Kusu > Kusu's Quotes

“In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them.
Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness.
Her raven boys.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“I am being perfectly fucking civil.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“And Ronan was everything that was left: molten eyes and a smile made for war.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“A secret is a strange thing.

There are three kinds of secrets. One is the sort everyone knows about, the sort you need at least two people for. One to keep it. One to never know. The second is a harder kind of secret: one you keep from yourself. Every day, thousands of confessions are kept from their would-be confessors, none of these people knowing that their never-admitted secrets all boil down to the same three words: I am afraid.

And then there is the third kind of secret, the most hidden kind. A secret no one knows about. Perhaps it was known once, but was taken to the grave. Or maybe it is a useless mystery, arcane and lonely, unfound because no one ever looked for it.

Sometimes, some rare times, a secret stays undiscovered because it is something too big for the mind to hold. It is too strange, too vast, too terrifying to contemplate.

All of us have secrets in our lives. We’re keepers or keptfrom, players or played. Secrets and cockroaches — that’s what will be left at the end of it all.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Ronan's bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey first met him.

"Hold on," Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: "Why would he be?"

"No reason. Just no reason." Ronan slammed his door.

Gansey asked Adam, "Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?"

Adam's response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window!"

Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead!”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Want and need were words that got eaten smaller and smaller: Freedom, autonomy, a perennial bank balance, a stainless-steel condo in a dustless city, a silky black car, to make out with Blue, eight hours of sleep, a cell phone, a bed, to kiss Blue just once, a blister-less heel, bacon for breakfast, to hold Blue's hand, one hour of sleep, toilet paper, deodorant, a soda, a minute to close his eyes.

What do you want, Adam?

To feel awake when my eyes are open.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“You really didn't see the sadness or the longing unless you already knew it was there. But that was the trick, wasn't it? Everyone had their disappointment and their baggage; only, some people carried it in their inside pockets and not on their backs.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“So what you're saying is you can't explain it."
"I did explain it."
"No, you used nouns and verbs together in a pleasing but illogical format.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“He hadn't realized yet that Gansey could persuade even the sun to pause and give him the time.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Reality's what other people dream for you.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Sometimes Ronan thought Adam was so used to the right way being painful that he doubted any path that didn’t come with agony.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“When Ronan thought of Gansey, he thought of moving into Monmouth Manufacturing, of nights spent in companionable insomnia, of a summer searching for a king, of Gansey asking the Gray Man for his life. Brothers.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Arbores loqui latine. The trees speak Latin.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Calla readjusted, wrapping the silk around her other thigh instead. "Which one's he again? The pretty one?"
Blue and Gansey exchanged a look. Blue's look said, I'm so, so sorry. Gansey's said, Am I the pretty one?”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“It was a sort of ferocious, quiet beauty, the sort that wouldn't let you admire it. The sort of beauty that always hurt.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Flustered, she replied, "You're not my - my - grandmother, or something."

"You'd talk about this with your grandmother? I can't possibly imagine discussing my dating life with mine. She's a lovely woman, I suppose. If you like them bald and racist.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“It could kill you," Maura said.
Then there was the awkward moment that arrives when two thirds of the people in the room know that the other third is supposed to die in fewer than nine months, and the person who is meant to die is not one of the ones in the know.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Ronan," Noah said, "I have a super bad feeling."
"It's called being dead," Ronan replied.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Ronan's smile was sharp and hooked as one of the creature's claws. "'A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer's hand'."

"I can't believe Noah didn't stick around to help."

"Sure you can. Never trust the dead.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Tears don't become us."
"What becomes us?"
"Action.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“He said, “I know somebody you could kiss.”
“Who?” She realized his eyes were amused. “Oh, wait.”
He shrugged. He was maybe the only person Blue knew who could preserve the integrity of a shrug while lying down. “It’s not like you’re going to kill me. I mean, if you were curious.”
She hadn’t thought she was curious. It hadn’t been an option, after all. Not being able to kiss someone was a lot like being poor. She tried not to dwell on the things she couldn’t have.
But now—
“Okay,” she said.
“What?”
“I said okay.”
He blushed. Or rather, because he was dead, he became normal colored. “Uh.” He propped himself on an elbow. “Well.” She unburied her face from the pillow. “Just, like—”
He leaned toward her. Blue felt a thrill for a half a second. No, more like a quarter second. Because after that she felt the too-firm pucker of his tense lips. His mouth mashed her lips until it met teeth. The entire thing was at once slimy and ticklish and hilarious.
They both gasped an embarrassed laugh. Noah said, “Bah!” Blue considered wiping her mouth, but felt that would be rude. It was all fairly underwhelming.
She said, “Well.”
“Wait,” Noah replied, “waitwaitwait.” He pulled one of Blue’s hairs out of his mouth. “I wasn’t ready.”
He shook out his hands as if Blue’s lips were a sporting event and cramping was a very real possibility.
“Go,” Blue said.
This time they only got within a breath of each other’s lips when they both began to laugh. She closed the distance and was rewarded with another kiss that felt a lot like kissing a dishwasher.
“I’m doing something wrong?” she suggested.
“Sometimes it’s better with tongue,” he replied dubiously.
They regarded each other.
Blue squinted, “Are you sure you’ve done this before?”
“Hey!” he protested. “It’s weird for me, ‘cause it’s you.”
“Well, it’s weird for me because it’s you.”
“We can stop.”
“Maybe we should.”
Noah pushed himself up farther on his elbow and gazed at the ceiling vaguely. Finally, he dropped his eyes back to her. “You’ve seen, like, movies. Of kisses, right? Your lips need to be, like, wanting to be kissed.”
Blue touched her mouth. “What are they doing now?”
“Like, bracing themselves.”
She pursed and unpursed her lips. She saw his point.
“So imagine one of those,” Noah suggested.
She sighed and sifted through her memories until she found one that would do. It wasn’t a movie kiss, however. It was the kiss the dreaming tree had showed her in Cabeswater. Her first and only kiss with Gansey, right before he died. She thought about his nice mouth when he smiled. About his pleasant eyes when he laughed. She closed her eyes.
Placing an elbow on the other side of her head, Noah leaned close and kissed her once more. This time, it was more of a thought than a feeling, a soft heat that began at her mouth and unfurled through the rest of her. One of his cold hands slid behind her neck and he kissed her again, lips parted. It was not just a touch, an action. It was a simplification of both of them: They were no longer Noah Czerny and Blue Sargent. They were now just him and her. Not even that. They were only the time that they held between them.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Life won't just happen to you boy, he said. You have to happen to it.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“The library knows its own mind,” old Master Hyrrokkin told him, leading him back up the secret stairs. “When it steals a boy, we let it keep him.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“What's the point of being old if you can't beleaguer the young with your vast stores of wisdom?

And what's the point of being young if you can't ignore all advice?”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“Don't look at me like that," said Ruza.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm a beautiful book you're about to open and plunder with your greedy mad eyes."

Lazlo laughed. "Greedy mad eyes? Plunder? Are you afraid of me, Ruza?"

Ruza looked suddenly steely. "Do you know, Strange, that to ask a Tizerkane if he fears you is to challenge him to single comabt?"

"Well then," said Lazlo, who knew better than to believe anything Ruza said. "I'm glad I only said it to you and not one of the fearsome warriors like Azareen or Tzara."

"Unkind," said Ruza, wounded. His face crumpled. He pretended to weep. "I am fearsome," he insisted "I am."

"There, there," consoled Lazlo. "You're a very fierce warrior. Don't cry. You're terrifying."

"Really?" asked Ruza in a pitiful little hopeful voice. "You're not just saying that?"

"You two idiots," said Azareen, and Lazlo felt a curious twinge of pride, to be called an idiot by her, with what might have been the tiniest edge of fondness.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“You needn't trouble yourself. He's only a librarian.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“I think you’re a fairy tale. I think you’re magical, and brave, and exquisite. And . . .” His voice grew bashful. Only in a dream could he be so bold and speak such words. “I hope you’ll let me be in your story.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“the circle of women coming together to celebrate being alive—and being a woman, which is a magic all its own.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“None of us became monks to be nursemaids.” To which the child Lazlo replied, with fire in his soul, “And none of us became children to be orphans.” But”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“Forbid a man something and he craves it like his soul’s salvation”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer