It’s hard to come up with a scheme to thwart some other scheme you don’t even know about.
Holly BlackI wonder if he really could rationalize what I did to him, really treat betrayal like the slight transgression of a recalcitrant business partner. I wonder if I hurt him. If he can rationalize what I did to him, it’s easy to imagine how he rationalized what he did to me.
Holly BlackIt makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.
Holly BlackIt's not that I want you to be a certain way--don't you want a boyfriend?" "Why bother with that? Let's find incubi." "Incubi?" "Demons. Plural. Like octopi. And we're much more likely to find them"--her voice dropped conspiratorially--"while swimming naked in the Atlantic a week before Halloween than practically anywhere else I can think of.
Holly BlackThis, the language of deception, we both understand. We were born to it, along with the curses.
Holly BlackTana. In all my long life, though there were many times I prayed for it, no one has ever saved me. No one but you.
Holly BlackI remember everyone telling me I had to think positive when I was writing my first book. If I believed I could do it, then I could! If I pictured myself published, then it was going to happen! Which sounded great, except...could I do it? If I didn't think I could, was I doomed to fail? What if I was almost totally sure I would fail? I am here to tell you-what matters is sticking with it.
Holly BlackYou want me to say something? Okay. Sometimes I think I am what you made me. And sometimes I don’t know who I am at all. And either way I’m not happy.
Holly BlackShe loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.
Holly BlackThere is nothing for her beyond those gates," Gavriel said. "Do you think to bring her along like a talisman to remind you of your humanity? Or do you think sharing your damnation will lighten the burden of it?
Holly BlackThere’s something about her—Cassel, I have met many evil men and women in my life. I have made deals with them, drank with them. I have done things that I myself have difficulty reconciling—terrible things. But I have never known anyone like your mother. She is a person without limits—or if she has any, she hasn’t found them yet. She never needs to reconcile anything.
Holly BlackIt's not that I don't know that it's a bad idea. It's that, lately, bad ideas have a particular hold over me.
Holly BlackI got bored," he says. "Besides, you know what's creepier than walking around your dead brothers' apartment? Sitting alone in a hearse in front of his apartment.
Holly BlackWe are, largely, who we remember ourselves to be. That's why habits are so hard to break. If we know ourselves to be liars, we expect not to tell the truth. If we think of ourselves as honest, we try harder.
Holly BlackYou really dug your own grave,” he mutters. “And I’m going to bury you in it.” “Say that louder,” I tell him, under my breath. “I dare you.
Holly BlackMemory is slippery. It bends to our understanding of the world, twists to accommodate our prejudices. It is unreliable. Witnesses seldom remember the same things. They identify the wrong people. They give us the details of events that never happened. Memory is slippery, but my memories suddenly feel slipperier.
Holly BlackSam: You know what I wish? Cassel: What? Sam: That someone would covert my bed into a robot that would fight other bed robots to the death for me.
Holly BlackLife's full of opportunities to make crappy decisions that feel good. And after the first one, the rest get a whole lot easier.
Holly BlackI have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don't even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I'm going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn't involve dying.
Holly BlackThe first boy I fell in love with didn't know I loved him, but he managed to break my heart anyway.
Holly BlackAllow me to explain how my whole life has prepared me for this moment. I am used to girls screaming, and your screams – will be sweeter than another’s cries of love.
Holly BlackI'm not good at having friends. I mean, I can make myself useful to people. I can fit in. I get invited to parties and I can sit at any table I want in the cafeteria. But actually trusting someone when they have nothing to gain from me just doesn't make sense. All friendships are negotiations of power.
Holly BlackI thought I was getting better at this. I thought I was starting to make peace with being in love with a girl who despises me, but I don't think I'm so okay with it after all. Somewhere along the line I made a dark bargain with the universe without ever really being aware of it--a bargain that if I was allowed to see her, even if we never spoke, then I could live with that. And now a week without her has swallowed up all of my rational thinking. I feel like a junkie, sick for my next fix and not sure when it will come.
Holly BlackIt feels like the whole world has turned upside down. There aren't any more rules. Hey,' I say to Sam, because if the world's gone crazy, then I guess I can do whatever I want. "Guess what? I'm a worker.
Holly BlackThe inside is packed with people. Lots of them crowding the bar, passing drinks back for people to carry to tables. A bunch of guys are pouring shots of vodka. "To Zacharov!" one toasts. "To open hearts and open bars!" calls another. "And open legs," says Anton.
Holly BlackI’ve stripped my life down,” he told me. “I don’t need much. I have all the company I want to keep right in here.” He shot himself in the head with his fingers. “People don’t understand about the need to live simply. They make appointments all day. They even schedule their own deaths. The first time they’ll have freedom to really be themselves is when they no longer exist. But up here, there’s nothing but me and the sky. A million billion stars.
Holly BlackThe row of dolls watched her impassively from the bookshelf, their tea party propriety almost certainly offended.
Holly BlackPeople said that video games were bad because they made you numb to death, made you register entrails splattering across a screen as a sign of success. In that moment, Val thought that the real problem with games was that the player was suppossed to try everything. If there was a cave, you went in it. If there was a mysterious stranger, you talked to him. If there was a map, you followed it. But in games, you had a hundred million billion lives and Val only had this one.
Holly Black