Vicious (Villains, #1)

by V.E. Schwab

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between Bad and Good, but between Bad and Worse.

Be lost. Give up. give In. in the end It would be better to surrender before you begin. be lost. Be lost And then you will not care if you are ever found.

All Eli had to do was smile. All Victor had to do was lie. Both proved frighteningly effective.

The moments that define lives aren’t always obvious. They don’t always scream LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there’s no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren’t always protracted, heavy with meaning. Between one sip and the next, Victor made the biggest mistake of his life, and it was made of nothing more than one line. Three small words. “I’ll go first.”

Eli, who believed in God and had a monster inside just like Victor, but knew how to hide it better. Eli,

The worst part of going numb was that it took away everything but this, the smothering need to hurt, to break, to kill, pouring over him like a thick blanket of syrup until he panicked and brought the physical sensations back.

The calm troubled him; the fact that the physical absence of pain could elicit such a mental absence of panic was at once unnerving and rather fascinating.

The absence of pain led to an absence of fear, and the absence of fear led to a disregard for consequence.

That was the problem with an inward ability like healing. Self-absorbed to the last,

Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them.

Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.

those who ally themselves with monsters are little better than monsters themselves.

“When no one understands, that’s usually a good sign that you’re wrong.”