A.G. Slatter > Quotes

“I don’t need you,’ I say, ‘I want you. That should be enough. That should be better because it means I’ve made a choice.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“A secret seldom survives being shared.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“And a trace of a tale is all that’s needed to find your way in the world.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“Life. A woman's life is the path of thorns," I say. "We walk through it, our feet will always hurt."

"I knew you were smart." She presses her lips together, calls me by my name for the first time. "Asher? My feet hurt."

I say, "Yes."

And we both begin to cry.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Path of Thorns

“There's something magical about song and story when they're given, something unique.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“Love is a barbed hook and family the line to which it is tied. It digs deep and sometimes trying to remove it entirely does more damage than simply leaving the obstruction beneath the skin for a scar to grow over.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“I know it’s the changing of my life’s seasons, shifting me to Autumn. It happens to us all, women, but I don’t have to be happy about it.”
― A.G. Slatter , A Forest, Darkly

“Some folk make a point of not visiting pain on others when it’s been done to them; most people, though, think it’s their due to inflict a little of their own agony.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“And I realise that most people will remain somewhere as long as they can no matter that it’s no good for them. Home might be a pile of shit, but they’ll stay because it’s warm and the smell is familiar and they’ll cling to that.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Path of Thorns

“If I know anything for certain it’s that neither love nor hate is ever simple.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“Secrets do not stay in the dark where we put them. Some lie dormant, but others slither beneath doors, over windowsills, through the cracks in walls, out into the light where everyone can see them, poke at them, know them.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Path of Thorns

“Just hang on to whatever’s solid, Óisín would say, but it took me a long time to realise he meant I had to rely on myself: I was the only solid thing in that angry sea.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“All the waters in the world are joined.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“Very few people are entirely good or bad, missy, but some ignore the calling of one or the other better than the rest of us.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“Mourning silk for my wedding gown. How appropriate.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“I actually do like dresses and skirts as long as they’ve got pockets.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“I shake myself, feel the past cascade from my shoulders.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Path of Thorns

“Nothing beyond your own wishes that are always satisfied. You just want to impose your own will on the world and pretend you're a savior.”
― A. G. Slatter

“the Widow O’Meara accepted what I brought but gave me the same look she always does, and I hurried away just as I always do.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“He knows about my purchased knives, yes, but not about Óisín’s pearl-handled knife, hidden deep within my pockets, and it’s an awful surprise to him that I slip it across his throat as he’s kissing me.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“Just as I came to break this house, so too I'm breaking. The fault lines that run through me are growing wider and wider. I must leave before I'm entirely sundered.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Path of Thorns

“A polite person would offer their own name, first.’ ‘She’s Miss Violet.’ Freddie reaches for the jar once more. ‘I’d put these away if I were you.’ Firmly putting the lid back on, I move the cannister away from Freddie. ‘Travelling incognito is a bit pointless if you just tell my name to the first person who feeds us.’ She shrugs.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Crimson Road

“She's dead, taking all my answers with her.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“prince of assassins felled so low by a woman and a tiny knife. ‘Life,’ I tell him as I sit on the bed to watch him die, ‘is full of surprises.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“They say she did not die,’ I breathe, a little carried away to speak of such things with someone who understands them. ‘They say she wrote herself into a book, with ink of her blood, and pages of her skin, a quill of her bones, all threaded together with her own hair.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Path of Thorns

“The idea of girls who chose their own fate bolsters my conviction that I’m doing the right thing – whether I want to or not. I’m doing Hedrek’s bidding in spite of myself, but there’s hope, perhaps, that after this is done, I might choose my own path.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Crimson Road

“I can’t take a fucking step but I land on a thorn.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Path of Thorns

“Miss Violet?’ ‘Mmmm?’ ‘There’s been a woman and a man around the inns. They dress like quality but talk like toughs. Asked about your father ’til they heard he’d died. Then they asked about you.’ ‘What did they want to know?’ I flip two silver quarter-coins from the pocket of my suit jacket; they fly upwards and disappear even though I barely see her hands move. ‘What you’re like, your daily schedule.’ ‘What did you tell them?’ ‘That you were a sweet and timid thing who loved needlepoint and dogfights.”
― A.G. Slatter, The Crimson Road

“Some days I envy young women their looks and grace, but I have dragon-fire and no one can take that from me, neither by injury nor time nor the hand of man. I know which I’d rather have.”
― A.G. Slatter, A Forest, Darkly

“for I know if I lose my temper now, I’ll never get it back. When you’re angry all logic, all reason, flies out the window, and shouting, as Óisín was fond of saying wisely, achieves nothing”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones