The Shadow Prince Quotes

“After Haden is gone, I pick up the list of things I know about him and add 'sometimes talks like Thor'.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“All the little things will build on each other. Like that song you’re playing. It works because you let the tune build as you go. You don’t try to play all the notes at once.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“I do look away now. “I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone that much.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“I’m not used to being at a loss for words.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“Every moment that passes and I am stuck in this room is a moment that I am not working toward accomplishing my quest. Waiting is not acting. And not acting is akin to failing. How can I wait anymore?”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“You people realize you're going to visit a person who is clinically insane in order to find out your future, right?' Lexie says. 'I mean, who's crazier, the person who's been put in a mental institution or the person who asks that person for advice?”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“I worry my new strategy is failing. My online research into “how to get a girl to like me” had suggested, time and time again, that to win a human girl over, I had to be mean to her.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“They’re being controlled,” Dax says to Daphne.
“Very astute,” Simon says. “All it takes is a please most times. You know what they say: you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
“Why would I want to catch flies?” I ask.
Simon raises his eyebrows. “Seriously? That’s the part of all this you question?”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“He’s not even singing,” Tobin whispers to Daphne. They sit on the other side of the half circle of chairs in the music room. It’s amusing that he thinks I don’t know what he’s saying. I can’t actually hear their words over the singing, but I have spent the weekend mastering the art of lipreading. What isn’t amusing, however, is that Tobin has caught on to the fact that I’m merely moving my own lips along with the rest of the choir. Daphne looks up at me. I stare down at the songbook in my hands. Maybe I should try singing along, but I don’t know how to make my voice do what hers does, even if I want to. I feel her gaze leave me and I glance back at her.
“Maybe he’s just intimidated,” Daphne says. “It’s his first day in the program.”
My hands grow hot at the idea that she thinks I am afraid. I take a deep breath, tempering myself before I set the songbook on fire.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“I had to do some damage control and convince everyone she’d had a heart attack like I did with that student. But I was beginning to think you had some kinky fetish for stopping pretty girls’ hearts, which you and I were going to have to have a little chat about. It’s a relief knowing we won’t have to have such an awkward conversation. I’d much rather deal with a monster on the loose.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“Now, go knock ’em dead.”
I assume he means that I should make a good impression at the party, and not to follow the literal interpretation of that expression.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“Just play it cool,” Dax says.
He has forced me to don a pair of dark gray slacks and a white button-up shirt. Contrary to his protests, I have pushed the sleeves of the shirt up past my elbows, but I make sure the scars on my arm, which spell out Daphne’s name, are covered. I feel overly warm and suffocated in these clothes. “I don’t understand. You want me to pretend to be cold?” I fake a shiver. “Like this? What’s the point?”
Dax tries to stifle a laugh—not very well—and I realize I’ve been tripped up by another one of these “figures of speech” that I keep running into. I’m beginning to hate the English language.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“I open the door, expecting to find another feeble human whom I have to appease, but my jaw pops open when I see who is sitting behind the desk in the counselor’s room. “So, honey, how was your first day of school?” he asks.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as I quickly shut the door behind me.
“I thought you’d be happier to see your new guidance counselor,” Dax says. He’s wearing a light yellow sweater with brown patches on the elbows and sucking on the end of a . . .
“Is that a pipe?”
He nods. “Not lit, of course. No smoking allowed on campus. I thought it made me look older. What do you think?”
“I think you’re addled. What are you doing here? What if this Mr. Drol comes back?”
“I am Mr. Drol,” he says, raising his eyebrows and biting the end of his pipe. “I am too old to pose as a student like you and Garrick, but I didn’t want to dump you here all on your own, so Simon got me a job instead. His powers of persuasion were quite effective on the administration.”
I nod.
“But the part I didn’t tell him is that this arrangement will give us better opportunities to talk in private. I think I might be recommending twice-weekly counseling sessions for you.” He smiles around the stem of his pipe. “You’re looking quite emotionally disturbed.”
“I feel emotionally disturbed,” I say, sinking into the seat across the desk from him. “You were right; this place is torturous.”
“So what’s this about you picking fights? Do I need to suspend you?”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“I mean, there Persephone was, minding her own business, picking flowers, when all of a sudden Hades bursts out of the ground in a flaming chariot and grabs her. I mean, you can’t just go around grabbing people. That’s not okay.” I narrow my eyes, challenging him. “What kind of person does that?”
Haden glowers right back at me. “Maybe he didn’t see any other options at the moment.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“The only thing standing in the way of my restoring the full power of the Underrealm is Daphne herself. Part of me worries I’m not prepared for taking on this Cypher, but at the same time, I am glad for the challenge of a worthy opponent. It will make my victory all the more satisfying.
“What is the best way to defeat her?” I ask Dax. “How do I take her down?”
“Take her down?” he repeats, as if I’ve just said something distasteful.
“You said it yourself. Daphe isn’t like other Boons. She’s a more formidable opponent than—”
“Whoa,” Dax says. “You’re looking at this all wrong. First of all, you can’t think of her as an opponent. That’s you thinking like an Underlord warrior. You’re going to have to take a more human approach. You’re not here to defeat her; you’re here to get her to trust you. You need her to like you. Actually, more than that,” he says with a weird smile. “You’re going to have to get her to fall in love with you.”
I stare at Dax, dumbfounded. He might as well have told me I needed to sprout wings and fly into the sun. “How am I supposed to get her to fall in love with me when I don’t know the first thing about . . . it? Love, I mean.”
Dax sighs like he has no idea of how to explain it to me.
And I thought he was supposed to be my guide.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince

“But I am still shocked. I did not know Boons are capable of violence.”
― Bree Despain, The Shadow Prince