Karina Pang > Karina's Quotes

“I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown I back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“All those layers of silence upon silence.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“It is hard to explain the savagery of hope.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“he's the kind of beautiful that makes people want to smash things”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Another girl might have frozen, but I am cold all the way through.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“All of Faerie is beautiful like this, with carnage hidden just beneath.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Heir to Elfhame,” I say. “Get on your knees.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I do not need a tongue for her to read the rage in my eyes.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I wonder what it would be like, to never have to be alone.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Oak's hooves clatter against the floor, and then he's on his knees in front of me, all golden hair and fox eyes and worry.

'Wren,' he breathes, reaching through the iron bars, even though they singe his wrists. His fingers run through my hair.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I am well-practiced at being unnoticed, especially here of all places.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I have stood apart from the world for so long. That has made it hard for me to navigate being in it, but it has also made me an excellent observer.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Dear lady,' says a faerie, coming toward us from a shop that sells jewels. He has the eyes of a snake and forked tongue that darts out when he speaks. 'This hairpin looks as though it were made for you.'

It's beautiful, woven gold and silver in the shape of a bird, a single green bead in its mouth. Had it been in a display, my eyes would have passed over it as one of a dozen unobtainable things. But as he holds it out, I can't help imaging it as as mine.

'I have no money and little to trade,' I tell him regretfully, shaking my head.

The shopkeeper's gaze goes to Oak. I think he believes the prince is my lover.

Oak plays the part, reaching out his hand for the pin. 'How much is it? And will you take silver, or must it be the last wish of my heart?'

'Silver is excellent.' The shopkeeper smiles as Oak fishes through his bag for some coins.

Part of me wants to demur, but I let him buy it, and then I let him use it to pin back my hair. His fingers on my neck are warm. It's only when he lets go that I shiver.

He gives me a steady look. 'I hope you're not about to tell me that you hate it and you were just being polite.'

'I don't hate it,' I say softly. 'And I am not polite.'

He laughs at that. A delightful quality.

I admire the hairpin in every reflective surface we pass.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“There are many things I don't know, but I know a great deal about imprisonment.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I feel helpless, as though he's herding me around a chessboard to checkmate.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“You will make an interesting High King,' I tell him.

He looks alarmed. 'I most definitely will not. The Folk adore Cardan and they're terrified of my sister, two excellent things. I hope they rule Elfhame for a thousand years and then pass it down to one of a dozen offspring. No need for me to be involved.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“It would be better to disconnect from everything, to float free from my body, to be nothing in an endless night of nothing.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I can see when the light goes out of his eyes, like a torch thrown into the sea.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I take the comb from a pocket of my new dress and then hesitate. If I begin to untangle my nimbus of snarls, he will see how badly my hair is matted and be reminded of where he found me.

He stands.

Good. He will leave, and then I will be able to wrangle my hair alone.

But instead he steps behind me and takes the comb from my hands. 'Let me do that,' he says, taking strands of my hair in his fingers. 'It's the colour of primroses.'

My shoulders tense. I am unused to people touching me. 'You don't need to-' I start.

'It's no trouble,' he says. 'I had three older sisters brushing and braiding mine, no matter how I howled. I had to learn to do theirs, in self-defence. And my mother...'

His fingers are clever. He holds each lock at the base, slowly teasing out the knots at the very end and then working backward to the scalp. Under his hands, it becomes smooth ribbons. If I had done this, I would have yanked half of it out in frustration.

'Your mother...,' I echo, prompting him to continue in a voice that shakes only a little.

He begins to braid, sweeping my hair up so that thick plaits become something like his circlet, wrapping around my head.

'When we were in the mortal world, away from her servants, she needed help arranging it.' His voice is soft.

This, along with the slightly painful pull against my scalp, the brush of his fingertips against my neck as he separates a section, the slight frown of concentration on his face, is overwhelming. I am not accustomed to someone being this close.

When I look up, his smile is all invitation.

We are no longer children, playing games and hiding beneath his bed, but I feel as though this is a different kind of game, one where I do not understand the rules.

With a shiver, I take up the mirror from the dresser. In this hair, and with this dress, I look pretty. The kind of pretty that allows monsters to deceive people into forests, into dances where they will find their doom.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“How appropriate to have my tongue cut out, when silence has been my refuge and my cage.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“That's what I've been for years. An unsister. An undaughter. An unperson. A girl with a hole for a life. How appropriate to have my tongue cut out, when silence has been my refuge and my cage.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I imagine giving up. No more peering through windows, mourning the loss of a life that could never again be mine. No more hopeless desire. No more uncertain future. No more terror.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“She's going to want to wear your skull for a hat,' Oak warns. There is an uncomfortable shifting among the ex-falcons. Perhaps they are recalling their own choice to denounce her, their own punishment. 'And Cardan is going to laugh and laugh when she does.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Oooooooh,' says Jack, correctly interpreting my silence for a confession. 'Is he your lover? Is this a ballad we're in?'

'A murder ballad maybe,' I growl.

'No doubt, by the end,' he says. 'I wonder who will survive to compose it.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“…because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women