Red Glove Quotes

“The truth is messy. It's raw and uncomfortable. You can't blame people for preferring lies.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Changing is what people do when they have no options left.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“No trouble ever got fixed late at night," he said. "Midnight is for regrets.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Baby," she says in a harsh whisper, "in this world, lots of people will try to grind you down. They need you to be small so they can be big. You let them think whatever they want, but you make sure you get yours. You get yours.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“I need you to be happy. I need one of us to be happy.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“I can learn to live with guilt. I don't care about being good.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“I'm afraid my voice is going to break. I am afraid she is going to hear how much this hurts.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Magic gives you a lot of choices," Grandad says. "Most of them are bad.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“I survive at the edge of friends circles.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“The moment she was cursed, I lost her. Once it wears off- soon- she will be embarrassed to remember things that she said, things she did, things like this. No matter how solid she feels in my arms, she is made of smoke.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“You're a pretty cool customer, huh?" says Agent Hunt.

"I hide my inner pain under my stoic visage."

Agent Hunt looks like he would like to put his fist through my stoic visage.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Sam frowns at me, suddenly serious. "You know, I thought--for most of the first year we lived together--that you were going to kill me."

That makes me nearly spit out beer, I laugh so hard.

"No, look--living with you, it's like knowing there's a loaded gun on the other side of the room. You're like this leopard who's pretending to be a house cat."

That only makes me laugh harder.

"Shut up," he says. "You might do normal stuff, but a leopard can drink milk or fall off things like a house cat. It's obvious you're not--not like the rest of us. I'll look over at you, and you'll be flexing your claws, or I don't know, eating a freshly killed antelope."

"Oh," I say. It's a ridiculous metaphor, but the hilarity has gone out of me. I thought I did a good job of fitting in--maybe not perfect, but not as bad as Sam makes it sound.

"It's like Audrey," he says, stabbing the air with a finger clearly well on his way to inebriated and full of determination to make me understand his theory. "You acted like she went out with you because you did this good job of being a nice guy."

"I am a nice guy."

I try to be.

Sam snorts. "She liked you because you scared her. And then you scared her too much.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“He looks like the good boy he's never been.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Let me look out for you. Let your enemies become mine.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“I got bored," he says. "Besides, you know what's creepier than walking around your dead brothers' apartment? Sitting alone in a hearse in front of his apartment.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“It hurts to think of her, but I can't stop. It ought to hurt.

After all, hell is supposed to be hot.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Gifts are very useful to con men. Gifts create a feeling of debt, an itchy anxiety that the recipient is eager to be rid of by repaying. So eager, in fact, that people will often overpay just to be relieved of it. A single spontaneously given cup of coffee can make a person feel obligated to sit through a lecture on a religion they don't care about. The gift of a tiny, wilted flower can make the recipient give to a charity they dislike. Gifts place such a heavy burden that even throwing away the gift doesn't remove the debt. Even if you hate coffee, even if you didn't want that flower, once you take it, you want to give something back. Most of all, you want to dismiss obligation.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Oh- and grab the plastic bag over by my suitcase."
I slug down the last of the coffee and get up. The bag contains panty hose. I put them on her desk.
"They're for you."
"You want me to look homeless, desperate, but also kind of fabulous?”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Mutually assured destruction.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“You are the best kind of killer, Cassel Sharpe, the kind that never has blood on his hands. The kind that never has to sicken at the sight of what he's done, or come to like it too much.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“This, the language of deception, we both understand. We were born to it, along with the curses.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“You're like this leopard who's pretending to be a house cat.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“I know how to be the witness to her grief. I don't know how to be this kind of villain.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“If you keep it," Daneca says, "he'll have his claws in you."
Everyone has their claws in me. Everyone.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“A man may daydream of how he would spend a million dollars, but playing the same game with a billion dollars sours the fantasy. There are too many possibilities. The house he once wished for with all his heart is suddenly too small. The travel, too cheap. He wanted to visit an island. Now he contemplates buying one.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“I wonder if he really could rationalize what I did to him, really treat betrayal like the slight transgression of a recalcitrant business partner. I wonder if I hurt him. If he can rationalize what I did to him, it’s easy to imagine how he rationalized what he did to me.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“You sure you want to cross me?"
In that moment she's her father's daughter.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“I thought of how proud he was when he took the marks- cutting the skin of his throat in a long slash and then packing it with ashes until keloid scars rose up.
He called it his second smile.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Because I am about to be devoured by poodles," I quip. "Remember me always, my love.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Don't be a hero, live to fight another day.”
― Jesse Eisenberg, Red Glove