Taryn Quotes

“I think about that story a lot. I think about it all the time.
It’s the kind of thing you like. The wicked are slain, with swords no less. Vengeance is had. Boldness is rewarded. But what about all those girls, all those obedient girls who trusted and loved and wed and died? Weren’t they bold, too?
I bet you don’t think so. I bet you think they were just stupid.
That’s your problem in a nutshell. You’re judgmental. Everyone makes mistakes. They trust the wrong people. They fall in love. Not you, though. And that’s why it’s so hard to ask you for forgiveness.
But I am. Asking. I mean, I am going to ask. I am going to try to explain how it happened and how sorry I am.”
― Holly Black, The Lost Sisters

“You’ve manipulated the High King of Faerie into
obeying you, but you can’t find a way to manipulate one jerk into keeping
our sister happy?”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Let's start with a love story.

Or maybe it's another horror story. It seems like the difference is mostly in where the ending comes.”
― Holly Black, The Lost Sisters

“You think I'm weak.'

'You are weak,' I tell her. ''You're weak and pathetic and I-'

'I'm a mirror,' she shouts. 'I'm the mirror you don't want to look at.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Boldness is rewarded. But what about all those girls, all those obedient girls who trusted and loved and wed and died? Weren't they bold, too?”
― Holly Black, The Lost Sisters

“Everyone makes mistakes. They trust the wrong people. They fall in love.”
― Holly Black, The Lost Sisters

“Locke craves dramatic experiences. And as Master of Revels, he can create these- I don't even know what to call them- stories. He doesn't so much think of a party as food and drinks and music, but rather a dynamic that might create conflict.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“When I'm with him, I feel like the hero of a story. Of my story. It's when he's not there that things don't feel right.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“I look down at my sisters, hurrying through the snow. My sisters, who despite everything, came for me.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“You’re pathetic. You screwed your best friend’s boyfriend. Congratulations. You got into a guy’s pants. Wonderful achievement for you. Revel in it. It’ll last a week. He’s going to drop you.” I glanced at him, saw he was already uncertain, and rolled my eyes. “She’s already dropped you and you’re now known as the friend who sleeps with her friend’s boyfriends. Congratulations on your new reputation. The only people who will want to be your friend will be people like you. You’ll never get the good friends, the ones who are actual friends.” I never looked away. I never faltered. The longer I talked, the more she withered beneath me. I was finished. “I’ve kept quiet, but I’m done. Mess with Mandy again and you will be messing with me.” I stepped closer. “That’s not a threat. It’s a fact. Ball’s in your court if you decide to take me on and with that said, get out of my house.”
― tijan, A Whole New Crowd

“Against my shoulder she whispers, 'He's flint, you're tinder.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Taryn glowers, putting her chin up. 'I didn't want to fight.'
'Then you ought not to do so in the future,' Madoc says. 'There's no point in fighting if you're not intending to win.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Jude and I had a misunderstanding,' Cardan says carefully. 'But we're not enemies. And I am not your enemy, either, Taryn.'

'You think everything's a game,' she says. 'You and Locke.'

'Unlike Locke, I never thought love was a game,' he says. 'You may accuse me of much, but not that.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“He was nice in the carriage. I didn't know he knew how to be nice.'

That makes me laugh. At the door to my chambers, she puts her hand on my arm. 'He was trying to impress you, you know. Talking to me.'

I frown. 'I think he just wanted to hear about weird candy.'

She shakes her head. 'He wants you to like him. But just because he wants you to doesn't mean you should.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“I didn’t think it worked like that. I thought love was supposed to happen when you least expected it, like a sap to the skull.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Trey’s breath hitched as his son literally flung himself at him. “Jesus, Kye.”

“Dad, when I’m Alpha of the pack and you’re a sad old man with nothing to do—”

“Wait, a sad old man?” Trey asked him.

“It’s gonna happen,” Kye asserted. “Anyway, after I kick your butt and take over the pack—”

“That’s how you’re planning to become Alpha? By kicking my butt?”

“You can’t take it personally, Dad.”

Chuckling, Taryn ruffled her son’s hair.”
― Suzanne Wright, Untamed Delights

“Some afternoons we sit in groves carpeted with emerald moss, and other evenings we spend in high towers or up in trees. We learn about the movements of constellations in the sky, the medicinal and magical properties of herbs, the language of birds and flowers and people as well as the language of the Folk (though it occasionally twists in my mouth), the composition of riddles, and how to walk soft-footed over leaves and brambles to leave neither trace nor sound. We are instructed in the finer points of the harp and the lute, the bow and the blade. Taryn and I watch them as they practice enchantments. For a break, we all play at war in a green field with a broad arc of trees.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“She looks soft, pretty, like a girl in a painting. Like a girl who fits inside her own skin.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I imagine that is I asked, she'd roll with me right here until we turned her white gown green and then thank me for the honour of my favour.' He smiles, going in for the kill, leaning toward me as if confiding a secret. 'Not that I'd be the first to green gown her.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I focus my attention on the cloth and I can breathe evenly again until the panic dissipates. There's a velvet blue-green, reminding me of the lake at dusk. I find an amazing, fantastical fabric embroidered with moths and butterflies and ferns and flowers. I lift it up, and underneath is a bolt of beautiful fog-gray cloth that ripples like smoke. They're so very pretty. The kind of fabrics that princesses in fairy tales wear.

Of course, Taryn is right about stories. Bad things happen to those princesses. They are pricked with thorns, poisoned by apples, married to their own fathers. They have their hands cut off and their brothers turned in to swans, their loves chopped up and planted in basil pots. They vomit up diamonds. When they walk, it feels as though they're walking on knives.

They still manage to look nice.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Taryn is beautiful in her heavily embroidered dress, and Vivi radiant in soft violet grey with artfully sewn moths seeming to fly from her shoulder across her chest to gather in another group on one side of her waist. I realise how rarely I've seen her in truly splendid clothes. Her hair is up, and my earrings glitter in her lightly furred ears. Her cat eyes gleam in the half light, twin to Madoc's. For once, that makes me smile.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I cannot share my secrets with her, even to brag.

And I admit that I desperately want to brag.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“You're unwinding yourself like a spool. What happens when there's no more thread?'

'Then I spin more,' I say, carrying the metaphor.

'Let me help you,' she says, brightening.

My brows rise. 'You want to make thread?”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“She's good at picking out clothes to send a certain message- even if the message of her drawings appears to be "stay away from me or I will chop off your head"...”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Taryn seemed well enough tonight,' he says. 'Roses in her cheeks and merriment on her lips.'

'Let's be sure she stays that way,' I say.

His brows rise. 'Would you like me to seduce her away from Locke? I could certainly try. I promise nothing in the way of results, but you might find amusement in the attempt.'

'No, no absolutely not, do not do that,' I say, and do not examine the hot spike of panic his words induce. 'I just mean try to keep Locke from being his worst self when she's around, that's all.'

He narrows his eyes. 'Shouldn't you encourage just the opposite?'

Perhaps it would be better for Taryn to discover unhappiness with Locke as soon as possible. But she's my sister, and I never want to be the cause of her pain. I shake my head.

He makes a vague gesture in the air. 'As you wish. Your sister will be wrapped in satin and sackcloth, as protected from herself as I can make her.'

I stand. 'The council wants Locke to arrange some amusement to please Grimsen. If it's nice, perhaps the smith will make you a cup that never runs out of wine.'

Cardan gives me a look up through his lashes that I find hard to interpret and then rises, too. He takes my hand. 'Nothing is sweeter,' he says, kissing the back of it, 'but that which is scarce.'

My skin flushes, hot and uncomfortable.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Taryn finally comes down. She's been bathed in lilac dew and wears a gown of incredibly fine layers of cloth on top of one another, herbs and flowers trapped between them to give the impression that she's this beautiful, floating figure and a living bouquet at the same time.

Her hair is braided into a crown with green blooms all through it.

She looks beautiful and painfully human. In all that pale fabric, she looks like a sacrifice instead of a bride. She smiles at all of us, shy and glowingly happy.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“She has known the tide and undertow of my feelings, my hurts, both small and large, for most of my life.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“No, I won't help you. No I won't hear you explain why I should. It really is a magical word: no. You say whatever bullshit you want, and I just say no.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“He said that all the story had gone out of me.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“You're the sister who spits out toads and snakes. I'm the sister who spits out rubies and diamonds.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing