"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment."
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books."
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with. "
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life."
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"It was amazing to me then, and still is, that so many people who wander into bookshops don't really know what they're after--they only want to look around and hope to see a book that will strike their fancy. And then, being bright enough not to trust the publisher's blurb, they will ask the book clerk the three questions: (1) What is it about? (2) Have you read it? (3) Was it any good?"
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"Then i imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again. "
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"There is no pretending," Jace said with absolute clarity. "I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there is life after that, I'll love you then."
— Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)

"'...in fact, don't touch any of my weapons without my permission.'
"Well, there goes my plan for selling them all on ebay," Clary muttered.
"Selling them on what?"
Clary smiled blandly at him, "A mythical place of great magical power.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"Just because you call an electric eel a rubber duck doesn't make it a rubber duck, does it? And God help the poor bastard who decides they want to take a bath with the duckie. (Jace Wayland)"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt. "
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

""Is this the part where you say if I hurt her, you'll kill me?"
"No" Simon said,"If you hurt Clary she's quite capable of killing you herself. Possibly with a variety of weapons"
-Jace Wayland and Simon"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)

"There's always a light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, it's usually an oncoming express train."
— Cassandra Clare

" "You Might want to lie down," Magnus advised. "I find that it helps when the crushing sense of horrible realization sets in.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)

"If you were half as funny as you thought you were, you would be twice as funny as you are."
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"Isabelle drifted over, Jace a pace behind her. She was wearing a long black dress with boots and an even longer cutaway coat of soft green velvet, the color of moss. "I can't believe you did it!" she exclaimed. "How did you get Magnus to let Jace leave?"

"Traded him for Alec," Clary said.

Isabelle looked mildly alarmed. "Not permanently?"

"No," said Jace. "Just for a few hours. Unless I don't come back," he added thoughtfully. "In which case, maybe he does get to keep Alec. Think of it as a lease with an option to buy."

Isabelle looked dubious. "Mom and Dad won't be pleased if they find out."

"That you freed a possible criminal by trading away your brother to a warlock who looks like a gay Sonic the Hedgehog and dresses like the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?" Simon inquired. "No, probably not.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)

"Malachi scowled. "I don't remember the Clave inviting you into the Glass City, Magnus Bane."

"They didn't," Magnus said. "Your wards are down."

"Really?" the Consul's voice dripped sarcasm. "I hadn't noticed."

Magnus looked concerned. "That's terrible. Someone should have told you." He glanced at Luke. "Tell him the wards are down.""
— Cassandra Clare

""You could have had anything else in the world, and you asked for me."
She smiled up at him. Filthy as he was, covered in blood and dirt, he was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. "But I don't want anything else in the world."
-Jace and Clary"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)

"Isabella with her whip and boots and knives would chop anyone who tried to pen her up in a tower into pieces, build a bridge out of the remains, and walk carelessly to freedom, her hair looking fabulous the entire time."
— Cassandra Clare

""People aren't born good or bad. Maybe they're born with tendencies either way, but its the way you live your life that matters.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)

""If there's a thing I've learned in my life it's to not be afraid of the responsibility that comes with caring for other people. What we do for love: those things endure. Even if the people you do them for don't""
— Cassandra Clare

""I don't want to be a man," said Jace. "I want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can't confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)

"Where there is love, there is often also hate. They can exist side by side."
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"At the time I thought what I had with you and your mother was better than nothing. But if you can't tell the truth to the people you care about the most, eventually you stop being able to tell the truth to yourself."
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)

""In the end that was the choice you made, and it doesn't matter how hard it was to make it. It matters that you did." "
— Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)

"You can only push the truth down for so long, and then it bubbles back up."
— Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)

"'I don't want tea,' said Clary, with muffled force. 'I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them.'

'Unfortunately,' said Hodge, 'we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing.'"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

""People aren't born good or bad. Maybe they're born with tendencies either way, but it's the way you live your life that matters.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)

"...because that was what you did with family when you'd been worried about them, you grabbed them and held on to them and told them how much they'd pissed you off, and it was okay, because no matter how angry you got, they still belonged to you."
— Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)

"haven't you ever heard that modesty is an attravitive trait?

only from ugly people, the meek may inherit the earth, but at the moment it belongs to the conceited. like me
"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"Desire is not always lessened by disgust. Nor can it be bestowed, like a favor, to those most deserving of it."
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)