Melissa Schubert > Melissa's Quotes

“How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“She had never been afraid of the dark, but then she had never known a dark like this before.”
― Alan Brennert, Moloka'i

“We have a name for your disease. We call it a hyper-aesthetic one. You have been encouraged to over-indulge yourself in literature; and have inflamed your organs of fancy.”
― Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

“There is no better teacher of rough necessity than bad luck, and you will have great use of me, I promise.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Words, hmm? They seduce us in darkness, and the mind clothes and fashions them to fashions of its own.”
― Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

“Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.”
― Alan Brennert, Moloka'i

“If you want to know who is responsible for anything, ask who benefits from it.”
― Oliver Pötzsch, The Hangman's Daughter

“I will age for you, if it pleases you. I will match you, wrinkle for wrinkle, grey hair for grey hair, crease for crease, wrinkle for wrinkle. You will be so beautiful when you are old.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Because you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right.”
― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty

“One can never go back. One always has to move forward.”
― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty

“But forgiveness...I'll hold on to that fragile slice of hope and keep it close, remembering that in each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice.”
― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty

“The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“And there are really never endings, happy or otherwise.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“That's right,' she told the girls. 'You are bored. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it's boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it's on you to make life interesting, the better off you'll be.”
― Maria Semple, Where'd You Go, Bernadette

“Bad luck relies absolutely on perfect timing”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“In his own country, Death can be kind.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“After love, no one is what they were before.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“I will not let her speak because I love her, and when you love someone you do not make them tell war stories.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“It's a curious, wanting thing.”
― Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

“I felt that thread that had come between us, tugging, tugging at my heart - so hard, it hurt me. A hundred times I almost rose, almost went in to her; a hundred times I thought, Go to her! Why are you waiting? Go back to her side! But every time, I thought of what would happen if I did. I knew that I couldn't lie beside her, without wanting to touch her. I couldn't have felt her breath upon my mouth, without wanting to kiss her. And I couldn't have kissed her, without wanting to save her.”
― Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Isabel sends her brother a look that could boil him in oil if she had that particular paranormal talent. A thought hits me: maybe she has. It will be fun to find out.”
― Marianne Curley, The Named

“You are an ember in the ashes, Elias Veturius. You will spark and burn, ravage and destroy. You cannot change it. You cannot stop it.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a single moment comes along to define every second that comes after. Such moments are tests of courage, of strength.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“I’m not stupid, nor a liar,” I said, “and if I can’t do any good, I can at least do something”
― Naomi Novik, Uprooted

“What an unequaled gift for disaster you have.”
― Naomi Novik, Uprooted

“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

“When we are in love, we are both completely in danger and completely saved.”
― Ava Dellaira, Love Letters to the Dead