Ava Reid Quotes

“I wanted you, too. For so long. It was terrible. Sometimes I could barely eat- sorry, I know that sounds like the strangest thing. But for days I didn't feel hungry at all. I was... occupied. You took away all the other wanting from me.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“The only reason anything matters is because it ends,' he says. 'I wouldn't hold you so tightly now if I thought we could be here forever.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“The trick of any good lie is just finding an audience who wants to believe it.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“-the ephemerality of things is what gives them meaning. That things are only beautiful because they don't last. Full moons, flowers in bloom, you. But if any of that is evidence, I think it must be true.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“I just wanted to tell you,' he said, 'when this is over, I'll take care of you, too. If you want me to.'

Effy closed her eyes, and even the blackness there behind them was bright with false stars. 'I do.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“It's terrifying,' Effy confessed.

'Most beautiful things are,' Ianto said.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“Some things are constant,' Effy said. 'They must be. I think that's why so many poets write about the sea.'

'Maybe the idea of constancy is what's actually terrifying. Fear of the sea is fear of the eternal- because how can you win against something so enduring. So vast and so deep.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“But I think magic is just the truth that people believe. For most people, that truth is whatever helps them sleep at night, whatever makes their lives easier. It's different from objective truth.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“That was why something might become a ghost- its life had meant so little, no one had even mourned it.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“Fear and pain could be endured if you knew that eventually, they would end.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“I meant what I told you before,' he said softly. 'I want to take care of you. When we get back to Caer-Isel, the horrible professors and the horrible students... I never want you to have to weather it all alone again.'

Effy's throat tightened. 'They're cruel. They'll be cruel to you, too.'

'It doesn't matter. I'm not afraid to care about you, Effy.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“What wisdom do you want from a death-marked girl? I can say only this: In the end I learned that the water was in me. It was a ghost that could not be exorcised. But a guest, even uninvited, must be attended to. You make up a bed for them. You pour from your best bottle of wine. If you can learn to love that which despises you, that which terrifies you, you can dance on the shore and play in the waves again, like you did when you were young. Before the ocean is friend or foe, it simply is. And so are you.

-FROM ANGHARAD MYRDDIN (NEE BLACKMAR), 191 AD”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“The truth was very costly at times. How terrible, to navigate the world without a story to comfort you.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“You should know by now that I'm not a fan of doing things just because that's the way they've always been done.' Preston set his jaw. 'Or preserving things just because they've always been preserved.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“I don't like lying,' Preston folded his arms over his chest. 'I know it's not realistic, but the world would be a better place if everyone just told the truth.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“I find you very charming underneath all the smugness.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“You don't see yourself very clearly, Effy.' Preston shifted in his seat so that they were facing one another. 'Challenging me isn't pestering. I'm not always right. Sometimes I deserve to be challenged. And changing your mind isn't foolish. It just means you've learned something new. Everyone changes their mind sometimes, as they should, or else they're just, I don't know, stubborn and ignorant. Moving water is healthy; stagnant water is sickly. Tainted.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“Ret eo anavezout a-rook karout. 'One must know before loving.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“She had fashioned herself into an escape artist, a magician whose only trick was vanishing. Permanence was dangerous. It had always felt like a trap.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“Well, everything that's ancient must decay.' 'You can't fight time,' I must have said. And Emrys snapped back, 'It's not time I'm worried about, darling girl. The only enemy is the sea.' ...”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“I'll fight for you, Effy. I promise.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“Preston?' she said. Her voice sounded strange: small, wondering. Almost hopeful.

He glanced up. 'Yes?'

'Thank you.'

'For what?'

'For caring whether or not I die of sepsis,' she said.

'Oh,' he said. 'Well, you can never be too cautious. People have died in much more banal ways.'

'Thank you for giving me the chance to die of something interesting, then.'

'As long as you don't throw yourself out of any more moving cars.' There was a slight quiver on the left side of his mouth, as if he were trying not to smile. Behind his glasses, his eyes were solemn. 'There are far more interesting deaths out there.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“Just because it's an archaic belief doesn't mean it's not true.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“The truth was an ugly, dangerous thing.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“I know you well enough. You aren't terrible. You're nothing close.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“The small things were never what ruined you. If she were kneeling and examining the shells on the beach, she wouldn't see the titanic wave raising over her head.

What sort of things would she wonder about, if she weren't always waiting for the next wave to come?”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“You don't understand,' she said. 'You weren't there in that car with Ianto. When I jumped out I wasn't doing it to be reckless- I was saving myself. What you think of as recklessness, I think of as survival. Sometimes it's not very pretty. Skinned knees and a bloody nose and whatever else. You told me I don't see myself clearly, but I do. I know what I am. I know that, deep down, there's not much else to me but surviving. Everything I think, everything I do, everything I am- it's just one escape act after another.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“I wish I could see you more clearly right now. But even blurry you're so beautiful.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“I wish we could have stayed there,' Preston whispered into her hair. 'Forever- impossibly. I'm sorry for saying all that inane nonsense about things only mattering because they don't last. That was hubris, I think. I don't want to die here.' I want-”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“I love you.' Effy pressed her forehead against his.

'I love you,' Preston said, voice wavering. 'I'm so sorry it's ruined us both.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning