Mariam Elsayed > Mariam's Quotes

“Can’t you sense what enchantments are stored in the stones?” I demanded. “No!” I threw my hands up in frustration. “Then why do you keep on breaking them?” “Because you told me to, you lunatic!”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

“Em, I must confess—I am in awe of you. I believe I am also a little frightened.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

“Dear Emily,” he said as I sat down, not troubling to lift his head from his hand but smiling at me slantwise. “You look as if you’ve come from a wrestling match with one of your books. May I ask who won?”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

“Wendell half sat, half crouched in a hollow in the mountainside, one hand over his eyes, showing no interest whatsoever in our impossible surroundings, and I realized what was happening: somehow the poison had curdled the magic inside him, and any use of enchantment pained him.
I knelt at his side and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Say that you’ll marry me.”
“God.” So he was well enough to tease me, at least—that was some relief. “Perhaps I will refuse you here and now. Disappointment in love may provide a welcome distraction from the poison.”
“Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

“Get inside! You're bleeding!"
"I will not bleed any less indoors, you utter madwoman.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“I prefer your company, Em."
He said it as if it were obvious. I snorted again, assuming he was teasing me. "Over the company of a tavern filled with a rapt and grateful audience? I'm sure you do."
"Over anyone else's company." Again, he said it with some amusement, as if wondering what I was doing speculating about something so evident.
"You are drunk," I said.
"Shall I prove it to you?"
"No, you shan't," I said, alarmed, but he was already sweeping to the floor, bending his knee and taking my hand between his.
"What in God's name are you doing?" I said between my teeth. "And why are you doing it now?"
"Shall I make an appointment?" he said, then laughed. "Yes, I believe you would like that. Well, name the time when it would be convenient for you to receive a declaration of love."
"Oh, get up," I said, furious now. "What sort of jest is this, Wendell?"
"You don't believe me?" He smiled, all mischief, a look I'd seen from other Folk, enough to know not to trust him one inch. "Ask for my true name, and I'll give it to you."
"Why on earth would you do that?" I demanded, yanking my hand back.
"Oh, Em," he said forlornly. "You are the cleverest dolt I have ever met."
I stared at him, my heart thundering. Of course, I am not a dolt in any sense; I had supposed he felt something for me and had only hoped he would keep it to himself. Forever. Not that a part of me didn't wish for the opposite. But that was when I assumed his feelings in that respect were equivalent to what he felt for any of the nameless women who passed in and out of his bed. And why would I lower myself to that, when he and I already had something that was vastly more valuable?”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“Were you expecting me to throw myself at you? Would you have then said a dozen pretty things about my eyes or hair?"
"No, it would have been, 'Get off me, you imposter, and tell me what you did with Emily.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Have I told you how hideous you look tonight?” Cardan asks, leaning back in the elaborately carved chair, the warmth of his words turning the question into something like a compliment.
“No” I say, glad to be annoyed back into the present. “Tell me.”
"I can't.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“So I am to sit here and feed you information,” Cardan says, leaning against a hickory tree. “And you’re to go charm royalty? That seems entirely backward.”
I fix him with a look. “I can be charming. I charmed you, didn’t I?”
He rolls his eyes. “Do not expect others to share my depraved tastes.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I have lied and I have betrayed and I have triumphed. If only there was someone to congratulate me.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“What if it lines up like it did in the Trojan War ... Athena versus Poseidon?"
"I don't know. But I just know that I'll be fighting next to you."
"Why?"
"Because you're my friend, Seaweed Brain. Any more stupid questions?”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Even strength must bow to wisdom sometimes.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“Kaz leaned back. "What's the easiest way to steal a man's wallet?"
"Knife to the throat?" asked Inej.
"Gun to the back?" said Jesper.
"Poison in his cup?" suggested Nina.
"You're all horrible," said Matthias.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“No mourners. No funerals. Among them, it passed for 'good luck.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“She'd laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“It's not natural for women to fight."
"It's not natural for someone to be as stupid as he is tall, and yet there you stand.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“Jesper knocked his head against the hull and cast his eyes heavenward. “Fine. But if Pekka Rollins kills us all, I’m going to get Wylan’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.”
Brekker’s lips quirked. “I’ll just hire Matthias’ ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.”
“My ghost won’t associate with your ghost,” Matthias said primly, and then wondered if the sea air was rotting his brain.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“He needed to tell her...what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn't pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her. That without meaning to, he'd begun to lean on her, to look for her, to need her near. He needed to thank her for his new hat.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“Please, my darling Inej, treasure of my heart, won’t you do me the honor of acquiring me a new hat?”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“I can hear the change in Kaz's breathing when he looks at you."
"You... you can?"
"It catches every time, like he's never seen you before.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“What do you want then?"
The old answers came easily to mind. Money. Vengeance. Jordie's voice in my head silenced forever. But a different reply roared to life inside him, loud, insistent, and unwelcome. You, Inej. You.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives--or to find strength in a very long one.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad. She has gone mad.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“I planted a seed of hatred in my heart. I swore it would grow to be a massive tree whose roots would strangle them all.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realized that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“We hunt the flame, the light in the darkness, the good this world deserves.”
― Hafsah Faizal, We Hunt the Flame