Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1)

by Cassandra Clare

Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from Heaven.

And it wasn’t so bad being tall, either—taller than most of the boys her own age, it was true, but Aunt Harriet had always said that as long as a tall woman carried herself well, she would forever look regal.

Without him, she was completely alone in the world. There was no one at all for her. No one in the world who cared whether she lived or died. Sometimes the horror of that thought threatened to overwhelm her and plunge her down into a bottomless darkness from which there would be no return. If no one in the entire world cared about you, did you really exist at all?

When you find a man you wish to marry, Tessa, remember this: You will know what kind of man he is not by the things he says, but by the things he does.

He had the most beautiful face she had ever seen. Tangled black hair and eyes like blue glass. Elegant cheekbones, a full mouth, and long, thick lashes. Even the curve of his throat was perfect. He looked like every fictional hero she’d ever conjured up in her head. Although she’d never imagined one of them cursing at her while shaking his bleeding hand in an accusing fashion.

“I hope not. I intend to marry Agatha myself. She may be a thousand years old, but she makes an incomparable jam tart. Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.”

Will grinned. “Some of these books are dangerous,” he said. “It’s wise to be careful.” “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,” said Tessa, determined not to let him run wildly off with the conversation.

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

We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots? —Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”

“Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of the men who use them.”

AMOR VERUS NUMQUAM MORITUR.

‘And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.’ ”

“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.” He smiled then, seeming to have come back to himself, slightly embarrassed. “That’s what I believe.”

“You wanted to use me—just like the Dark Sisters did—and the moment you had a chance to, the moment Lady Belcourt came along and you needed what I could do, you wanted me to do it. Never mind how dangerous it was! You behave as if I have some responsibility to your world, your laws and your Accords, but it’s your world, and you’re the ones meant to govern it. It’s not my fault if you’re doing a rotten job!”

“Sometimes,” Jem said, “our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts. It’s those times, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered—that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you, though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can’t imagine, or even really remember, how things were before.”

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

“A sort of good-bye without saying good-bye,” he said. “It is a reference to a passage in the Bible. ‘And Mizpah, for he said, the Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another.’ ”

“She’s alive,” Thomas said, not opening his eyes. “What?” Will was caught off guard. “The one you come back for. Her. Tessa. She’s with Sophie.” Thomas spoke as if it were a fact obvious to anyone that Will would have come back for Tessa’s sake.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! —Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”

It is as great a thing to love as it is to be loved. Love is not something that can be wasted.”

I know you feel inhuman, and as if you are set apart, away from life and love, but…” His voice cracked a little, the first time Tessa had heard him sound unsure. He cleared his throat. “I promise you, the right man won’t care.”