Robin Wasserman > Quotes

“They had battled and bloodied one another, they had kept secrets, broken hearts, lied, betrayed, exiled, they had walked away, said goodbye and sworn it was forever, and somehow, every time, they had mended, they had forgiven, they had survived. Some mistakes could never be fixed - some, but not all. Some people can't be driven away, no matter how hard you try. Some friendships won't break.”
― Robin Wasserman, Greed

“In my room, in the dark, I understood what I never had before, what no one else seemed to. I understood how a boy could go into the woods with a bullet and a gun and not come out. That there was no conspiracy, no evil influences or secret rituals; that sometimes there was only pain and the need to make it stop.”
― Robin Wasserman, Girls on Fire

“But things don't just fall apart. People break them.”
― Robin Wasserman, The Book of Blood and Shadow

“Girls had to believe in anything but their own power, because if girls knew what they could do, imagine what they might.”
― Robin Wasserman, Girls on Fire

“Nor did I need anyone's pity, but I would accept it with grace, because I have been well trained. Rudeness was a sign of weakness. Grace stemmed from power, the powere to accept anything and move on.”
― Robin Wasserman, Skinned

“You don't even realize you're living in a before until you wake up one day and find yourself in an after.”
― Robin Wasserman, The Book of Blood and Shadow

“I longed to return to that bloody riverbank, to throw myself in the path of the final arrow, to die ignorant, and so, in love. Better to be killed by an arrow than by the words of the one I most trusted.”
― Robin Wasserman, The Book of Blood and Shadow

“I spent most of my teen years trying to figure out the rules of life, theories for why things happened, why people behaved as they did, and mostly I came to the conclusion that either there were no rules, or the rules sucked. Reading science fiction wasn't about imagining myself into some more exciting life filled with adventure, it was about finding a world where things worked the way I wanted them to.”
― Robin Wasserman

“It's significantly more satisfying to kick a wall than it is to kick thin air. For the rebellious teen- or the teen who wants to feel like a rebel- a clearly defined law gives you something to define yourself against.”
― Robin Wasserman, Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader

“Rudeness was a sign of weakness. Grace stemmed from power, the power to accept anything and move on.”
― Robin Wasserman, Skinned

“The only thing more dangerous than a willingness to ignore the Law is an ability to change it.”
― Robin Wasserman, Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader

“They wanted their girls to be safe. To do what they had to do to conform, to defer, to survive, to grow up. They wanted their girls never to grow up. Never to stop burning. They wanted their girls to say fuck it, to see through the lies, to know their own strength. They wanted their girls to believe the things could be different this time, and they wanted it to be true.

They wondered, sometimes, if they'd made a mistake. If it was dangerous, taming the wild, stealing away the words a girl might use to name her secret self. They wondered at the consequences of teaching a girl she was weak instead of warning her she was strong. They wondered, if knowing was power, what happened to power that refused to know itself; they wondered what happened that couldn't be satisfied, to pain that couldn't be felt, a rage that couldn't be spoken.”
― Robin Wasserman, Girls on Fire

“There are some moments you'd rather sleep through, pass from point A to point B without awareness of the time passing or the events that carry you from present to future. And it's mostly those moments in which it's smarter-safer- to stay awake.”
― Robin Wasserman, Skinned

“Now I existed solely thanks to the quantum paradox, my brain a collection of qubits in quantum superposition, encoding truths and memories, imagination and irrationality in opposing, contradictory states that existed and didn't exist, all at the same time.”
― Robin Wasserman, Crashed

“In dreams you can become everything you're not. You can reverse the most fundamental truths of your life. You can taste death, the ultimate opposite.”
― Robin Wasserman, Crashed

“I should probably start with the blood.”
― Robin Wasserman, The Book of Blood and Shadow

“I believed in happily ever after as much as anyone, because Jane Austen, Prince Charming, and Hugh Grant promised me it could happen.
But maybe that particular delusion was universal.”
― Robin Wasserman, The Book of Blood and Shadow

“Full Disclosure: I hate David with the passion of a thousand fiery suns all going to supernova at the same time”
― Robin Wasserman

“You could love something and still understand it had ruined your life.”
― Robin Wasserman, Girls on Fire

“A fundamentalist is someone who wants to substitute what he believes for what you believe," Max said. "And someone who thinks he knows the will of God better than anyone else.”
― Robin Wasserman, The Book of Blood and Shadow

“Not that my arms are getting tired or anything, but... how much longer is the hugging phase going to last?”
― Robin Wasserman, The Book of Blood and Shadow

“The love you needed was the kind best avoided.”
― Robin Wasserman, Girls on Fire

“I guess that's the secret. It would never have occurred to Lia to want to escape -- but then she gets kicked out. Best thing that ever happened to her? I'm not sure she would say yes, because obliviousness tends to be rather pleasant, but once you realized you've been bolivious, there's no turning back. You can't un-know what you know.
You know?”
― Robin Wasserman

“I took up space. I was a collection of cells and memories, awkward limbs and clumsy fashion crimes; I was the repository of my parents' expectations and evidence of their disappointments”
― Robin Wasserman, Girls on Fire

“One of the greatest tragedies of growing up is the discovery that your parents- and your teachers, and your sports heroes, and your favorite actors, singers, YouTube sensations- are fallible. Adults don't know all, and what they do know, they often won't tell you- because they've got their own agendas, or because they want to shield you from the hard truths "for your own good." Adults lie, they betray, they screw up in every way possible...”
― Robin Wasserman, Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader

“If you can't remember something, did it really happen?”
― Robin Wasserman, Skinned

“Be the person you were so I can be the person you made me.”
― Robin Wasserman, Girls on Fire

“Nobody likes me,” he concluded at the tail end of a ten-minute pity fest.
“Can’t imagine why,” Quinn murmured. I turned my snort of laughter into a fake cough,
which was an embarrassingly feeble attempt at subterfuge when you consider the fact that
I didn’t have any lungs.”
― Robin Wasserman, Skinned

“Don't go looking in dark places, because dark things live there.”
― Robin Wasserman, The Waking Dark

“Things fall apart. But things don't just fall apart. People break them.”
― Robin Wasserman, The Book of Blood and Shadow