An Artificial Night Quotes

“Just once, I want to meet the villain in a cheerful, brightly lit room. Possibly one with kittens.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Who would come for her?" he snarled, rallying.
Behind me, a voice shouted, "Tybalt, King of Cats. My claim precedes yours.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“I stared at her. "But she drugged us."

"That is no longer news, dumbass. Are you going to ask why she drugged you?"

"Allright," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Why?"

"Because, dear October, you're the most passively suicidal person I've ever met, and that's saying something. You'll never open your wrists, but you'll run headfirst into hell. You'll have good reasons. You'll have great reasons, even. And a part of you will be praying that you won't come out again.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“How many miles to Babylon?
Three-score and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, there and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You will get there by candle-light”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“You'd challenge me and lose. You know it, I know it, but you'd still do it. Sometimes your sense of honor confuses the hell out of me.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Children's games are stronger than you remember once you've grown up and left them behind. They're always fair, and never kind.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“There's always time for tea.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“I am so tired of this gothic crap,” I muttered. “Just once, I want to meet the villain in a cheerful, brightly lit room. Possibly one with kittens.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Love is a powerful thing; it makes us all equals by making us briefly, beautifully human.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Are the fae ever sane? We live in a world that isn't there half the time. We claim that windmills are giants, and because we say it, it's true. Our lives become myth and legend, until even we can't tell what we truly are from what we're told we ought to be. How can we live that way and be considered sane? My lord was never sane, but he was my love once. He always will be, somewhere. Wherever it is that the once upon a times go when they die.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“There’s nothing more stubborn than youth, with the possible exception of old age.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“I didn’t want to go. I’m not a hero; I never have been. I just do what has to be done.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“It wasn't fair to play games with the hearts of people who loved me. And they did love me--I had to admit that, or nothing would ever make sense again.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“That’s all childhood is, after all: strong arms to hold back the dark, a story to keep the shadows dancing, and a candle to mark the long journey into day.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Not all the sparks that fly when the mortal lands and Faerie meet are bright ones.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Heroes never listen. That's why they're heroes.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Come here, she said. "I need to hold someone, and you need to be held. It's a fair trade. Just for a little while, and then we can go on being what we are.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“It’s not that I enjoy surprising everyone I know; it’s more that I almost never know where I’m going before I actually get there.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“He was still so very young. Faeries—true faeries, not their changeling throwaways—live forever, and when you have an eternity of adulthood ahead of you, you linger over childhood. You tend it and keep it close to your heart, because once it ends, it’s over. Quentin was barely fifteen. He’d never seen the Great Hunt that came down every twenty-one years, or been present for the crowning of a King or Queen of Cats, or announced his maturity before the throne of High King Aethlin. He was a child, and he should have had decades left to play; a century of games and joy and edging cautiously toward adulthood.
But he didn’t. I could see his childhood dying in his eyes as he looked at me, silently begging me to answer for him.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Answers are bitter things, and once you get them, they’re yours and you can’t give them back. Did I want to know badly enough that I was willing to live with whatever answer she gave me?
-- Toby”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“If you wish to find your answers, you’ll need to begin thinking, not merely reacting.
-- Lily”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“We can’t save them if they don’t want to be saved. It doesn’t work that way.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“I am older than you can dream, child. All things are easy to me."

"Actually, I doubt that," I said. When there's nowhere left to run, take refuge in cockiness. "I dream some pretty old dreams.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Toby, if I say challenging him is futile, that you'll change nothing and only grant the omen you saw this morning power over you...if I say you can save your life and your heart by walking away from this, will it matter?" Part of me--most of me--wanted to say, "Yes, it would matter; please tell me to stay here. If you tell me, I'll stay." I didn't want to go. I'm not a hero; I never have been. I just do what has to be done. But when you get right down to it, isn't that the definition of hero?”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“It made sense the same way everything in Faerie does: sideways and upside down, like looking in an underwater mirror.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“My lord was never sane, but he was my love, once. He always will be, somewhere. Wherever it is that the once upon a times go when they die.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Quentin quieted and watched her for a moment, hungrily, like he was trying to memorize every detail. Maybe he was. Forever is a long time. You have to burn the edges of memory onto your heart, or they can fade, and sometimes the second loss is worse than the first one.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“The Luidaeg.
Something woke in me that remembered how to hope, because I recognized her as soon as I knew her name--the sea witch, Blind Michael's sister, who sent me to him in the first place. There were figures in the darkness behind her, but none of them mattered; the Luidaeg would save me if anyone could. I owed her, after all. She needed me alive to pay my debts.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Dear October, you’re the most passively suicidal person I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something. You’ll never open your wrists, but you’ll run head-first into hell. You’ll have good reasons. You’ll have great reasons, even. And part of you will be praying that you won’t come out again.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“She held the bottle out to me. I looked at it dubiously. I could hear the stuff inside it fizzing. “What am I supposed to do with that?” “Did someone hit you with the stupid stick this morning? You’re supposed to drink it.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night