Maria > Maria's Quotes

“He thumbed quickly through the ledger and said, “When people see a cripple walking down the street, leaning on his cane, what do they feel?” Wylan looked away. People always did when Kaz talked about his limp, as if he didn’t know what he was or how the world saw him. “They feel pity. Now, what do they think when they see me coming?”
Wylan’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “They think they’d better cross the street.”
Kaz tossed the ledger back in the safe. “You’re not weak because you can’t read. You’re weak because you’re afraid of people seeing your weakness. You’re letting shame decide who you are.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Nice things don’t happen in storybooks,” Taryn says. “Or when they do happen, something bad happens next. Because otherwise the story would be boring, and no one would read it.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“It’s Yiddish. Like…Ikh hob dikh lib.” Evie narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “What does that mean?” Sam smiled. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“There was such fear in the world. But love was everywhere if you looked. It was the best thing about humans. That they could stare into the abyss and still open up their hearts. A spit in the eye to fear.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“People want to be safe, not free.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“The head is too wise. The heart is all fire.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I wanted to hear his window open, hear his espadrilles on the balcony, and then the sound of my own window, which was never locked, being pushed open as he'd step into my room after everyone had gone to bed, slip under my covers, undress me without asking, and after making me want him more than I thought I could ever want another living soul, gently, softly, and, with the kindness one Jew extends to another, work his way into my body, gently and softly, after heeding the words I'd been rehearsing for days now, Please, don't hurt me, which meant, Hurt me all you want.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“He thought to himself that there could be no greater torture in the world than at the same time to love and to contemn.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

“Lost in Hell,-Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, "My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Poems

“I mean, this man was not /Voltaire/ we killed.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Put out my eyes, and I can see you still;
slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
and without any feet can go to you;
and tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
and grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
and if you set this brain of mine afire,
upon my blood I then will carry you.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems from the Book of Hours

“Meeting you was a disaster.”
She raised a brow. “Thank you.”
Djel, he was terrible at this. He stumbled on, trying to make her understand. “But I am grateful for that disaster. I needed a catastrophe to shake me from the life I knew. You were an earthquake, a landslide.”
“I,” she said, planting a hand on her hip, “am a delicate flower.”
“You aren’t a flower, you’re every blossom in the wood blooming at once. You are a tidal wave. You’re a stampede. You are overwhelming.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Anyway, at some point in a woman’s life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls

“People will tell you not to waste your youth having too much fun, but they’re wrong. Youth is an irreplaceable treasure, and the only respectable thing to do with irreplaceable treasure is to waste it. So do the right thing with your youth, Vivian—squander it.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls

“Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Being the only female in what was basically a boys’ club must have been difficult for her. Miraculously, she didn’t compensate by becoming hard or quarrelsome. She was still a girl, a slight lovely girl who lay in bed and ate chocolates, a girl whose hair smelled like hyacinth and whose scarves fluttered jauntily in the breeze. But strange and marvelous as she was, a wisp of silk in a forest of black wool, she was not the fragile creature one would have her seem.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“They said she was cruel because she’d been harmed in the past. They claimed she was cold because she just hadn’t met the right fellow to warm her. Anything to soften her edges and sweeten her disposition—and what was the fun in that? Zoya’s company was like strong drink. Bracing— and best to abstain if you couldn’t handle the kick.”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

“You have corrupted my imagination and inflamed my blood...”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs

“A golden prince was easy to love if you did not have to watch him picking wings off flies.”
― S.U. Pacat, Captive Prince

“This dangerous girl. This captivating beauty.
This destroyer of worlds and creator of wonder.”
― Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn

“It’s a fitting punishment for a monster. to want something so much—to hold it in your arms — and know beyond a doubt you will never deserve it.”
― Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn

“And how will you know when you've found the elusive someone?
I suspect she will be like air. Like knowing how to breathe.”
― Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn

“I could see her daring a cobra to strike, swearing her venom would kill first.”
― Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn

“For most of my life i have been adored by fools and hated by people of good sense, and they all make up stories about me in which I am either a saint or a whore. But I am above these judgments, I am a Queen.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Queen

“I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. "No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“And when in doubt, be extreme.”
― Genesis P-Orridge