Sonja > Sonja's Quotes

“None of us are saints. We can all do better.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Love is a luxury."
"No. Love is an element."
An element. Like air to breathe, earth to stand on.”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

“Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a new way of living—one without massacres and torn throats and bonfires of the fallen, without revenants or bastard armies or children ripped from their mothers’ arms to take their turn in the killing and dying.

Once, the lovers lay entwined in the moon’s secret temple and dreamed of a world that was a like a jewel-box without a jewel—a paradise waiting for them to find it and fill it with their happiness.

This was not that world.”
― Laini Taylor, Days of Blood & Starlight

“You know, sometimes I wonder what things would be like if I just ... met you one day. Like normal people do. If I just walked by you on some street one sunny morning and thought you were cute, stopped, shook your hand, and said, "Hi, I'm Daniel.”
― Marie Lu, Prodigy

“Dead souls dream only of death. Small dreams for small men. It is life that expands to fill worlds. Life is your master, or death is”
― Laini Taylor, Days of Blood & Starlight

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“Once upon a time, there was only darkness. And there were monsters vast as worlds who swam in it.”
― Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods & Monsters

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“But true rulers are not born. We are made.”
― Marie Lu, The Rose Society

“To the people who look at the stars and wish, Rhys."
Rhys clinked his glass against mine. “To the stars who listen— and the dreams that are answered.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“What could I become if I stopped worrying about death, about pain, about anything? If I stopped trying to belong? Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Then Day reaches out and touches my hand with his. He encloses it in a handshake. And just like that, I am linked with him again, I feel the pulse of our bond and his- tory and love through our hands, like a wave of magic, the return of a long-lost friend. Of something meant to be. The feeling brings tears to my eyes. Perhaps we can take a step forward together.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Daniel.”
“Hi,” I reply. “I’m June.”
― Marie Lu, Champion

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, so she destroyed them all.”
― Marie Lu, The Rose Society

“Have you ever asked yourself, do monsters make war, or does war make monsters?”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

“After a lifetime of darkness, I want to leave something behind that is made of light.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“I saw her, once.

“She passed through our village, through fields littered with dead soldiers after her forces overwhelmed the nation of Dumor. Her other Elites followed and then rows of white-robed Inquisitors, wielding the white-and-silver banners of the White Wolf. Where they went, the sky dimmed and the ground cracked—the clouds gathered behind the army as if a creature alive, black and churning in fury. As if the goddess of Death herself had come.

“She paused to look down at one of our dying soldiers. He trembled on the ground, but his eyes stayed on her. He spat something at her. She only stared back at him. I don’t know what he saw in her expression, but his muscles tightened, his legs pushing against the dirt as he tried in vain to get away from her. Then the man started to scream. It is a sound I shall never forget as long as I live. She nodded to her Rainmaker, and he descended from his horse to plunge a sword through the dying soldier. Her face did not change at all. She simply rode on.

“I never saw her again. But even now, as an old man, I remember her as clearly as if she were standing before me. She was ice personified. There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen.”

—A witness’s account of Queen Adelina’s siege on the nation of Dumor

The Village of Pon-de-Terre

28 Marzien, 1402”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“We were never meant to exist, Adelina," he says. "And we will never exist again. But we cannot take the entire world with us." He meets my gaze. "No matter how it has wronged us.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone's hand.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Any one of us could be made to look a monster, with selective readings of our history.”
― Abigail Haas, Dangerous Girls

“If you hurt me, I wouldn't cry. I would hurt you back.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“If he thought I was bad, I would be worse. If he thought I was cruel, I would be horrifying.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.”
― Rabindranath Tagore