ... I can't believe he said that and then just walked out, leaving me reeling. I am going to strangle him.”

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Book:The Queen of Nothing
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“His fingers come to my chin, tilting my head so I am looking up into his black eyes, the rage in them as hot as coals. 'You just think I ought to. That I can. That's I'd be good at it. Very well, Jude. Tell me how it's done. Do you think she'd like it if I came to her like this, if I looked deeply in to her eyes?' My whole body is alert, alive with sick desire, embarrassing in its intensity. He knows, I know he knows. 'Probably,' I say, my voice coming out a little shakily. 'Whatever it is you usually do.' 'Oh, come now,' he says, his voice full of barely controlled fury. 'If you want me to play the bawd, at least give me the benefit of your advice.' His beringed fingers trace over my cheek, trace the line of my lip and down my throat. I feel dizzy and overwhelmed. 'Should I took her like this?' he asks, lashes lowered. The shadows limn his face, casting his cheekbones in to stark relief. 'I don't know,' I say, but my voice betrays me. It's all wrong, high and breathless. He presses his mouth to my ear, kissing me there. His hands skim over my shoulders, making me shiver. 'And then like this? Is this how I ought to seduce her?' I can feel his mouth shape the light words against my skin. 'Do you think it would work?' I dig my fingernails in to the meat of my palm to keep from moving against him. My whole body is trembling with tension. 'Yes.' Then his mouth is against mine, and my lips part. I close my eyes against what I'm about to do. My fingers reach up to tangle in the black curls of his hair. He doesn't kiss me as though he's angry; his kiss is soft, yearning. Everything slows, goes liquid and hot. I can barely think. I've wanted this and feared it, and now that it's happening, I don't know how I will ever want anything else.”

KissingHolly BlackSeductionThe Folk Of The AirJude DuarteCardan GreenbriarJudeCardanThe Wicked KingSexual Tension
Book:The Wicked King
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“Cardan stands over me. His jacket is thrown on a nearby chair, the velvet soaked through with some dark substance. His white sleeves are rolled up, and he's washing my hands with a wet cloth. Getting the blood off them. I try to speak, but my mouth feels like it is full of honey. I slide back into the syrupy dark.”

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Book:The Queen of Nothing
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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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“It's okay to want something that's going to hurt, I remind myself. I move toward him, so we are close enough to touch. He takes my hand in his, fingers lacing together, and bends towards me. There is plenty of time for me to pull away from the kiss, but I don't. I want him to kiss me. My weariness evaporates as his lips press against mine. Over and over, one kiss sliding in to the next. 'You looked like a knight in a story tonight,' he says softly against my neck. 'Possibly a filthy story.' I kick him in the leg, and he kisses me again, harder. We stagger against the wall, and I pull his body to mine. My fingers glide up under his shirt, tracing up his spine to the wings of his shoulder blades. His tail lashes back and forth, the furred end stroking over the back of my calf.”

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Book:The Queen of Nothing
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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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“Look into this one,' the Bomb says with a strange expression. It's Cardan as a very small child. He is dressed in a shirt that's too large for him. It hangs down like a gown. He is barefoot, his feet and shirt streaked with mud, but he wears dangling hoops in his ears, as though an adult gave him their earrings. A horned faerie woman stands nearby, and when he runs to her, she grabs his wrists before he can put his dirty hands on her skirts. She says something stern and shoves him away. When he falls, she barely notices, too busy being drawn in to conversation with other courtiers. I expect Cardan to cry, but he doesn't. Instead, he stomps off to a tree that an older boy is climbing. The boy says something, and Cardan grabs for his ankle. A moment later, the boy is on the ground, and Cardan's small grubby hand is forming a fist. At the sound of the scuffle, the faerie woman turns and laughs, clearly delighted by his escapade. When Cardan looks back at her, he's smiling, too. I shove the crystal ball back in to the drawer. Who would cherish this? It's horrible.”

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Book:The Wicked King
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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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“He is even more horrifically beautiful than I was able to recall. They're all beautiful, unless they're hideous. That's the nature of the Folk. Our mortal minds cannot conceive of them; our memory blunts their power. His every finger sparks with a ring. An etched and jeweled breast-plate in polished gold hangs from his shoulders, covering a frothy white shirt. Boots curl up at his toes and rise high over his knees. His tail is visible, curled to one side of his leg. I suppose he has decided it is no longer something he needs to hide. At his brow, of course, is the Blood Crown. He regards me with gold-rimmed black eyes, a smirk hovering at the corners of his mouth. His black hair tumbles around his face, unbound and a little messy, as though he's recently risen from someone's bed.”

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Book:The Queen of Nothing
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“He is as ridiculously beautiful as ever, mouth soft, lips slightly parted, lashes so long that when his eyes are closed they rest against his cheek. I am used to Cardan's beauty, but not to any vulnerability. It feels uncomfortable to see him without his fanciful clothes, without his acid tongue and malicious gaze for armour.”

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Book:The Wicked King
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“Taryn finally comes down. She's been bathed in lilac dew and wears a gown of incredibly fine layers of cloth on top of one another, herbs and flowers trapped between them to give the impression that she's this beautiful, floating figure and a living bouquet at the same time. Her hair is braided into a crown with green blooms all through it. She looks beautiful and painfully human. In all that pale fabric, she looks like a sacrifice instead of a bride. She smiles at all of us, shy and glowingly happy.”

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Book:The Wicked King
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“I let go of him and remain standing. I promised myself I would do this, if I ever had the chance again.. I promised I would do this the first moment I could. 'I love you,' I say, the words coming out in an unintelligible rush. Cardan looks taken aback. Or possibly I spoke so fast he's not even sure what I said. 'You need not say it out of pity,' he says finally, with great deliberateness. 'Or because I was under a curse. I have asked you to lie to me in the past, in this very room, but I would beg you not to lie now.' My cheeks heat at the memory of those lies. 'I have not made myself easy to love,' he says, and I hear the echo of his mother's words in his. When I imagined telling him, I thought I would say the words, and it would be like pulling off a bandage- painful and swift. But I didn't think he would doubt me. 'I first started liking you when we went to talk to the rulers of the low Courts,' I say. 'You were funny, which was weird. And when we went to Hollow Hall, you were clever. I kept remembering how you'd been the one to get us out of the brugh after Dain's coronation, right before I put the knife to your throat.' He doesn't try to interrupt, so I have to choice but to barrel on. 'After I tricked you into being High King,' I say. 'I thought once you hated me, I could go back to hating you. But I didn't. And I felt so stupid. I thought I would get my heart broken. I thought it was a weakness that you would use against me. But then you saved me from the Undersea when it would have been much more convenient to just leave me to rot. After that, I started to hope my feelings were returned. But then there was the exile-' I take a ragged breath. 'I hid a lot, I guess. I thought if I didn't, if I let myself love you, I would burn up like a match. Like the whole matchbook.' 'But now you've explained it,' he says. 'And you do love me.' 'I love you,' I confirm. 'Because I am clever and funny,' he says, smiling. 'You didn't mention my handsomeness.' 'Or your deliciousness,' I say. 'Although those are both good qualities.' He pulls me to him, so that we're both lying on the couch. I look down at the blackness of his eyes and the softness of his mouth. I wipe a fleck of dried blood from the top of one pointed ear. '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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“Cardan had grown up in the palace, a wild thing to be cosseted by courtiers and scowled at by the High King. No one much liked him, and he told himself he cared little for anyone else. And if he sometimes thought about how he might do something to win his father's favour, something to make the Court respect him and love him, he kept that to himself. He certainly asked no one to tell him stories, and yet he found it was nice to be told one. He kept that to himself, too.”

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Book:How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories
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“Opposite the bed is a cabinet built in to the wall, taking the whole length of it. It has a painted clock face on the front, with constellations instead of numbers. The arms of the clock are pointed toward a configuration of stars prophesying a particularly amorous lover. Inside, it appears merely a wardrobe overstuffed with Cardan's clothes. I pull them out, letting them fall to the floor in a pile of velvet cuffs, satin, and leather. From the bed, Cardan makes a sound of mock distress.”

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Book:The Wicked King
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“Inside the carriage, Cardan slumps. I stare at him, at the blood drying in tide lines over his body and crusting in his curls like tiny garnets. I force myself to look out the window instead. 'How long have I-' he hesitates. 'Not even three days,' I tell him. 'Barely any time at all.' I do not mention how long it has seemed. Nor do I say how he might have been trapped as a serpent for all time, bridled and bound. Or dead.”

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Book:The Queen of Nothing
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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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“Do you have questions like that for your father?' 'Why am I the way I am?' His tone makes it clear he's proposing something I might suggest he ask, not really wondering about it. 'There are no real answers, Jude. Why was I cruel to Folk? Why was I awful to you? Because I could be. Because I liked it. Because, for a moment, when I was at my worst, I felt powerful, and most of the time, I felt powerless, despite being a prince and the son of the High King of Faerie.' 'That's an answer,' I say.”

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Book:The Wicked King
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“I see you staring at him,' Nicasia says, sitting down beside me. Tonight she wears a gown of gold lacework. Her dark tourmaline hair is pulled up with two golden combs the shape of a shark jaw, complete with golden teeth. 'Perhaps I am looking only at the trinkets and gold with which your mother thinks she can buy the Court's favour,' I say.' She picks up one of the violets from my plate and places it delicately on her tongue. 'I lost Cardan's love for Locke's easy words and easier kisses, sugared like these flowers,' she says. 'Your sister lost your love to get Locke's, didn't she? But we all know what you lost.' 'Locke?' I laugh. 'Good riddance.' Her brows knit together. 'Surely it's not the High King himself you were gazing at.' 'Surely not,' I echo, but I don't meet her eyes.”

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Book:The Wicked King
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“Vivi blows a noisemaker. 'Here,' she says, passing out paper crowns for us to wear. 'This is ridiculous,' I complain, but put mine on. Cardan looks at his reflection in the door of the microwave and adjusts his crown so it's at an angle. I roll my eyes, and he gives me a quick grin. And my heart hurts a little because we are all together and safe, and it wasn't something I'd known how to want. And Cardan looks a little shy in the face of all this happiness, as unused to it as I am. There will be struggles to come, I am certain, but right now I am equally sure we will find our way through them.”

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Book:The Queen of Nothing
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“I take another step toward the serpent. And then another. This close, I am stunned all over again by the creature's sheer size. I raise a wary hand and place it against the black scales. They feel dry and cool against my skin. Its golden eyes have no answer, but I think of Cardan lying beside me on the floor of the royal rooms. I think of his quicksilver smile. I think of how he would hate to be trapped like this. How unfair it would be for me to keep him this way and call it love. You already know how to end the curse. 'I do love you,' I whisper. 'I will always love you.' I tuck the golden bridle into my belt. Two paths are before me, but only one leads to victory. But I don't want to win like this. Perhaps I will never live without fear, perhaps power will slip from my grasp, perhaps the pain of losing him will hurt more than I can bear. And yet, if I love him, there's only one choice. I draw the borrowed sword at my back. Heartsworn, which can cut through anything. I asked Severin for the blade and carried it into battle, because no matter how I denied it, some part of me knew what I would choose. The golden eyes of the serpent are steady, but there are surprised sounds from the assembled Folk. I hear Madoc's roar. This wasn't supposed to be how things ended. I close my eyes, but I cannot keep them that way. In one movement, I swing Heartsworn in a shining arc at the serpent's head. The blade falls, cutting through scales, through flesh and bone. Then the serpent's head is at my feet, golden eyes dulling. Blood is everywhere. The body of the serpent gives a terrible coiling shudder, then goes limp. I sheath Heartsworn with trembling hands. I am shaking all over, shaking so hard that I fall to my knees in the blackened grass, in the carpet of blood. I hear Lord Jarel shout something at me, but I can't hear it. I think I might be screaming.”

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Book:The Queen of Nothing
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