The Serpent's Curse Quotes

“Humans were basically animals, stupid and instinctual. Easily led with the right incentives. No amount of money changed that.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“It felt like all the layers of time that had ever been, all the layers that might ever be, we’re rising up around her.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“Maybe the destruction he left in his wake--his mother, Julian, Esta, even Dolph--was evidence of the one thing he'd never wanted to accept: that his father's careless violence flowed in his own veins. That there was no escape from what he was.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“You could have everything you desire, but you will never defeat me. Your softness will be your undoing.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“It was a curse to sense the future coming but be unable to see it clearly.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“In the end, history would march on toward a future where people would still be pushed down, kept away, and discarded. Maybe once she'd hoped that by destroying the Brink, she could change the future, but with everything that had happened, she wasn't so sure anymore. Fear and hatred and ignorance seemed so...inevitable.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“You know exactly who I am,” Harte said flatly, tossing the words out like a dropped gauntlet. “Or don’t you recognize your own son?”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“I think it’s time to kill the Devil’s Thief.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“As the world shifted, she had the sudden, awful thought that she’d miscalculated. She’d wondered what it would feel like to disappear—whether it would hurt to be unmade or whether it would be soft, like sinking into darkness. She thought maybe it would be like forgetting—like nothing at all.

Now Esta truly understood. Now she knew how truly terrible it was to feel time pulling her—and everything she was—apart. Ripping her from existence.

Esta’s mind raced for some solution, some way out of the trap she’d set for herself, but before she could do anything, she felt herself being in anchored from the present moment, torn away, torn back through the layers of time and place. Until she wasn’t anything at all.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“It wasn’t a dream, exactly, because that word—“dream”— was for people who had a future in front of them, and Harte knew that he was already living on borrowed time.

Find the stones. Take back the Book. Save the girl. He repeated the words to himself like a mantra.

What makes you believe she’s yours to save? The woman’s voice echoing in his mind was low and soft with a breath I was that made him think of torn paper.

She’s not mine. She never would be. But that didn’t mean Harte wouldn’t do everything in his power to save her just the same.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“Or maybe he simply didn’t want to admit that he needed to know that she would come for him—even if it was only in wrath and fury. Because he couldn’t bear to let her go, even if he would never deserve her.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“Harte had known he couldn’t stay. He couldn’t risk losing her, not like that.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“Once, he would have betrayed anyone and given up anything to have this view. Now, he knew that whatever possibility those wide-open spaces might hold, they were not for him. Maybe they never had been.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“Esta wouldn't let herself rely on the comforting presence of Harte's voice, nor could she afford the distraction of his kiss.d Both were only reminders of a future that could never be.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“The land flew by around her, wide and open, a world filled with possibilities that were not for her. Would never be for her. Esta would do what Harte had asked. She would find the dagger and then meet him at the bridge, but she would not allow herself to forget where her path would inevitably lead.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“Find the dagger. Then meet me at the bridge.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“And Harte Darrigan would be gone as well, lost to history and memory, his lief ended on a cold and lonely bridge.

It was that final thought that felt most impossible of all.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“It was a sign--a warning--that Esta had no choice but to return the Key to her younger self and put her own life on its proper course. If she didn't, her present would become impossible. The person she was would cease to be.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“So yes, maybe Harte had been right to leave, to put space between them until they had a way to control the goddess's power. But he should have discussed it with her. They could have made a plan. Together. Like the partners they were supposed to be.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse

“When she'd discovered his absence a little while ago, she hadn't even been surprised. Not really. His desertion felt strangely familiar. Almost expected. Maybe a part of her had been waiting for him to leave for weeks now, but it didn't hurt any less to know that she'd been right.”
― Lisa Maxwell, The Serpent's Curse