Taya Lindquist > Taya's Quotes

“It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”
― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Emma swallowed. She was remembering Julian, two years ago, standing in the overlapping circles of fire where the parabatai ritual was performed. The look on his face as they each stepped into the central circle and the fire rose up around them, and he unbuttoned his shirt to let her touch the stele to his skin and carve the rune that would bind them together for their whole lives. She knew if she just reached out now, she could touch it, touch the rune cut into his shoulder, the rune she had put there …”
― Cassandra Clare, Lady Midnight

“Some people steal to stay alive, and some steal to feel alive. Simple as that.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic

“I'd rather die on an adventure than live standing still.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic

“I'm not going to die," she said. "Not till I've seen it."
"Seen what?"
Her smile widened. "Everything.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic

“She bent most of the rules. She broke the rest.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Gathering of Shadows

“Love and loss,” he said, “are like a ship and the sea. They rise together. The more we love, the more we have to lose. But the only way to avoid loss is to avoid love. And what a sad world that would be.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light

“But these words people threw around - humans, monsters, heroes, villains - to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”
― V.E. Schwab, Vicious

“Everyone thinks I have a death wish, you know? But I don't want to die - dying is easy. No, I want to live, but getting close to death is the only way to feel alive. And once you do, it makes you realize that everything you were actually doing before wasn't actually living. It was just making do. Call me crazy, but I think we do the best living when the stakes are high.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Gathering of Shadows

“Life isn't made of choices, it's made of trades. Some are good, some are bad, but they all have a cost.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light

“Look, everyone talks about the unknown like it's some big scary thing, but it's the familiar that's always bothered me. It's heavy, builds up around you like rocks, until it's walls and a ceiling and a cell.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Gathering of Shadows

“A life worth having is a life worth taking.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic

“There were a hundred shades between a truth and lie, and she knew them all.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The real world is where the monsters are.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters.”
― Stephen King, The Shining

“There are no heroes...in life, the monsters win.”
― George R. R. Martin

“But perhaps the monsters needed to look out for each other every now and then.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Queen of Shadows

“Sometimes mortals can be more horrible than monsters.”
― Rick Riordan

“Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?"
"Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?"
"Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart.”
― Rick Riordan, The Titan’s Curse

“Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong.”
― Rick Riordan, The Battle of the Labyrinth

“It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Humans see what they want to see.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“We're so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody's going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven't learned how to care for one another. We're gonna save the fuckin' planet? . . . And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked! Compared with the people, the planet is doin' great. It's been here over four billion years . . . The planet isn't goin' anywhere, folks. We are! We're goin' away. Pack your shit, we're goin' away. And we won't leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we'll be gone. Another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake.”
― George Carlin

“But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.”
― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections