Mara Rutherford > Quotes

“Those who have never known pain or adversity are as shallow as the waves lapping on the shore."

"And what is wrong with being shallow?" I'd asked him.

"What lies beneath the surface of shallow waters? Nothing. It's only when you go deeper that the ocean comes alive. The deeper you go, the more mysteries and surprises await.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“Hiding our scars doesn't mean they're not really there. Just as beauty cannot disguise who we really are beneath the surface.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“I will see you again, in this life or another. Now go, meet your destiny.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“My people had a saying about home, as they did about so many of the important things in life: a Varenian can never be lost at sea, because he calls the entire ocean home.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“I had found the place I belonged, and it wasn’t a cottage or a village or a country: it was right here, inside of me. Finally, I was home.”
― Mara Rutherford, Kingdom of Sea and Stone

“I would never be that good, that pure of heart. And that was a harder sort of pain to bear.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“It would be much easier to tell who the villains were if their appearances reflected their intentions.”
― Mara Rutherford, Luminous

“Home was not a house, or a village, or a sea. It was family, and love, and the space where your soul could roost, like a seabird safe from a storm.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“Mother had given us one gift, at least, that no amount of time or distance could erase: each other.”
― Mara Rutherford

“Beware the lionfish, my dear, Beware the fish that's made of stone. Beware sweet nothings in your ear, And the heart as hollow as a bone.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“There was an old legend that said pearls were the tears of the gods, but we mortals wept only saltwater, and we had more than enough of that around here.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“I’m the perfect seashell you pick up from the ocean floor, only to turn it over in your hand and see the crack. I’m the fabric with the tear in the seam that you give back to the trader and demand first quality.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“That when you decide to do something heroic and brash and Talin-ish, that you remember that I love you, too.”
― Mara Rutherford, Kingdom of Sea and Stone

“I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,” he murmured against my skin. “It’s like a tiny star, marking you as something special for anyone too senseless not to know it.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“ Because, child, as we take from the sea, so must we give. Through Thalos, the ocean provides us with our food, with the pearls we harvest. It makes us strong and healthy. and when we die, we must return to the ocean, so that it, too, can have nourishment. So that the blood coral may grow from our hearts, and begin the cycle anew. ”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“She was like a beautiful house built on stilts, only the stilts were lies, and accepting the truth meant destroying the foundation of her existence. Accepting this new outcome would mean admitting that life could, in fact, go on.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“I'd never seen shallow waters, but I did know one thing about them: you could walk through them to the shore. and there could be no greater mystery or surprise than land. At least not to me.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“I turned the button over in my hand. it was engraved with a small, many-petaled flower. I'd heard of roses, though I'd never seen one before. I tried to imagine a world in which something as small as a button was deemed worthy of this level of craftsmanship.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“But I was coming to realize that beauty—at least as defined by my people—was more of a burden than a gift.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“What lies beneath the surface of shallow waters? Nothing. It’s only when you go deeper that the ocean comes alive. The deeper you go, the more mysteries and surprises await.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“Hope is like a kite. Hold on to it tight enough, and even the fiercest storm can’t claim it.”
― Mara Rutherford, Kingdom of Sea and Stone

“Sometimes I wonder if it was our names that determined our fates, or the other way around. Nor and Zadie: coral and pearl.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“That when you’re in a position to do something bold and reckless and Nor-ish, you remember how much I love you.”
― Mara Rutherford, Kingdom of Sea and Stone

“But I’ll never have the one person I love best of all. He may have my heart, but you, my dear, beautiful Nor, are the twin of my soul.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“I believed in the spirits that lived in everything around me: the water, the birds, the air itself. It was all alive and beautiful and just as divine as any invisible god.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“Heartache and grief are their own strange kind of gift because they remind you that you can still have a heart to break. When you stop caring, when you stop grieving, that's when you know you're really lost.”
― Mara Rutherford, Luminous

“Those who have never known pain or adversity are as shallow as the waves lapping on the shore. And what is wrong with being shallow? I’d asked him. What lies beneath the surface of shallow waters? Nothing. It’s only when you go deeper that the ocean comes alive. The deeper you go, the more mysteries and surprises await.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl

“I love that you challenge me. That you never hide who you are. You always say exactly what you’re thinking, for better or worse. With everyone else, it’s all pretense and politeness, asking each other how we are without waiting to hear the answer.’

‘What if that’s because I’m broken? What if Da’s death changed me forever and I can’t love the way I used to?’

… ‘Well. We’re all a little broken, aren’t we? Like chipped teacups. Imperfect but functional, most of the time, and we don’t discard something just because it’s imperfect. If anything, we should love it all the more, because that’s a reminder of how precious it truly is.”
― Mara Rutherford, A Curious Kind of Magic

“Because even if love was my greatest weakness, it was also the thing that made me strong.”
― Mara Rutherford, Kingdom of Sea and Stone

“Mother was wrong, Nor. You have the power to do anything and everything you dream of, more than any person I’ve ever known. And that power, that inner strength, that is what makes you the most beautiful girl in Varenia.”
― Mara Rutherford, Crown of Coral and Pearl