Caitlin Starling > Quotes

“A miracle so profound may be indistinguishable from horror.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints

“That was the look of somebody resigned to being the monster they knew they were.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Luminous Dead

“A magician gets what she asks for, whether she meant to ask for it or not.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“It was not so hard, to pretend for a fixed duration; it was only eternity that she could not bear”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“Time to climb back up,” she said, and began walking. Em blinked. Frowned. “What?” “Climbing up. To the surface?” “That’s not what you said.” Gyre stopped, listening to the water sliding from her suit, pattering against the shallow pool she stood in. “Of course it is. What else would I have said?” “You said time to climb back down.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Luminous Dead

“What could he have been, if he’d hadn’t confused self-loathing with humility?”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“Death does not come all at once; it leaves many of us in the sunlight behind, to grapple with a loss that comes seemingly out of order. Our own rhythms distract us from the procession.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints

“Slowly, Jane peeled herself from the sitting room, leaving behind the stale scent of old cologne, of spilled brandy, of what might have been a pleasant night except in the particulars.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“The paradox of medicine: pain and relief, life and death.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“But the logic is circular. Because the ghosts exist, you’ve proven Augustine can work magic. Because he can work magic, he is the reason for the ghosts. What if it’s something else?”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“If the practitioner knows that magic is possible, then the practitioner can change the rules by which the world functions. But that knowing extends beyond belief, extends beyond mere acceptance. Magic must be a part of the practitioner’s every waking moment. It is an altered state of being.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“Then a magician—one with proven ability to do things beyond what their fellow humans can—is somebody who has a particularly focused kind of madness. Does that sit better with you? Their belief in an impossible thing is so strong that if they turn their will on a question, they can change the answer for other people without ever telling those other people what they did. It changes how those around them perceive the world, even if the underlying fabric of the world remains the same.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“half of any success was luck. She’d always believed that. It scared a lot of people, and sometimes it made her angry, because of course she wanted to control her fate. But it was true.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Luminous Dead

“Open up to the positive emotions. Focus on them,” he said. “This is the best part. It’s like having a sun inside you. Let it light you up.” “What did you call it? Feeling alive?” He stood. “Alive, yes. It thrives off itself. You’re alive, and they’re alive, and so you feel them being alive as if it were yourself, and it doubles. It’s intoxicating.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“It terrifies me. But you don’t, and I can’t leave the thought of you alone.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“I thought,” Phosyne says, slowly, “that you might not mind my death.” Voyne scowls. “You are mine to care for,” she says, too quickly.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints

“But time is inexorable, as is the human stomach.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints

“How do you untangle madness from reality?”
― Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints

“The premise of the working of magic,” Dr. Nizamiev said, “is first and foremost that the practitioner believes—that she knows—that it is possible.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“I can think of little else,” he said, finally taking the ring from her and gently, so gently, slipping it onto her finger. “After a just a few days, I find I’ve completely lost my mind over you.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“The mind abhors chaos. It cannot abide randomness. It needs a narrative, one event after another, reason and cause and effect. When life is at its most incomprehensible, the mind clings to narrative the tightest”
― Caitlin Starling, The Graceview Patient

“Horror,” Treila offers, “shapes character. And it did happen.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints

“There are worse things,” Ser Voyne breathes, “than that.” “What?” Treila pushes. “What can be worse than what we are driven to, when all else is lost? Doesn’t it all become the same, then?”
― Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints

“What little religion did remain in the civil ceremony mirrored what remained among the citizenry: a half-grudging, half-panicked belief in spirits and the movements of the heavens, and a deep, abiding fear of chaos and conflict.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“Do you know what that feels like? To knowingly say, I can’t take this job that buys me food because I hurt too much, I’m too exhausted, and if I push any harder it’ll get worse, not better? My parents don’t. The few friends I’d managed to keep through a few cross-country moves didn’t. Sympathy and support were drying up, and I could barely get out of bed somedays, my body attacking itself with all the energy I didn’t have to stop it.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Graceview Patient

“But for just a moment, her reflection looked short, hunched perhaps, and Jane frowned, stepping closer. Her reflection had red eyes.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“Life was worth more than a sum on a page, and yet it was only worth a sum on a page.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“I’ll remain,”
― Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence

“I couldn’t see it then, but I can now: I was dreaming. Or having some strange drug-induced hallucination, but there isn’t much difference between the two. The mechanism only matters as far as it answers this question: Was what I saw real?”
― Caitlin Starling, The Graceview Patient

“They both had two options: fester and die, or take what they were given and grow.”
― Caitlin Starling, The Luminous Dead