Top 100 Holly Black Quotes
#1. He must have been handsome when he was alive and was handsome still, although made monstrous by his pallor and her awareness of what he was. His mouth looked soft, his cheekbones as sharp as blades, and his jaw curved, giving him an off-kilter beauty. His black hair a mad forest of dirty curls.
Holly Black
#2. Your mother doesn't make mistakes." I hear her blow out the smoke. "Baby, I know what I'm doing.
Holly Black
#3. Sometimes I felt like I was waiting for my life to begin and more than anything, in that moment, I wanted to force some kind of beginning. I wanted things to be different than usual. I wanted to bend reality.
Holly Black
#4. They say that nameless things change constantly - that names fix them in place like pins.
Holly Black
#5. Nobody ever really sees me the way I am, underneath everything. But she did. She does.
Holly Black
#6. Please restrain your commentary on the furniture.
Holly Black
#7. I need your help, says the tiny figure. Her voice is sad and soft and sounds like Lila's, but with an odd accent that might just be how cats sound when they talk.
Holly Black
#8. She went to all the parties and kissed all the boys, shoring up fun against despair, against the suffocating terror that loomed over her.
Holly Black
#9. You can't go around making plans that have you getting killed as a by-product. Eventually one of them is going to work.
Holly Black
#10. It's amazing how we hide from that, isn't it? How much of the violence of the universe comes from the unwillingness to say those two little words: 'I'm scared.
Holly Black
#11. I really love the idea of the poetically mad - the character that is imbued with the romantic madness. Like River from 'Firefly' or Drusilla from 'Buffy.' Someone dangerously unhinged, where you're really not sure they're going to be reliable minute-to-minute.
Holly Black
#12. He thinks of Elienad, lying beneath tables, listening to the inflections of lies. Watching the hesitations, the gestures, the tensed muscles. Learning a language the king was unaware he even spoke.
Holly Black
#13. It's not that I don't know that it's a bad idea. It's that, lately, bad ideas have a particular hold over me.
Holly Black
#14. Aidan pulled against his bonds. "They keep talking to him in a whole bunch of languages. A lot of French. Something about the Thorn of Istra. I think he's in trouble."
"Are you?" Tana asked.
"Not exactly," said Gavriel.
Holly Black
#15. I love you, you see ... and I fear I have no way to say or show it that isn't terrible, except coming here. I would kill everyone in the world for you, if you wanted ... Or not obviously
Holly Black
#16. Well fine, then. I could send you out to win my favor. Possibly on a quest involving bringing a large mug of coffee and a doughnut. Or the wholesale slaughter of all my enemies. I haven't decided which.
Holly Black
#17. We know about your brother. He called and told us himself. Said to imagine Faerieland like an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland. I told him it was more like an exclusive boarding school in hell.
Holly Black
#18. She didn't know how much she'd been hoping that he still loved her, until she felt how much it hurt to realize he didn't.
Holly Black
#19. Growing up, my mom was a painter, my best friend was a painter, my husband is a painter. For a long time I knew artists, and I didn't know any writers.
Holly Black
#20. For me the curse is a crutch, but the con is everything.
Holly Black
#21. Gavriel closed his eyes, sooty lashes brushing his cheek. "I'll stay with you."
"What? No," she said automatically. "No! That's crazy."
"I'm crazy," he reminded her.
Holly Black
#22. I haven't had a very good day. I think I might still be hung over and everyone's dead and my root beer's gone.
Holly Black
#23. It was as if whatever demon possessed them, whatever force kept their corpses from the grave, had refined them in the blaze of its power, burning away their humanity to reveal something finer.
Holly Black
#24. Your family is badass," Sam says. "They set a high bar of badassery.
Holly Black
#25. What other stuff do they teach you at federal agent school? I ask. It shouldn't bother me that he's fitting in so well. So what if he's faking it? Good for him. I guess what bothers me is him faking it better than I am.
Holly Black
#26. Cassel, she said, you want to know how to be the most charming guy anyone's ever met? Remind them of their favorite person. Everyone's favorite person is their own damn self.
Holly Black
#27. If she was going to die, she might as well die sarcastic.
Holly Black
#29. But if you didn't believe in monsters, then how were you going to be able to keep safe from them?
Holly Black
#30. Death has his favorites, like anyone. Those who are beloved of Death will not die.
Holly Black
#31. She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.
Holly Black
#32. It was so strange to be touched so gently by a creature like him- a creature who looked just like the kind of boy who you might let touch your thigh for a totally different reason.
Holly Black
#33. I'm not a fast writer, and I find the process of writing a first draft to be painful and frustrating. Usually, I start with a character, a premise, and some image that gives me a particular feeling.
Holly Black
#34. So it's not as bad as it looks?" Call ventured. "Oh, no," she told him. "It's just as bad as it looks. But I'm very, very good at my job.
Holly Black
#35. Do you know what the Turkish say about coffee? It should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
Holly Black
#36. A stray dog, I might understand," she said. "But this? You are too softhearted."
No, Mabry," Ravus said. "I am not." He looked in Val's direction. "I think she wants to die."
Maybe you can help her after all," Mabry said. "You're good at helping people die.
Holly Black
#37. Boys never believe I can beat them... But I always win in the end. - Lila
Holly Black
#38. I need you to be happy. I need one of us to be happy.
Holly Black
#39. Call's stomach felt as if it wanted to curl up inside him like a kicked puppy.
Holly Black
#40. The Lady or The Tiger,'
...
'My lady, the tiger,
Holly Black
#41. In the dream, Tana's mother loved her more than anyone or anything. More than death.
Holly Black
#42. I left mad behind a long time ago. The world it is the way it is.I can only fix my little piece of it
Holly Black
#43. And you want more holes because you think pain will distract you from all the annoying celebrating? Or because stabbing me will make you feel better?"
"Something like that." She smiled enigmatically, went into the bathroom, and came out with a wad of cotton balls and a safety pin.
Holly Black
#44. At the window of my room, I catch my reflection in the glass. Shaggy black hair. Sneer.I look like a hungry ghost, glowering in at a world I am no longer fit to be a part of.
Holly Black
#45. She should tell him no, but instead she seemed to be running toward trouble, leaving no stone unturned, no boy unkissed, no crush abandoned, and no bad idea unembraced.
Holly Black
#46. If you keep it," Daneca says, "he'll have his claws in you."
Everyone has their claws in me. Everyone.
Holly Black
#47. Jones looks like he wants to slug me, which is only subtly different from his usual way of looking at me like I'm a slug.
Holly Black
#48. She was torn between the impulse to run and the urge to curl up like a pill bug, close her eyes, tuck her head beneath her arms, and play the game of since-I-can't-see-monsters-monsters-can't-see-me.
Holly Black
#49. Please,Tana,please.' -lots of characters in The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Holly Black
#50. Writers usually don't get to pick our own covers. I know it's surprising to hear that.
Holly Black
#51. It's starting to sink in," Corny said. "I can almost look at you without wanting to bang my head against the wall.
Holly Black
#52. I survive at the edge of friends circles.
Holly Black
#53. The first boy I fell in love with didn't know I loved him, but he managed to break my heart anyway.
Holly Black
#54. It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what's left is all construct, all artifice.
Holly Black
#55. Because she remembered things that hurt more easily than anything nice.
Holly Black
#56. You are the only thing I have that is neither duty nor obligation, the only thing I chose for myself. The only thing I want.
Holly Black
#57. I guess he's used to suspicious people with crappy tempers. Or maybe I've never seemed as normal as I thought.
Holly Black
#58. FULL MOON IS IN THREE DAYS TIME. COME TO THE REVEL. NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO RHYME.
Holly Black
#59. If you don't know why you're apologizing, your apology probably sucks.
Holly Black
#60. Be careful," Aidan called from the bed. "You don't know what he might do."
"We all know what you'd do, though, don't we?
Holly Black
#61. Philip Sharpe was a soldier in God's army," says the minister. "Now he marches with the angels.
Holly Black
#62. Everyone danced
sweaty bodies packed tight, drunk with sound.
Holly Black
#63. I revise a lot while I'm drafting, often going back to the beginning again and again to revise because I've changed massive things about the story. By the time I get to the end of a first draft, I've been through the beginning lots of times.
Holly Black
#64. If we have to be cat burglars, I'm going to see what' to steal in the fridge."
We're trying to find evidence she's the poisoner. Just a thought before you start putting random things in your mouth." Ruth shrugged and walked past Val.
Holly Black
#65. Can you really cook meth in a hotel coffeepot?" - Cassel
"Sure," Jones says, looking into his cup thoughtfully.
Guess Mom was right about one thing.
Holly Black
#66. Lords and ladies who walk unseen, lords and ladies all in green, three times I stamp upon the earth..." Hazel hesitated and then gave the only reason she could think of why the Folk might grant her entry to their revel."Let me in for the sake of mirth.
Holly Black
#67. Her screams spiraled up into the night air
Holly Black
#68. Like all schools, we are always interested in learning, in research, in pushing the limits of knowledge. But we must balance that with our duty to protect the world, even from ourselves.
Holly Black
#69. I have no idea what to say to him. "The Latin Club is totally evil," I blurt.
"The Latin Club?"
I can understand why he's confused.
Holly Black
#70. After all, I'm already a murderer. No one really expects a murderer to stop killing.
Holly Black
#71. If one of the people who'd gone Cold drank human blood, the infection mutated. It killed the host and then raised them back up again, Colder than before. Cold through and through, forever and ever.
Holly Black
#72. She took a deep breath, "Last chance. Are you in need of rescuing?"
His expression turned very strange, almost as if she'd struck him, "Yes," he said finally.
Holly Black
#73. That's the spirit. Aaron hid a grin. He was already wearing his armband, just above his elbow. Somehow he managed to make it look cool. Call had tied his around his forearm and was fairly sure it looked like a bandage.
Holly Black
#74. Maybe the point of real friendship isn't that you have to repay kindness, but whatever. At least I should try. As
Holly Black
#75. I have to spring a cat out of Rumelt Animal Shelter. Think of it as a prison break."
It does the trick. He laughs. "Whose cat?"
"My cat. What do you think? That I break out the cats of strangers?"
"Let me guess, she was framed. She's innocent.
Holly Black
#76. Don't." She looks directly into my eyes. After a month of being forced to avoid her, I feel stripped bare by her gaze. "You can be as much of a charming bastard as you want, but you're never going to bullshit your way into my heart again.
Holly Black
#78. It was a vow, a piece of a chant, their scripture, something they took so seriously that saying it aloud embarrassed them.
Holly Black
#79. As he bent closer, he realized they were words
words his wife had carved into the cave ice with the last of her dying strength. As he read them, he felt them like three hard blows in the stomach.
KILL THE CHILD
Holly Black
#80. Clever girl. You play with fire because you want to be burnt.
Holly Black
#81. What an author doesn't know could fill a book.
Holly Black
#82. You better have kissed him! You better have kissed him so hard that he just about choked on your tongue. And if not, you better go kiss him like that right now.
Holly Black
#83. If you stop," she says, "I will also kill you.
Holly Black
#84. You don't have to protect these people, Cassel. I am these people.
Holly Black
#85. Now that I've started touching her, I can't seem to stop. Like somehow the language of my hands will tell her all the things I don't know how to say out loud.
Holly Black
#86. When Tana was six, vampires were Muppets, endlessly counting, or cartoon villains in black cloaks with red polyester lining.
Holly Black
#87. You really dug your own grave," he mutters. "And I'm going to bury you in it."
"Say that louder," I tell him, under my breath. "I dare you.
Holly Black
#88. There's a tipping point with lies, a point where you've said something so many times that it feels truer than the truth.
Holly Black
#89. He looks like the good boy he's never been.
Holly Black
#90. All elements have a counterweight. Fire is the counterweight of water. Air is the counterweight of earth. The counterweight of chaos is the soul.
Holly Black
#91. Three hundred words in a day is not a lot. So much of it is thinking before writing. And then there's the cutting. But you do what you do and keep moving forward.
Holly Black
#92. Inspiration comes from everywhere. From life, observing people, etc. From movies and books you love. From research.
Holly Black
#93. You're like this leopard who's pretending to be a house cat.
Holly Black
#94. You've got to grow where you're planted
Holly Black
#95. I've loved vampires for a very long time. In eighth grade, I guess, my research paper was on vampires.
Holly Black
#97. Each person seemed to have a destination, but Val was a piece of driftwood, spinning down a river, not even sure in what direction she was moving. But she knew how to make herself spin faster.
Holly Black
#98. I don't know, Call said. He was starting to worry that there weren't any good guys. Just people with longer or shorter Evil Overlord lists.
Holly Black
#100. Did you know that bone china had real bones in it?" Poppy said, tapping a porcelain cheek. "Her clay was made from human bones. Little-girl bones. That hair threaded through the scalp is the little girl's hair. And the body of the doll is filled with her leftover ashes.
Holly Black
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
