A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1)

by V.E. Schwab

“I’m not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of dying here.” She swept her hand over the room, the tavern, the city. “I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still.”

I adore writing dialogue. I find scraps of scattered through notebooks and receipts, tacked to surfaces on post-its. A reader recently asked if I know when I've written something that will go on to be a quote, to which the honest answer is...sometimes. I get a tickle behind my ribs. This was one of those times. I wrote it, and I thought, "There, that line, that will come to define Lila Bard." And as I write this note, it's been saved on GR more than 1,000 times, put on mugs, t-shirts, stickers, and even tattoos. I guess the tickle was right.