The Ragpicker King Quotes

“I asked you because when I am not with you, Lin Caster, I feel as if some part of me has been torn away. I feel as if I am bleeding, insensible with the pain of a wound no one can see save myself. When you are with me... It is the only time I feel whole.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“I bleed so that you will not bleed. I die so you can live forever."
"No one lives forever, Kel.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Merren would say the difference between a remedy and a poison is only in the dosage.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Change, I have learned, is not one decision, but many decisions made every day.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“A gilded cage is still a cage.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Kel knew that Conor feared the fall, the tumble into the vast empty abyss of despair. Anger was better than despair—even anger against someone you loved. Anger was fire, and despair was darkness. And Conor had for years been afraid of the dark.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“If I were dead and buried and those feet walked over my grave, I would know those footsteps.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Hope is a danger, you know. Hope may raise you up for a time, but when it is disappointed, the fall is all the more acute.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“I want a different life than the one I have.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“I have begun to understand, in these recent days,' Li said, 'that sometimes, we are chosen to do things we do not wish to do, but that if we do not do them, there will be no one to take our place.;”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“I had not thought we would end like this,” he said. “That you would kill me as your father killed Fausten.”
Conor gave a sort of gasping laugh. “You know me well, too well,” he said. “I, too, was thinking of Fausten tonight.”
“I do not know how Fausten may have felt,” Kel said, “but I would rather that you ended my life than that you let anyone else do it. My life was always yours anyway.”
Conor closed his eyes, just for a moment. When they fluttered open again, they were wide, piercing—haunted. Conor took hold of the lapels of Kel’s jacket, fingers whitening with the tautness of his grip.
He said, “You are my unbreakable armor. And you will not die.”
He pulled Kel closer for a moment; Kel felt Conor’s lips brush his forehead and something cold settle around his neck. Conor let go of his shirt—Kel could see the Castelguards, not far behind him now, staring with wide eyes—and Conor’s hands struck Kel’s chest, flat-palmed, a hard shove. Kel stumbled, felt the ground under him crumble and give way as he fell, toppling headlong from the cliff edge to the sea below.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Kel knew that Conor feared the fall, the tumblr into the vast empty abyss of despair. Anger was better than despair—even anger against someone you loved. Anger was fire, and despair was darkness. And Conor had for years been afraid of the dark.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“After they walked through the archway into the garden of the Castle Mitat, Kel saw Conor, sitting alone at the edge of the tiled fountain. Above him was a darkened sundial, a verse from an old song etched onto its face: alas, how much I thought I knew of love, and yet how little I know.
He looked up at their approach, and smiled as his eyes met Kel’s. “I wondered where you’d gone,” he said. “My best friend and my bride-to-be.”
And Kurame, Kel thought, but when he looked around Kurame had vanished, slipping into the shadows of the night as the Bloodguard seemed to do.
Conor looked woeful. “I was so lonely I considered drowning myself in the fountain, but the water is so full of frogs.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“I have never trust myself,” he said. “But I think, if you did—I could.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“What happened?”
Conor closed his eyes. He shook his head slowly. “I,” he said, “am a fucking idiot.”
“Look at me.” Kel took Conor’s face in his hands. Felt the sharpness of bone against his palm, the familiar slant of Conor’s cheekbones, the coldness of his rain-damp skin. “Everyone’s an idiot,” Kel said. “Some people pretend better than others.”
Conor didn’t smile, but he turned his face into Kel’s hand. It was something.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Kel ran. He raced over the uneven ground at top speed, desperate to catch up to the others. He plunged down the ancient stairs as bright pinpoints of light exploded in the darkness all around him. Something whistled through the air, past Kel’s ear; it hurtled into the trunk of a dwarf pine tree, where it blazed like a miniature star
“What’s going on?” Merren yelled as Kel caught up to him; Jerrod and Ji-An were there as well, just ahead. Kel shoved the amulet into his pocket, almost tripping as his boot landed in a tide pool with a splash.
“People are shooting flaming arrows at us!” Kel shouted back. His boots were skidding on the wet stone. He twisted to the side, trying to right his center of gravity. Ji-An had an arrow in her hand and was struggling to notch it to her bow as she ran.
“I know that!” Merren yelled. “It was a rhetorical question!”
“Shut up, the both of you!” called Ji-An, and let an arrow fly.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“The one who surprised me was you.”
She smiled faintly at that. “I like knowing things. And it does get dull being one of ten daughters in a palace.”
“I see. One must turn to espionage to amuse oneself.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Anjelica glanced out the window. “Is something going on? A festival?”
Kel did not need to look; he could see the light from the naphtha beacons illuminating the inside of the carriage. “It is the Broken Market. Anything can be sold here as long as it is flawed and in need of repair.”
“But why would anyone want such broken things?”
“Some people enjoy the act of repair,” said Kel. “In Zipangu, they mend broken pottery with melted gold, so that the shattered object is more beautiful when put back together. And some, I would guess, merely wish to be assured that nothing is ever ruined beyond recovery.”
“I would prefer it was never broken in the first place.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Sometimes,” Conor said, breaking the silence—he seemed to be speaking half to Kel and half to himself—“we must forget that we are creatures with feelings. We must take the emotions we have and bury them, or turn to stone. And hope to the Gods it does the trick.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Mariam believed in her not for the reasons Chana did---becasue she yearned for the return of the Goddess in her lifetime---but because she had always believed in Lin. If Lin said she was the Goddess, it must be true, because it was Lin saying it. And Mariam's faith did not weigh Lin down; it was not something for her to carry. Rather, it had always carried her.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Like being very rich and very lucky; a person should really be only one of those things.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“You shall leave everything you love most: This is the arrow that the bow of exile Shoots first. You are to know the bitter taste Of others’ bread, how salty it is, and know How hard a path it is for one who goes Ascending and descending others’ stairs. —DANTE, Paradiso;
translated by Allen Mandelbaum”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“There is no such thing as great power that has never been used unfairly.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Everyone’s an idiot,” Kel said. “Some people pretend better than others.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“Twilight was falling—the kind of twilight in which the heat of the day seemed trapped under the oncoming shadow of night.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“I cannot offer you what the lowest peasant in the street could offer you. Myself. Because myself does not belong to me. It belongs to Castellane.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“I heard you say you want a different life.” She took a step toward him. “I understand you did not choose me, or this marriage—”
“It’s not you—” Conor began.
She only shook her head. “And I did not choose you,” she said with a small smile. “But it is incumbent upon each of us, I think, to make of our lives something we would choose.”
“I think you are braver than I am,” Conor said.
“You are brave enough,” she said gently. “What is more frightening than change? And you have changed a great deal in these past months. I did not know you before, but everyone speaks of it. How much you have altered since the Shining Gallery. It may be a change that had its birth in blood and horror, but it is a change nonetheless.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King

“It does not matter whether I trust Falconet,” he said. “I cannot trust you. And if I were to forgive you, the Charter Families—whether they are conspiring or not—would all move against me. They would see weakness all over me like blood on a wounded animal.” Conor slammed his hands against the Sunderglass bars. The noise echoed through the Trick, a crack like thunder. “If you had only come to me,” he said with real anguish, “we would have determined something, come to some understanding, but what you did—treason cannot be wiped away or forgotten. Everyone knows of your guilt; everyone has seen it. I cannot stop what is going to happen. I cannot—” He took a deep breath.
“You cannot save me,” Kel said flatly. “That is what you mean.”
“No,” Conor whispered. “All of your decisions have brought us here. You have taken yourself away from me. And I can never forgive you for that.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” Kel said. He held out his hands. He knew Conor could not touch him through the bars, but he had never reached out for Conor and found the gesture unanswered. He could not stop himself. “I am your Sword Catcher,” he said softly, and he saw Conor’s eyes shine in the dimness. “I bleed so that you will not bleed. I die so you can live forever.”’
“No one lives forever, Kel,” Conor said evenly, and walked away.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Ragpicker King