Tracy Deonn > Quotes

“Don't make your life about the loss. Make it about the love.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“The most important thing you can do in this world, the most necessary thing, is to survive it. You can't do anything for anyone else if you don't take care of yourself first.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Love is a powerful thing, more powerful than blood, although both run through us like a river.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Some truths only tragedy can teach. The first one I learned is that when people acknowledge your pain, they want your pain to acknowledge them back. They need to witness it in real time, or else you're not doing your part.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Two faults. My race and my gender. But they are not faults. They are strength. And I am more than this man can comprehend.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“But grief isn’t a competition. It’s not an identical pain that we all meet one day when death finds us. It’s a monster, personalized by our love and memories to devour us just so. Grief is suffering, tailored.”
― Tracy Deonn, Bloodmarked

“Who's the literary nerd? The quoter or the one who recognizes the quote?”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“And then I unwind her.
One strand for my mother.
One for my father.
One for me.
I unravel the rage until it courses through my veins like fuel in an engine. I let it become a part of me, but not all of me. Hot, scorching pain under my skin, under my tongue, under my nails. I let it spread through me—until there is no more “Before” and no more “After.”
I am her and she is me.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Why someone dies is not the same question as why they are gone.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Because death breaks out connection... death is not a thread. it is the sharp cut that severs us. Death separates us from one another, and yet holds us close. As deeply as we hate it, it love us more.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“You are my king now, cariad”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Everything has two histories. Especially in the South.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“What truly ties us together is not blood but pain. When we love someone and lose them, that loss imprints itself on everyone else we love too.”
― Tracy Deonn, Bloodmarked

“How does this boy navigate my emotions like a seasonal sailor, finding the clear skies and bringing them closer, when all I seem able to do is hold fast to the storms?”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Piggyback.” “Excuse me?” “You heard me.” “Like that movie—” “Shut up.” “Churlish.” “Arrogant.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Some truths only tragedy can teach.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“I recognize that sound. It's the sound of holding on to a cliff by the edge of your nails. The sound of barely containing a pain so immense that to look at it, to raise your own flesh and examine what's beneath, is to risk falling into a darkness you know you'll never escape.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Growing up Black in the South, it’s pretty common to find yourself in old places that just… weren’t made for you. Maybe it’s a building, a historic district, or a street. Some space that was originally built for white people and white people only, and you just have to hold that knowledge while going about your business.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“I feel Sel’s gaze on the back of my neck, on my cheek, before I hear his voice.
“Mae hi’n brydferth.”
“What?” I ask. Nick turns when I do, just as confused. Arthur’s memories don’t recognize modern Welsh, and I only know a little. I do recognize the words for “she” and “beautiful” though.
Or maybe Nick isn’t just as confused as me, because a slow, laughing smile spreads across his face, like he understands Sel’s game already. He leans a hip against the wall to watch me beside his Kingsmage, eyes teasing. “Ydi, mae hi. Yn dragwyddol.”
Maybe that last word was “forever.”
“Beautiful forever”? No, “always”? I flush, then pout.
“Because of Arthur, I’m only fluent in Old Welsh, not modern. You know this isn’t fair.”
“We know,” they respond together, and laugh.”
― Tracy Deonn, Bloodmarked

“They that would be a leader, let them be a bridge.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“When white people say something's 'not about race,' it's usually because it is and they don't wanna talk about it.”
― Tracy Deonn, Bloodmarked

“Wishes are the dangerous mind games we play with ourselves. The only way to win is not to play.”
― Tracy Deonn, Bloodmarked

“From buried lives to beaten ones. From blood stolen to blood hidden. I map this terrain's sins, the invisible, and the many, and hold them close. Because even if the pain of those sins takes my breath away, the pain feels like belonging. And ignoring it, after all I've just witnessed, would be loss.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Grief does strange things to people’s minds. This I know. One morning a couple of weeks after my mother died, my dad said he thought he could smell her cheesy grits cooking on the stove—my favorite and my mother’s specialty. Once, I heard her humming down the hall from my bedroom. Something so mundane and simple, so regular and small, that for a moment, the prior weeks were just a nightmare, and I was awake now and she was alive. Death moves faster than brains do.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“power taken and not returned incurs a debt. And the universe, and the debt, will always come to collect, one way or another.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“We ran for many reasons. We ran to protect ourselves. We ran so we would not die, so that our daughters could live.”
― Tracy Deonn, Bloodmarked

“Sel looks between us both. “I cannot believe I am stuck with you two.”
The tension lifts, and I smile. “You are, you know. Stuck with us.”
Nick makes a sound of disagreement. “Nah. I think you’re stuck with us, Bree.”
― Tracy Deonn, Bloodmarked

“Human beings deny other human beings’ humanity and call that power.”
― Tracy Deonn, Oathbound

“Sometimes, you say the awful thing quickly and without taking a breath because lingering is too painful.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“Someone I care about is alive but hurt. Someone I like very much is right here in front of me, asking me to sit with him. It dawns on me that if I ignore that, or forget how important that is, than I truly will make the shadows my home.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn