Caroline Winter > Caroline's Quotes

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“Power brings a man many luxuries, but a clean pair of hands is seldom among them.”
― Robert Harris, Imperium

“Tess, Tess, Tessa.

Was there ever a more beautiful sound than your name? To speak it aloud makes my heart ring like a bell. Strange to imagine that, isn’t it – a heart ringing – but when you touch me that is what it is like: as if my heart is ringing in my chest and the sound shivers down my veins and splinters my bones with joy.

Why have I written these words in this book? Because of you. You taught me to love this book where I had scorned it. When I read it for the second time, with an open mind and heart, I felt the most complete despair and envy of Sydney Carton. Yes, Sydney, for even if he had no hope that the woman he loved would love him, at least he could tell her of his love. At least he could do something to prove his passion, even if that thing was to die.

I would have chosen death for a chance to tell you the truth, Tessa, if I could have been assured that death would be my own. And that is why I envied Sydney, for he was free.

And now at last I am free, and I can finally tell you, without fear of danger to you, all that I feel in my heart.

You are not the last dream of my soul.

You are the first dream, the only dream I ever was unable to stop myself from dreaming. You are the first dream of my soul, and from that dream I hope will come all other dreams, a lifetime’s worth.

With hope at least,
Will Herondale”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Jem is nothing but goodness. That he struck you last night only shows how capable you are of driving even saints to madness.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“The marks humans leave are too often scars.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Tessa poked at her left incisor with her tongue. It was flat again, an ordinary tooth. "I don't understand what makes them come out like that!"
"Hunger," said Jem. "Were you think about blood?"
"No."
"Were you thinking about eating me?" Will inquired.
"No!"
"No one would blame you," said Jem. "He's very annoying.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“He’s very pretty. For a human.”
“He’s very broken,” said Magnus. “Like a lovely vase that someone has smashed. Only luck and skill can put it back together the way it was before.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“I've got the Mark of Cain," said Simon. "That means nothing can kill me, right?"
"You can kill yourself," Magnus said, somewhat unhelpfully. "As far as I know, inanimate objects can accidentally kill you. So if you were planning on teaching yourself the lambada on a greased platform over a pit full of knives, I wouldn't."
"There goes my Saturday.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls

“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“When Will truly wants something,” said Jem, quietly, “when he feels something — he can break your heart.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“You promise." "I swear on the angel. The hell with that. I swear on us." "Why us?" "Because there isn't anything I believe in more.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“I have a feeling you're right, Sherwin.'
'Simon. My name is Simon.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls

“And I would do it again. I love you, Jace Wayland-Herondale-Lightwood-whatever you want to call yourself. I don't care. I love you and I will always love you, and pretending it could be any other ways is just a waste of time.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“Even the Inquisitor's eyebrows shot up when Magnus strode through the gate. The High Warlock was wearing black leather pants, a belt with a buckle in the shape of a jeweled M, and a cobalt-blue Prussian military jacket open over a white lace shirt. He shimmered with layers of glitter. His gaze rested for a moment on Alec's face with amusement and a hint of something else before moving on to Jace, prone on the ground.
"Is he dead?" he inquired. "He looks dead."
"No," snapped Maryse. "He's not dead."
"Have you checked? I could kick him if you want." Magnus moved toward Jace.
"Stop that!" the Inquisitor snapped, sounding like Clary's third-grade teacher demanding that she stop doodling on her desk with a marker.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“So you're a Shadowhunter,' Nate said. 'De Quincey told me that you lot were monsters.'
'Was that before or after he tried to eat you?' Will inquired.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent

“To my son,
If you are reading this letter, then I am dead.

I expect to die, if not today, then soon. I expect that Valentine will kill me. For all his talk of loving me, for all his desire for a right-hand man, he knows that I have doubts. And he is a man who cannot abide doubt.
I do not know how you will be brought up. I do not know what they will tell you about me. I do not even know who will give you this letter. I entrust it to Amatis, but I cannot see what the future holds. All I know is that this is my chance to give you an accounting of a man you may well hate.
There are three things you must know about me. The first is that I have been a coward. Throughout my life I have made the wrong decisions, because they were easy, because they were self-serving, because I was afraid.
At first I believed in Valentine’s cause. I turned from my family and to the Circle because I fancied myself better than Downworlders and the Clave and my suffocating parents. My anger against them was a tool Valentine bent to his will as he bent and changed so many of us. When he drove Lucian away I did not question it but gladly took his place for my own. When he demanded I leave Amatis, the woman I love, and marry Celine, a girl I did not know, I did as he asked, to my everlasting shame.
I cannot imagine what you might be thinking now, knowing that the girl I speak of was your mother. The second thing you must know is this. Do not blame Celine for any of this, whatever you do. It was not her fault, but mine. Your mother was an innocent from a family that brutalized her. She wanted only kindess, to feel safe and loved. And though my heart had been given already, I loved her, in my fashion, just as in my heart, I was faithful to Amatis. Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae. I wonder if you love Latin as I do, and poetry. I wonder who has taught you.
The third and hardest thing you must know is that I was prepared to hate you. The son of myslef and the child-bride I barely knew, you seemed to be the culmination of all the wrong decisions I had made, all the small compromises that led to my dissolution. Yet as you grew inside my mind, as you grew in the world, a blameless innocent, I began to realize that I did not hate you. It is the nature of parents to see their own image in their children, and it was myself I hated, not you.
For there is only one thing I wan from you, my son — one thing from you, and of you. I want you to be a better man than I was. Let no one else tell you who you are or should be. Love where you wish to. Believe as you wish to. Take freedom as your right.
I don’t ask that you save the world, my boy, my child, the only child I will ever have. I ask only that you be happy.

Stephen”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls

“So it's true what they say about warlocks, then?"
Alec gave him a very unpleasant look. "What's true?"
"Alexander," said Magnus coldly, and Clary met Simon's eyes across the table. Hers were wide, green, and full of an expression that said Uh-oh. "You can't be rude to everyone who talks to me."
Alec made a wide, sweeping gesture. "And why not? Cramping your style, am I? I mean, maybe you were hoping to flirt with werewolf boy here. He's pretty attractive, if you like the messy-haired, broad-shouldered, chiseled-good-looks type."
"Hey, now," said Jordan mildly.
Magnus put his head in his hands.
"Or there are plenty of pretty girls here, since apparently your taste goes both ways, Is there anything you aren't into?"
"Mermaids," said Magnus into his fingers. "They always smell like seaweed."
"It's not funny," Alec said savagely, and kicking back his chair, he got up from the table and stalked off into the crowd.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“I’ll tell them,” she said. “I’ll tell them it was my fault.”

He looked at her, gold eyes incredulous. “You can’t lie to them.”

“I’m not. I brought you back,” she said. “You were dead, and I brought you back. I upset the balance, not you. I opened the door for Lilith and her stupid ritual. I could have asked for anything, and I asked for you.” She tightened her grip on his shirt, her fingers white with cold and pressure. “And I would do it again. I love you, Jace Wayland—Herondale—Lightwood—whatever you want to call yourself. I don’t care. I love you and I wil always love you, and pretending it could be any other way is just a waste of time.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“We shouldn’t,” protested Isabelle. “The Clave has a plan.”

“The Clave has the collective intelligence of a pineapple,” said Jace.

Alec blinked up at them. “Jace is right.”

Isabelle turned on her brother. “What do you know? You weren’t even paying attention.”

“I was,” Alec said, injured. “I said Jace was right.”

“Yeah, but there’s like a 90% chance of me being right most of the time, so that’s not proof you were listening,” said Jace. “That’s just a good guess.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“Magnus rolled onto his back and put his feet up on the arm of the sofa. “What do you care if Alec’s miserable?”

“What do I care?” Jace said, so loudly that Chairman Meow rolled off the couch and landed on the floor. “Of course I care about Alec; he’s my best friend, my parabatai. And he’s unhappy. And so are you, by the look of things. Takeout containers everywhere, you haven’t done anything to fix up the place, your cat looks dead —“

“He’s not dead.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“The Inquisitor stared at him as if he were a talking cockroach. "Do you know about the cuckoo bird, Jonathan Morgenstern?"
Jace wondered if perhaps being the Inquisitor—it couldn't be a pleasant job—had left Imogen Herondale a little unhinged.
"The cuckoo bird," she said. "You see, cuckoos are parasites. They lay their eggs in other birds' nests. When the egg hatches, the baby cuckoo pushes the other baby birds out of the nest. The poor parent birds work themselves to death trying to find enough food to feed the enormous cuckoo child who has murdered their babies and taken their places."
"Enormous?" said Jace. "Did you just call me fat?"
"It was an analogy."
"I am not fat.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“No killing,” Jordan said. “We’re trying to make you feel peaceful, so you don’t go up in flames. Blood, killing, war, those are all non-peaceful things. Isn’t there anything else you like? Rainforests? Chirping birds?”

“Weapons,” said Jace. “I like weapons.”

“I’m starting to think we have a problematic issue of personal philosophy here.”

Jace leaned forward, his palms flat on the ground. “I’m a warrior,” he said. “I was brought up as a warrior. I didn’t have toys, I had weapons. I slept with a wooden sword until I was five. My first books were medieval demonologies with illuminated pages. The first songs I learned were chants to banish demons. I know what brings me peace, and it isn’t sandy beaches or chirping birds in rainforests. I want a weapon in my hand and a strategy to win.”

Jordan looked at him levelly. “So you’re saying that what brings you peace … is war.”

“Now you get it.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“I don’t know why I ever helped you.”
“Because you like broken things.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“Did Brother Zachariah just steal our cat?”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“And quit baring your fangs at me. It's making me nervous."

"Good," Simon said. "if you want to know why, it's because you smell like blood."
"It's my cologne. Eau de Recent Injury." Jace raised his left hand.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass