Alwyn Hamilton > Quotes

“Tell me that and we’ll go. Right now. Save ourselves and leave this place to burn. Tell me that’s how you want your story to go and we’ll write it straight across the sand.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“You know, I never believed in fate until I met you... then I started thinking coincidence didn't have near so cruel a sense of humor”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“I was born the same year as ten brothers and a dozen sisters. Being born doesn’t make a single soul important. But you were important when I met you, that girl who dressed as a boy, who taught herself to shoot true, who dreamed and saved and wanted so badly. That girl was someone who had made herself matter. She was someone I liked. What the hell has happened since you came here that she is so worthless to you? What’s happened that only my brother’s approval and some power you never needed before can make you important? That’s why I didn’t want to bring you into this revolution, Amani. Because I didn’t want to watch the Blue-Eyed Bandit get unmade by a prince without a kingdom.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“The world makes things for each place. Fish for the sea, Rocs for the mountain skies, and girls with sun in their skin and perfect aim for a desert that doesn't let weakness live.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“Haven't you ever wanted something so bad that it becomes more than a want? I need to get out of this town. I need it like I need to breathe.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“She moved like a storm someone had given steel to.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“Jin had told me once there was no arguing against belief. It was a foreign language to logic.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“But if knowledge was power, then the unknown was the greatest weakness of immortal things.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“Once there was a boy from the sea who fell in love with a girl from the desert.
[...]
But he wondered if a boy from the sea and a girl from the desert could ever survive together. He feared that she might burn him alive or that he might drown her. Until finally he stopped fighting it and set himself on fire for her.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Hero at the Fall

“Jin always smiled at me like we were both about to be in big trouble and he loved it. The prince smiled like he was forgiving you for it.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“I was a desert girl. I thought I knew heat. I was wrong.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“I hated the quiet. I could hear my fears that much louder for it.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Traitor to the Throne

“You're right." He cut me off. "I never understood this country. I never understood why he chose to leave everything else behind and stay for this. Not until I met you."
I felt like he'd pushed me, like I was falling and I needed him to reel those words back in to keep me standing straight.
"You /are/ this country, Amani." He spoke more quietly now. "More alive than anything ought to be in this place. All fire and gunpowder, with one finger always on the trigger.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“I don't mean to worry you and all," I said, trying to keep my voice calm, "but have you noticed that you've been shot?"
"Ah." Looking at him closer now, I could see he was clutching the counter to stay upright. "I'd almost forgotten about that.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“Amani." My eyes flew open. Jin was standing in the gates to Fahali. His face cleared as he saw me, and he ran toward me, relief written all over him. "Thank God."
"You don't believe in God," I said. It came out half a croak just as he closed the last of the space between us with a kiss.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“But then, this was what the desert did to us. It made us dreamers with weapons.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Traitor to the Throne

“And then came that grin. I may have traitor eyes, but Jin had the sort of smile that would turn over whole empires to the enemy-that made me feel like I suddenly understood him exactly, even though I knew nothing about him. The kind that made me feel like if I was on the right side of it, we could do anything together”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“But even if the desert forgot a thousand and one of our stories, it was enough that they would tell of us at all. That long after our deaths, men and women sitting around a fire would hear that once, long ago, before we were all just stories, we lived.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Hero at the Fall

“It was damn hard to trust a boy with a smile like that. A smile that made me want to follow him straight to the places he’d told me about and made me sure I shouldn’t at the same time.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“I wouldn't point fingers if I were you. You know what they say: those who point fingers wind up with them broken so badly they point straight back at them. - Shazad”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Traitor to the Throne

“The truth is I had no idea what I was doing when it came to you, Amani. I tried to leave you in Dustwalk because I didn't want to drag you into my brother's war. I came back for you because I didn't want to see you die at the hands of my other brother. But either way, I was bound to wind up doing one or the other. Just depended on which one." His hand came up like he was going to reach for me but dropped to his side instead. "I was glad in Sazi when I saw you'd gone because it meant you'd escaped on your own path, and I was glad when you took the compass because it gave me a reason to go after you. And yes, I lied to keep you out of Izman because I was afraid someone would know what you were and you'd get snapped up and sold to the Sultan. And I steered you toward Dassama figuring there was a chance I might be able to deliver you to the sea and get you out of this country before it killed you.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“We would be stories long after we were gone. Imperfect, inaccurate stories. Stories that could never even come close to reality”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Hero at the Fall

“She turned to Jin now, sprawled by the fire, his hat pulled over his eyes. “I can tell you’re awake. Are you coming with us?” He sighed, tipping his hat backward. “Yeah, yeah. Just trying to get some sleep before going to near certain death.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands

“What do you think happens" I said instead. "When we die?" Jin didn't believe in gods. He didn't believe in heavens or hells or worlds after. Just in this world. Just in now.
Jin traced my face, like he was trying to remember it. "I think they burn us and we become dust and ash." He ran a finger across the edge of my lips. "And I think that the dust that was me will spend until the end of time trying to get as close as possible the the dust that was you out in that vast desert.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Hero at the Fall

“God, I knew I was in trouble even then. I was running for my life, bleeding on your floor, and all I could think about was kissing you and damn if we got caught.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Traitor to the Throne

“You and I, we’re going to get tomorrow, and the next night, and a thousand nights after that. For now, it can be enough that I am yours.” He kissed me gently. “All that I am I give to you, and all that I have is yours.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Hero at the Fall

“She was all fire and gunpowder, and her finger was always on a trigger”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Hero at the Fall

“My mother had raised me on a thousand stories of girls who were saved by the Djinn, princesses rescued from towers, peasant girls rescued from poverty.
Turned out, stories were just stories.
I was on my own.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Traitor to the Throne

“The trouble with belief is that it's not the same as truth.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Traitor to the Throne

“What else was I meant to do? Leave you to die?"
"You might've."
"I wouldn't have.”
― Alwyn Hamilton, Rebel of the Sands