Julia > Julia's Quotes

“I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Maybe there were people who lived those lives. Maybe this girl was one of them. But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Has anyone noticed this whole city is looking for us, mad at us, or wants to kill us?"
"So?" said Kaz.
"Well, usually it's just half the city.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“I am grateful you're alive", he said. "I am grateful that you're beside me. I am grateful that you're eating."
She rested her head on his shoulder.
"You're better that waffles, Matthias Helvar."
A small smile curled the Fjerdan's lips.
"Let's not say things we don't mean, my love.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“No mourners, no funerals. Another way of saying good luck. But it was something more. A dark wink to the fact that there would be no expensive burials for people like them, no marble markers to remember their names, no wreaths of myrtle and rose.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Have any of you wondered what I did with all the cash Pekka Rollins gave us?"
"Guns?" asked Jesper.
"Ships?" queried Inej.
"Bombs?" suggested Wylan.
"Political bribes?" offered Nina. They all looked at Matthias. "This is where you tell us how awful we are," she whispered.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Meeting you was a disaster.”
She raised a brow. “Thank you.”
Djel, he was terrible at this. He stumbled on, trying to make her understand. “But I am grateful for that disaster. I needed a catastrophe to shake me from the life I knew. You were an earthquake, a landslide.”
“I,” she said, planting a hand on her hip, “am a delicate flower.”
“You aren’t a flower, you’re every blossom in the wood blooming at once. You are a tidal wave. You’re a stampede. You are overwhelming.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Don’t worry, Da. People point guns at each other all the time in Ketterdam. It’s basically a handshake.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“You’re stupid about a lot of things, Wylan, but you are not stupid. And if I ever hear you call yourself a moron again, I’m going to tell Matthias you tried to kiss Nina. With tongue.”
Wylan wiped his nose on his sleeve. “He’ll never believe it.”
“Then I’ll tell Nina you tried to kiss Matthias. With tongue.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“I have been made to protect you. Even in death, I will find a way.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“He thumbed quickly through the ledger and said, “When people see a cripple walking down the street, leaning on his cane, what do they feel?” Wylan looked away. People always did when Kaz talked about his limp, as if he didn’t know what he was or how the world saw him. “They feel pity. Now, what do they think when they see me coming?”
Wylan’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “They think they’d better cross the street.”
Kaz tossed the ledger back in the safe. “You’re not weak because you can’t read. You’re weak because you’re afraid of people seeing your weakness. You’re letting shame decide who you are.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Until this moment, Wylan hadn't quite understood how much they meant to him. His father would have sneered at these thugs and thieves, a disgraced soldier, a gambler who couldn't keep out of the red. But they were his first friends, his only friends, and Wylan knew that even if he'd had his pick of a thousand companions, these would have been the people he chose.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“They were twin souls, soldiers destined to fight for different sides, to find each other and lose each other too quickly. She would not keep him here. Not like this.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“He'd told her they would fight their way out. Knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. She would fight for him, but she could not heal him. She would not waste her life trying.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Why do you guys say that, anyway? No mourners, no funerals? Why not just say good luck or be safe?”
“We like to keep our expectations low.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Jesper ran a finger up Wylan's forearm, and Wylan flushed a vibrant pink. Matthias couldn't help but sympathize with the boy. He knew what it was to be out of your depth, and he sometimes suspected they could forgo all of Kaz's planning and simply let Jesper and Nina flirt the entirety of Ketterdam into submission.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“I’ve been nothing but kind to you. I’m not some sort of monster.”
“No, you’re the man who sits idly by, congratulating yourself on your decency, while the monster eats his fill. At least a monster has teeth and a spine.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Jesper shrugged again. He adjusted the buttons on his shirt, touched his thumbs to his revolvers. When he felt like this, mad and scattered, it was as if his hands had a life of their own. His whole body itched. He needed to get out of this room.
Wylan laid his hand on Jesper’s shoulder. “Stop.”
Jesper didn’t know if he wanted to jerk away or pull him closer.
“Just stop,” Wylan said. “Breathe.” Wylan’s gaze was steady.
Jesper couldn’t look away from that clear-water blue. He forced himself to still, inhaled, exhaled.
“Again,” Wylan said, and when Jesper opened his mouth to take another breath, Wylan leaned forward and kissed him. Jesper’s mind emptied. He wasn’t thinking of what had happened before or what might happen next. There was only the reality of Wylan’s mouth, the press of his lips, then the fine bones of his neck, the silky feel of his curls as Jesper cupped his nape and drew him nearer.
This was the kiss he’d been waiting for. It was a gunshot. It was prairie fire. It was the spin of Makker’s Wheel. Jesper felt the pounding of his heart—or was it Wylan’s?—like a stampede in his chest, and the only thought in his head was a happy, startled, Oh.
Slowly, inevitably, they broke apart. “Wylan,” Jesper said, looking into the wide blue sky of his eyes, “I really hope we don’t die.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“She could feel the press of Kaz’s fingers against her skin, feel the bird’s wing brush of his mouth against her neck, see his dilated eyes. Two of the deadliest people the Barrel had to offer and they could barely touch each other without both of them keeling over. But they’d tried. He’d tried. Maybe they could try again. A foolish wish, the sentimental hope of a girl who hadn’t had the firsts of her life stolen, who hadn’t ever felt Tante Heleen’s lash, who wasn’t covered in wounds and wanted by the law. Kaz would have laughed at her optimism.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“I am not sorry, she realized. She had chosen to live freely as a killer rather than die quietly as a slave, and she could not regret that.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“We were all supposed to make it,” said Wylan softly. Maybe that was naive, the protest of a rich merchant’s son who’d only had a taste of Barrel life.
But Jesper realized he’d been thinking the same thing. After all their mad escapes and close calls, he’d started to believe the six of them were somehow charmed, that his guns, Kaz’s brains, Nina’s wit, Inej’s talent, Wylan’s ingenuity, and Matthias’ strength had made them somehow untouchable. They might suffer. They might take their knocks, but Wylan was right, in the end they were all supposed to stay standing.
“No mourners,” said Jesper, surprised by the ache of tears in his throat.
“No funerals,” they all replied softly.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Kuwei turned to Jesper. “You should visit me in Ravka. We could learn to use our powers together.”
“How about I push you in the canal and we see if you know how to swim?” Wylan said with a very passable imitation of Kaz’s glare.
Jesper shrugged. “I’ve heard he’s one of the richest men in Ketterdam. I wouldn’t cross him.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Anything else?” asked Matthias.
“I like singing,” said Alys.
Wylan shook his head frantically, mouthing, No, no, no.
“Shall I sing?” Alys asked hopefully. “Bajan says that I’m good enough to be on the stage.”
“Maybe we save that for later—” suggested Jesper.
Alys’ lower lip began to wobble like a plate about to break.
“Sing,” Matthias blurted, “by all means, sing.”
And then the real nightmare began.
It wasn’t that Alys was so bad, she just never stopped. She sang between bites of food. She sang while she was walking through the graves. She sang from behind a bush when she needed to relieve herself. When she finally dozed off, she hummed in her sleep.
“Maybe this was Van Eck’s plan all along,” Kaz said glumly when they’d assembled outside the tomb again.
“To drive us mad?” said Nina. “It’s working.”
Jesper shut his eyes and groaned. “Diabolical.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Farvell,” she said in Fjerdan. “May Djel watch over you until I can once more.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Tell me about Dunyasha,” he said.

“She was carrying quality blades.” Inej took the shears from the table of the vanity and began cutting fresh strips of cloth from one of the towels. “I think she may be my shadow.”

“Pretty solid shadow if she can throw knives.”

“The Suli believe that when we do wrong, we give life to our shadows. Every sin makes the shadow stronger, until eventually the shadow is stronger than you.”

“If that were true, my shadow would have put Ketterdam in permanent night.”

“Maybe,” Inej said, turning her dark gaze to his. “Or maybe you’re someone else’s shadow.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“I turned my nightmares into fireflies and caught them in a jar.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“And that's how you go on. You lay laughter over the dark parts. The more dark parts, the more you have to laugh. With defiance, with abandon, with hysteria, any way you can.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“You think good people can't hate?" she asked. "You think good people don't kill?"[...}"Good people do all the things bad people do, Lazlo. It's just that when they do them, they call it justice.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“Life won't just happen to you boy, he said. You have to happen to it.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer