Vera > Vera's Quotes

“Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War

“In the end, that was the problem with romance. It was so easy to romanticise romance because it was everywhere. It was in music and on TV and in filtered Instagram photos. It was in the air, crisp and alive with fresh possibility. It was in falling leaves, crumbling wooden doorways, scuffed cobblestones and fields of dandelions. It was in the touch of hands, scrawled letters, crumpled sheets and the golden hour. A soft yawn, early morning laugher, shoes lined up together dy the door. Eyes across a dance floor. I could see it all, all the time, all around, but when I got closer, I found nothing was there.”
― Alice Oseman, Loveless

“A flaw of humanity,” said Parisa, shrugging. “The compulsion to be unique, which is at war with the desire to belong to a single identifiable sameness.”
― Olivie Blake, The Atlas Six

“The problem with knowledge, is its inexhaustible craving. the more of it you have, the less you feel you know”
― Olivie Blake, The Atlas Six

“If we push in the right spots - then we've moved things to the breaking point. The the future becomes fluid, and change is possible. History isn't a premed tapestry that we've got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. We can form it. Make it. We just have to choose to make it.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“So, you see, translators do not so much deliver a message as the rewrite the original. And herein lies the difficulty - rewriting is still writing, and writing always reflects the authors ideology and biases.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Perhaps survival is its own form of torture.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“We are all stardust and stories.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Nobody gets to stay the same.”
― Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song

“I'd rather be able to see the truth than live a lie.”
― Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song

“People were messy. They were defined not only by what they'd done, but by what they would have done, under different circumstances, molded as much by their regrets as their actions, choices they stood by and those they wished they could undo. Of course, there was no going back - time only moved forward - but people could change.

For worse.

And for better.

It wasn't easy. The world was complicated. Life was hard. And so often, living hurt.

So make it worth the pain.”
― Victoria Schwab, Our Dark Duet

“Not all stories speak to all listeners, but all listeners can find a story that does, somewhere, sometime. In one form or another.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“There's a big difference between can't and won't.”
― Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song

“Everyone wants the stars. Everyone wishes to grasp that which exists out of reach. To hold the extraordinary in their hands and keep the remarkable in their pockets.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“(...)people can be going through stuff... and you just have no idea.”
― Alice Oseman, Heartstopper: Volume Four

“When you are who they expect you to be, they never look too closely. If you're furious, let it be fuel.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Gilded Wolves

“I mean, most people want to escape. Get out of their heads. Out of their lives. Stories are the easiest way to do that.”
― Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song

“You should know the difference between secrets and lies.”
― Victoria Aveyard, Red Queen

“History is a myth shaped by the tongues of conquerors.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Gilded Wolves

“Nothing is all good or all bad,” she says. “Life is so much messier than that.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“To look powerful is to be powerful.”
― Victoria Aveyard, Red Queen

“Revenge is sweet, but ice cream is sweeter.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“No one is born evil, just like no one is born alone. They become that way, through choice and circumstance.”
― Victoria Aveyard, Glass Sword

“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“That’s what he told himself, over and over and over until he believed it, because truth wasn’t the same thing as fact. It was personal.”
― Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song

“Plenty of humans are monstrous, and plenty of monsters know how to play at being human.”
― Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song

“Every time I thought I’d worked out what I really enjoyed, I started to second-guess myself. Maybe I just didn’t enjoy anything anymore.”
― Alice Oseman, Radio Silence

“Those who know what it's like in the dark will do anything to stay in the light.”
― Victoria Aveyard, King's Cage