The Taken Quotes

“So. You're a fallen angel." She folded her arms.
"I'm not fallen," he said roughly.
"Then what are you?"
He shrugged. "Busted.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“The only bone in my body he ever loved was his.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'Being single...is about hope. It's about the future...the person you might meet at Starbucks or online or in the next aisle at the grocery store.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'Everything has its place. Let in only those things that are greatly desired, no more and no less. That's how to make sense of the world, and the only real way to achieve happiness.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'You love her without willing it or wanting it, and that is the most exquisite pain of all.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“Charis sipped, smiling back. "...I saw God everywhere."
Grif narrowed his eyes. "Really?"
She nodded and leaned close. "We were actually pen pals. I'd write Him letters in Latin and leave them in my closet."
"Why the closet?"
She shrugged. "Because He didn't appear after I set my front yard's bushes on fire, so I decided He was shy.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'Sex drives us, love or no love. Power or no power. Money or no money. It's the most powerful drug in the world. Some pay for it. Some die for it.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“Even with tortured minds and broken spirits, even bound to the Surface, they ached for God's presence. It would be like being drawn back into the womb. It would be rest. It was the only real redemption there was.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“Now her life was under attack, and she [Kit] was shocked to find how fragile everything she'd built really was. She was dumbfounded, too to find that while people were being ripped from her life like paper dolls from a chain, she longed to be the one who'd be gone first.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“But they weren't in an ideal world. And it was too bad, Kit thought, exiting the shop. Bridget might have talked to her if they were. Kit might have been able to trust her. And neither of them would have to fear a man with a whole different sort of thrust-corrupted, soured, rotting...and seemingly unstoppable.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'Plenty of men are good at acquiring money and cars and things, but only a few have real forward motion. You know. Thrust.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'I scrape under a nail and I pull out dirt. I pull off an overlay and I smell urine. It's the rot of their lives seeping into their nailbeds, you see? They can fix their hair and paint their nails and run on a treadmill until they're anorexia's poster child, but they can't fix their lives...lives of rotting perfection.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“Even now...she [Kit] still had a need to believe that most people, that most of life, was good. That belief was a sort of strength, too.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'It ain't ever over. You can't have no future if you don't have no past, and the past ain't never done with you...At the end of your life, all you have is what you know.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“Success, she [Evie] claimed, made people want to trust you.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“...Death," she said, as her hand dropped away, " is how you know you were alive in the first place.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“...you've been rooked. You know,you got the dust off. Killed. Murdered. Clipped. It's a rough deal, but you've had some good times, right?”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“I saw you, looking like Hayworth, making me want to pin you up, pin you down, take you for a different kind of ride altogether”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'When there's time for everything, there's value in nothing.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'Even pain is impossibly exquisite.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“Because you can't unknow your life's experiences,' Grif said. This was his area of expertise.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'It's much easier to destroy a life than it is to live one.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“ 'We've all had judgement lapses that had us tiptoeing toward our own personal apocalypse.' ”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“She needed facts. Facts were bricks. Maybe she could build herself a wall with them, too, one tall and wide and strong enough to keep her alive when he was gone.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“But many details were considered too small and mundane for the Centurions' purposes. They tapped the mud too briefly for things like new-fangled coffee-makers to matter. Instant coffee that tasted like a wet dream was apparently one of them.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“...a companion had seemed unnecessary fuel when her body still burned at the core, waiting to ignite. But now, with the wind blowing icicles through her [Kit] veins, it felt like she, too, was in the grave. All her nuclear energy had been snuffed like a match between the night's icy fingers.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“Why the hell was she smiling like that?...Her mouth was blown so wide that the soft insides showed at the corners, like another grin was building in there. As if her laughter tumbled. Like joy was a living thing.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“People created chaos, not places, and they were damned good at it no matter where they lived. And when this glittering gem of a city teamed up with the world's oldest profession, fantasy piled atop fantasy; it could convince anyone that impulse was a virtue, not a vice.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“If what remained of the night had a scent, it’d be heavy ash and cheap perfume. If it had weight, it’d be a hangover. If it had emotion, it’d be regret.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken

“It ain’t ever over. You can’t have no future if you don’t have no past, and the past ain’t never done with you.”
― Vicki Pettersson, The Taken