The Folk Quotes

“The Folk do not rot the way mortals do. Sometimes their bodies grow over with lichen or bloom with mushrooms. I've heard stories about battlefields turning in to green hills.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Faeries are twilight creatures, and I have become one, too. We rise when the shadows grow long and head to our beds before the sun rises. It is well after midnight when we arrive at the great hill at the palace of Elfhame. To go inside, we must ride between two trees, an oak and a thorn, and then straight in to what appears to be the stone wall of an abandoned folly. I've done it hundreds of times, but I flinch anyway. My whole body braces, I grip the reins hard, and my eyes mash shut.

When I open them, I am inside the hill.

We ride on through a cavern, between pillars of roots, over packed earth.

Then are dozens of the Folk here, crowding around the entrance to the vast throne room, where Court is being held- long-nosed pixies with tattered wings; elegant, green-skinned ladies in long gowns with goblins holding up their trains; tricksy boggans; laughing foxkin; a boy in an owl mask and a golden headdress; an elderly woman with crowns crowding her shoulders; a gaggle of girls with wild roses in their hair; a bark-skinned boy with feathers around his neck; a group of knights all in scarab-green armour. Many I've seen before; a few I have spoken with. Too many for my eyes to drink them all in, yet I cannot look away.

I never get tired of this- of the spectacle, of the pageantry. Maybe Oriana isn't entirely wrong to worry that we might one day get caught up in it, be carried away by it, and forget to take care. I can see why humans succumb to the beautiful nightmare of the Court, why they willingly drown in it.

I know I shouldn't love it as I do, stolen as I am from the mortal world, my parents murdered. But I love it all the same.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Faerie exists beside and below mortal towns, in the shadows of mortal cities, and at their rotten, derelict, worm-eaten centres. Faeries live in hills and valleys and barrows, in alleys and abandoned mortal buildings.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I told Vee she had to go on a quest. She has to meet me all over again and do it right this time. Tell me the truth from the start. And convince me to love her.'

'Damn.' The last of my armour comes off, clanking to the floor, and I realise that her talking has distracted me enough for my breathing to return to normal. 'That is some serious fairy-tale business. A quest.'

Heather reaches out her hand to take mine. 'If she succeeds, all my memories come back. But if not, then tonight's the last time I am going to see you.'

'I hope you drink the cellars dry at the revel,' I say to her, pulling her in to a tight embrace. 'But more than that. I hope Vee is good enough to win your hand again.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“You must not hesitate," I informed her. "You must walk through like one of the Folk, who simply ignore the impossible until it ceases to be so.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands