Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1)

by Cassandra Clare

If no one in the entire world cared about you, did you really exist at all?

“One must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, “and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”

“Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry,”

“There’s plenty of sense in nonsense sometimes, if you wish to look for it.”

“Dear me,” said Will. “Such harsh truths so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion.”

“Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.”

“Sometimes, when I have to do something I don’t want to do, I pretend I’m a character from a book. It’s easier to know what they would do.”

“Whatever you are physically,” he said, “male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy—all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. Whatever the color, the shape, the design of the shade that conceals it, the flame inside the lamp remains the same. You are that flame.”

“You’ve always been what you are. That’s not new. What you’ll get used to is knowing it.”

She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance—shattered it. He had let the walls down when he’d thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up.

In a way, we are not here just because we have nowhere else; we need nowhere else, because we have the Institute, and those who are in it are our family.”