He didn't know what books meant to her, that books were symbols of truth and meaning.

She shook her head. She was so pale under the diffuse lamp-light that she looked almost transparent, as if Simon could have looked right through her. The way, he supposed, he always had.

Sometimes, when I have to do something I don't want to do, I pretend I'm a character from a book. It's easier to know what they would do.

She gritted her teeth. She was here with Sebastian, on her way to see a powerful warlock, and mentally she was maundering on about the way Jace smelled.

The way Magnus’ breath had sounded, rattling in his chest, before he’d said his father’s name.

I feel myself diminished, parts of me spiralling away into the darkness, that which is good and honest and true - If you hold it away from yourself long enough, do you lose it entirely? If no one cares for you at all, do you even really exist?

So you're trying to make her happy despite the fact that the reason she's unhappy in the first place is you," said Simon, not very kindly. "That seems contradictory, doesn't it?" "Love is a contradiction," said Jace.