Gilded Cage Quotes

“Always look at the people, not at the mass. A face, not the crowd. Look at the world, not at the ground. Every little detail you see is a victory.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“She didn't do people, dammit. She did books. A world of difference”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“There's no magic more powerful than the human spirit.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“What can I say?" Asif shrugged. "Geeky as charged.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Have a quick ten years.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Millmoor changes people, Luke Hadley. But what most folk never realize is that you get to choose how.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Honestly, Jack, your handwriting is terrible.”
Jackson held up both hands. “What can I say? I’m a doctor.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Trust was what made everything possible. Trust lent you someone else’s eyes, someone else’s strong arms or quick brain. Made you bigger than just yourself.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Trust was what made everything possible. Trust lent you someone else's eyes, someone else's strong arms or quick brain. Made you bigger than just yourself. Trust was how the club worked. How this whole reckless dream of abolition could work, if people could just come together and hold their nerve. Now ever the Equals - not even their Skill - would be more powerful than that.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“But here was a chance to do something. Change something.

Maybe even change everything.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“As for Jenner himself? Well, he was a dream. He was sweet and funny, hardworking and thoughtful. An itemization of all the ways in which he was generally wonderful would be even longer than Abi’s to-do list. Gavar was probably the type most girls would go for, but his temper meant his buff physique was more intimidating than appealing. And the Young Master was simply too spooky even to think of in those terms. So, yes, Jenner was the only one of the three she didn’t find scary. By itself this wasn’t a ringing endorsement. But add in all the plus points as well, and Miss Abigail Amanda Hadley had quite a crush going on.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“If you want to change something, you need to think big.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“There was Crovan, stalking his way to the far end of the first tier. The heir’s chair beside him was empty. At least the man was childless. The question of who would inherit Eilean Dòchais was occasionally a subject for dinner-table speculation. Personally, Gavar thought the place should be burned to the ground. And why wait till Crovan was dead to do it?”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Yeah.” The man sounded terrified, but Luke couldn’t suppress his jubilation. Now that even a timid, trouble-averse bloke like Williams knew of the walkout, word must have gone round the whole of Zone D. And Luke had talked it into existence. ​ Thinking about that made his head spin. It was almost like Skill—conjuring up something out of nothing.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“You weren’t so likely to look out for others if you felt your own survival depended on looking out for yourself.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“When she stroked her fingertips around the side of it, she received a shock that made her squeak and nearly stumble backward into the fireplace. The chair was occupied.
“Do be careful, Abigail,” chided the person sitting cross-legged and contemplative in the wooden seat. “It’d be such a nuisance to have to haul you from the flames and put you out.” Silyen Jardine was watching her mildly.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” she snapped, startled. “What are you doing sitting there—trying it for size?” And if there was a guide titled How Slaves Should Never Address Their Masters, then yes, a sentence like that would be written on page one. Abi began to blurt an apology, but the Young Master waved it away.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Mother and Father worry he’s half a commoner already, so they come down hard on anything that looks like sympathy for your sort. Is ‘sympathy’ the best word in this case, Abigail?”
His tone was sly and Abi flushed with embarrassment. But she had to persist. “And that’s all there is to it? General disapproval? Because there’s an evening I can’t remember. I was worried that maybe I did something, and that’s why.”
“Can’t remember? Someone’s been doing housekeeping inside your head without your permission? How very impolite. I can take a look, if you like.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Father was planning a debate. Silyen was planning a resurrection. And Gavar was planning a wedding. There was so much wrong with that, Gavar didn’t know where to start.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Imagine waking from a twenty-five-year sleep, and the first faces you saw were Sil and Lord Weirdo. Aunty Terpy’s sanity would run gibbering back to whatever cracked little corner of her skull it had been occupying all these years.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Across the hall, the Millmoor kid was holding Crovan’s bag. Mother looked to be describing at great length where Lord Creepypants would be staying. Probably the boy had never been inside the house before.

But then Sil came ambling out from under the west arch toward the trio, and to Mother’s evident disapproval he took Crovan’s bag and led their least welcome guest away. The kid watched them go, unimpressed. He actually rolled his eyes when he thought no one was looking. Good for him. Maybe the boy had been worth rescuing.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“But when he’d run into the boy again several weeks later, he’d had some kind of attitude transplant. The kid had looked at Gavar like he’d not only bailed him from Millmoor but had driven the van himself, then thrown a “Welcome to Kyneston” party complete with strippers. He’d offered some unfeigned thanks, and said that if there was ever anything he could do for Gavar, he would. “Anything at all,” he’d said expansively. As if there were plenty of things the heir of Kyneston might need that a seventeen-year-old slave could supply.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“Gavar tipped back the last of the malt. He should go easy on it, he knew. He didn’t want to end up like Father. But lately he’d been feeling the need for a little pick-me-up. He was still getting the headaches that had been plaguing him ever since Libby was born. That was one thing they never told you about fatherhood: the constant worry, and the toll it took.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage

“So she was disappointed to answer his summons to the Great Solar early one morning, only to find the chamber filled with what looked like every house-slave at Kyneston. One of her friends from the kitchens explained that it was the annual pre-Christmas deep clean. Everyone mucked in. Abi was reluctantly collecting a duster when Jenner appeared at her elbow. “Not you, Miss Hadley, if I may? I was hoping you might help me in the library.” He led her there, then dithered over whether or not to shut the door. Abi wasn’t much of an expert at “reading the signs,” as a flirty schoolfriend had once termed it. But the situation seemed somehow promising.”
― Vic James, Gilded Cage