Lay > Lay's Quotes

“Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what's inside you? That's steel. It's brave and unbreakable. And it doesn't need fixing.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things—if love can ever be called that.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“He watches her the way Harshaw watches fire. Like he’ll never have enough of her. Like he’s trying to capture what he can before she’s gone.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“It’s a vow that if I can’t be anything else to you, at least I can be a weapon in your hand.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“You are all I’ve ever wanted,” he said. “You are the whole of my heart.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“I would have been different too, without you. Weaker, reckless.” He smiled slightly. “Afraid of the dark.” He brushed the tears from my cheeks. I wasn’t sure when they’d started. “But no matter who or what I was, I would have been yours.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“What do you want, Mal?" The room seemed very quiet.
"Don't ask me that."
"Why not?"
"Because it can't be."
"I want to hear it anyway."
He blew out a long breath. "Say goodnight. Tell me to leave, Alina."
"No."
"You need an army. You need a crown."
"I do."
He laughed then. "I know I'm supposed to say something noble--I want a united Ravka free from the Fold. I want the Darkling in the ground, where he can never hurt you or anyone else again." He gave a rueful shake of his head. "But I guess I'm the same selfish ass I've always been. For all my talk of vows and honor, what I really want is to put you up against that wall and kiss you until you forget you ever knew another man's name. So tell me to go, Alina. Because I can't give you a title or an army or any of the things you need.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“When evening fell the boy would bring the girl a glass of tea, a slice of lemon cake, an apple blossom floating in a blue cup. He would kiss her neck and whisper new names in her ear: beauty, beloved, cherished, my heart.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“Idiot.”
“That fact is well established and adds nothing to the plot.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“I wasn't afraid of you, Alina. I was afraid of losing you. That girl you were becoming didn't need me anymore, but she's who you were always meant to be."
"Power hungry? Ruthless?"
"Strong." He looked away. "Luminous. And maybe a little ruthless too. That's what it takes to rule. Ravka is broken, Alina. I think it always has been. The girl I saw in the chapel could change that.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“You move forward, and when you falter, you get up. And when you can't, you let us carry you. You let me carry you.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“It's a promise to be better than I was. It's a vow that if I can't be anything else to you, at least I can be a weapon in your hand. And I guess it's a reminder that wanting and deserving aren't the same thing.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“- I have principles.
- That means "If i can be difficult, I will".”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“They wanted a Grisha queen. Mal wanted a commoner queen. And what did I want? Peace for Ravka. A chance to sleep easy in my bed without fear. An end to the guilt and dread that I woke to every morning. There were old wants too, to be loved for who I was, not what I could do, to lie in a meadow with a boy’s arms around me and watch the wind move the clouds.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“But no matter who or what I was, I would have been yours.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“I just know there’s no way to live without pain—no matter how long or short your life is. People let you down. You get hurt and do damage in return.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“She’s worth it. And one day maybe she’ll let me chase her into a chapel.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“Going to miss this," he said as he kissed my cheeks, my jaw, my eyelids. "The way you taste." He set his lips to the hollow beneath my ear. "The way you smell." His hands slid up my back. "The way you feel." My breath hitched as his hips settled against mine.
Then he drew back, searching my eyes. "I wanted more for you," he said. "A white veil in your hair. Vows we could keep.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“Good luck, Oretsev. Find the firebird, and when this is over, I'll see you well rewarded. A farmhouse in Udova. A dacha near the city. Whatever you want."

"I don't need any of that. Just..." He dropped Nikolai's hand and looked away. "Deserve her.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“Maybe that brought us together, but it didn't make us who we are. It didn't make you the girl who could get me to laugh when I had nothing. It sure as hell didn't make me the idiot who took that for granted. Whatever there is between us, we forged it. It belongs to us.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“I felt as I always had in his arms—complete, like I was home.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“Grief had its own life, took its own sustenance.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“I was just a girl again, but this girl didn’t owe her strength to fate or chance or a grand destiny. I’d been born with my power; the rest I’d earned.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“Did you ever notice me at Keramzin?"
He was silent for a long moment, and when I glanced at him, he was looking up at the glass ceiling. He'd gone red as a beet.
"Mal?"
He cleared his throat, crossed his arms. "As a matter of fact, I did. I had some very ... distracting thoughts about you."
"You did?" I sputtered.
"And I felt guilty for every one of them. You were supposed to be my best friend, not ..." He shrugged and turned even redder.
"Idiot.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“I missed you every hour. And you know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. I'd catch myself just walking around to find you, not for any reason, just out of habit, because I'd seen something that I wanted to tell you about or because I wanted to hear your voice. And then I'd realize that you weren't there anymore, and every time, every single time, it was like having the wind knocked out of me. I've risked my life for you. I've walked half the length of Ravka for you, and I'd do it again and again and again just to be with you, just to starve with you and freeze with you and hear you complain about hard cheese every day. So don't tell me why we don't belong together," he said fiercely.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“The water hears and understands. The ice does not forgive.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“I don't care if you danced naked on the roof of the Little Palace with him. I love you, Alina, even the part of you that loved him.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone