Laini Taylor Quotes & Sayings

He dreamed of deserts and great empty cities and imagined he could feel the minutes and hours of his life running through him, as though he were nothing but an hourglass of flesh and bone. — Laini Taylor

It was like dying, but without the consolation of oblivion. — Laini Taylor

She had said she didn't feel fear, but it was a lie; this was her fear: being left alone. Because of one thing she was certain, and it was that she could never love, not like that. Trust a stranger with her flesh? The closeness, the quiet. She couldn't imagine it. Breathing someone else's breath as they breathed yours, touching someone, opening for them? The vulnerability of it made her flush. It would mean submission, letting down her guard, and she wouldn't. Ever. Just the thought made her feel small and weak as a child ... — Laini Taylor

With the infinite patience of one who has learned to live broken, he awaited her return. — Laini Taylor

I said I was sorry."
"Be sorry, then. Just be sorry somewhere else. — Laini Taylor

Have you tried this treatment for female baldness? I hear it's life-changing. — Laini Taylor

Who sneers? wondered Eliza, fadingly. She'd thought it was something only book characters did. — Laini Taylor

The sooner you learn to finish things, and as a matter of course finish your creative endeavors, the better. It took me a long time to learn that. — Laini Taylor

Sorry," said Mik. "I think you neutralized our capacity for surprise. You should have started with that, and *then* told us you raise the dead. — Laini Taylor

Brimstone once told me that to stay true in the face of evil is a feat of strength. — Laini Taylor

How do you act like you've lost your soul? Akiva asked. He meant it as a lighthearted question about a children's game, but when he heard himself say the words, he thought, Who knows better than I?
You betray everything you believe in. You drown your grief in vengeance. You kill and keep killing until there's no one left. — Laini Taylor

My phone buzzes. It's from Karou: a list of conversation openers that I won't be needing. - a) Hi. I'm Zuzana. I'm actually a marionette brought to life by the Blue Fairy, and the only way I can gain a soul is if a human falls in love with me. Help a puppet out? - b) Hi. I'm Zuzana. The touch of my lips imparts immortality. Just sayin'. - c) Hi. I'm Zuzana. I think I might like you. — Laini Taylor

You're a storyteller. Dream up something wild and improbable," she pleaded. "Something beautiful and full of monsters."

"Beautiful and full of monsters?"

"All the best stories are. — Laini Taylor

She'd have to get used to him all over again, taking small sips of his beauty as if it was too hot a drink to swallow all at once. — Laini Taylor

Happiness wasn't a mystical place to be reached or won
some bright terrain beyond the boundary of misery, a paradise waiting for them to find it
but something to carry doggedly with you through everything, as humble and ordinary as your gear and supplies. — Laini Taylor

I want to build spires in their minds and dance shadows through like marionettes, chased by whispers and hints of the unspeakable. — Laini Taylor

The simplicity of it filled her with warmth. They had looked for her, and found her; she wasn't alone, after all. — Laini Taylor

Once upon a time, an angel lay dying in the mist.
And a devil knelt over him and smiled. — Laini Taylor

Loneliness is worse when you return to it after a reprieve - like the soul's version of putting on a wet bathing suit, clammy and miserable. And — Laini Taylor

Life won't just happen to you boy, he said. You have to happen to it. — Laini Taylor

...from this day on, whenever he sought to master a woman, whether by threat or strength or even with a look, the fear would flare and overtake him -- so wild and sudden it would drop him to his knees to cower in terror, gibbering for solace from his distant, punishing god. — Laini Taylor

It is bodies that makes us real. What is a soul without eyes to look through or hand to hold? — Laini Taylor

It feels like a door opening, and lungfuls of fresh air rushing in. — Laini Taylor

It isn't magic, just a focus for the will. A powerful will might not even need it -Brimstone — Laini Taylor

Dead souls dream only of death. Small dreams for small men. It is life that expands to fill worlds. Life is your master, or death is — Laini Taylor

Well, Mik doesn't sigh or lean, and his eyes are fully open like something awesome might happen at any time — Laini Taylor

Light coursed through Karou and darkness chased it-burning through her, chilling her, shimmer and shadow, ice and fire, blood and starlight, rushing, roaring, filling her. — Laini Taylor

And if redemption was self-serving, coming as it did ribbon-tied to what he wanted most in life? For once, Akiva's shame wouldn't rise to the bait. He wanted what he'd always wanted, and he'd better just say it, his own worries and fears be damned. — Laini Taylor

There are guerrilla armies that make little boys kill their own families. Such acts rip out the soul and make space for beasts to grow inside. Armies need beasts, don't they? Pet beasts, to do their terrible work! — Laini Taylor

This new thing between them it was ... Astral. It reshaped the air, and it was in her, too - a warming and softening, a pull - and for that moment, her hands in his, Karou felt as powerless as starlight tugged toward the sun in the huge, strange warp of space. — Laini Taylor

She didn't want to kill a moment. She wanted to live one. Live many.

So how in the name of the godstars do you do that? Was it too late to learn? — Laini Taylor

Is life worth keeping on with, whatever happens?" Was she talking about living broken, living with loss? Did she count his loss a real one, and did she really want to know or was there a barb in this somewhere? Sometimes, Akiva felt like he didn't know his sister at all. "Yes," he said, wary, thinking of the thurible, and Karou. "As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better."
"Or worse," said Liraz.
"Yes," he conceded. "Usually worse. — Laini Taylor

I write because, as wonderful as life is - and it is truly wonderful - it isn't enough. It does not, for example, contain dragons. I find this unsatisfactory. So I read. And I write. — Laini Taylor

It was, and then it wasn't. Karou's stomach roiled as she contemplated the possibility of being so suddenly not. — Laini Taylor

Her thoughts had flown outward darting and dipping with the hummingbird moths that flocked by the thousands over head,as she wondered, with a wild ,timpani heart where her angel had gone. — Laini Taylor

A bruxis. That was the one wish more powerful than a gavriel, and its trade value was singular: The only way to purchase one was with one's own teeth. All of them, self-extracted. — Laini Taylor

It was impossible, of course. But when did that ever stop any dreamer from dreaming. — Laini Taylor

I met an angel in Morocco and all I got were these lousy scars. — Laini Taylor

She understood now why pain was the tithe for magic: It was more powerful than joy. Than anything.
Than hope? — Laini Taylor

the dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around. "What's — Laini Taylor

Then there were things
epic, terrible things
that he didn't tell her but skirted around, like caressing the edges of a wound, hesitant, testing for pain. — Laini Taylor

The world had been stirred by a hot poker, and sparks of crazy were flying. — Laini Taylor

It's never too soon to worry. Worry spurs preparation. — Laini Taylor

I can touch you," she marveled, and she couldn't
or at least didn't
resist the urge to further prove it by sliding her palm over the hot-smooth terrain of his chest until she felt as if she were holding his heartbeat in her hand.
"As much as you want," he said, and there was a trembling in him, but it wasn't from pain. — Laini Taylor

The function of hate, as Sarai saw it, was to stamp out compassion - to close a door in one's own self and forget it was ever there. If you had hate, then you could see suffering - and cause it - and feel nothing except perhaps a sordid vindication. — Laini Taylor

She'd poured so much of herself into keeping it buried, sometimes it felt like any energy she might have had for joy or love or light went there instead. You only had so much to give. — Laini Taylor

Don't put anything unnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles - drug or tattoo - and ... no inessential penises, either." "Inessential penises?" Karou had repeated, delighted with the phrase in spite of her grief. "Is there any such thing as an essential one? — Laini Taylor

The happiness was there, ordinary equipment, stowed right alongside the worry and sorrow and resolve, and it didn't solve anything, but it lightened it. "Ready? — Laini Taylor

The air seeming to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place were a story about her. — Laini Taylor

You're doing so well." At being Thiago, she meant. "It's a little eerie."
"Eerie," he repeated.
"Convincing. A few times I almost forgot
"
He didn't let her finish. "Don't forget. Not ever. Not for a second." He drew in breath. "Please."
So much behind that word. Please don't forget I'm not a monster. Please don't forget what I gave up. Please don't forget me. — Laini Taylor

What does "true" even mean when it comes to a face? Only souls are true, and when you spill them to the air they melt away ... — Laini Taylor

Here is a great man, and also a good one, though few men are ever both. — Laini Taylor

I don't have many rules to live by," he'd said. "But here's one. It's simple. Don't put anything unnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles
drug or tattoo
and ... no inessential penises either. — Laini Taylor

It was the hate of the used and tormented, who are the children of the used and tormented, and whose own children will be used and tormented. — Laini Taylor

In the legends, chimaera were sprung from tears and seraphim from blood, but in this moment they are, all of them, children of regret. — Laini Taylor

Maybe she was losing her mind. or maybe ... maybe she was finding it. — Laini Taylor

And they hooked their fingers around its slender spurs, and pulled. — Laini Taylor

You almost hold up your piece of paper and say, 'The girl I like just gave me a treasure map to herself.' But you don't. You just don't. — Laini Taylor

The thing he wished for most was a thing he had never wished for at all, not until he had discovered her. And it came true that night, and many nights after. A brief and shining span of happiness, it was the pivot point around which his whole life spun. — Laini Taylor

She was young and lovely and surprised and dead. She was also blue. Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring - not summer - sky. — Laini Taylor

I have no strategy. I just want to skip all this and get to the part where he's my boyfriend. Not to mention, you know, the part where he's aware I exist. — Laini Taylor

It was a bold, wild life for a faerie - most never even left their forests - but she was a bold, wild lass, and so were her daughter and granddaughter after her, and their place in the world was everywhere and nowhere, like gypsies on wing. No home had they but their caravans and campfires, and no family but the one they'd cobbled together of crows, creatures and kindred souls they'd met on their endless journey round and round the world. — Laini Taylor

You mean he came to your school? The scandalous rodent-loaf! — Laini Taylor

Singing ballads whose words had never known paper but lived only on the rasping edge of their own voices. — Laini Taylor

Will you take some refreshment?" His lip pulled into a snarl. Unable to contain himself, he added, "One last cup of tea before you burn, you old bitch? — Laini Taylor

Above and behind it, slopes scraped north, where the teeth of the Atlas Mountains bit off the sky. Before and below, the earth rolled down a slope of scree and scrub toward the distant Sahara. It was a bleak vista, so still that is seemed the twitch of a scorpion's tail for miles around should draw the eye. — Laini Taylor

Wasn't that what she had always wanted, to be chosen? — Laini Taylor

Perhaps Fate laid out your life for you like a dress on a bed, and you could either wear it or go naked. — Laini Taylor

That boy could wear a banana leaf and a propeller beanie and look beautiful."
"That how you like your boys, Kiz?" asked Cactus.
"Oh yes. All my boys. I'll issue him a banana leaf and a propeller beanie at once and induct him into my boy-harem."
Evie snorted. "Boy harem! Imagine - their little propellers all spinning as they fan you with palm fronds."
"While they satisfy my every whim," added Cactus. Kizzy snorted.
"Forget it. I don't lend out my boys."
"Come on, no one likes a greedy slave owner."
"My boys aren't slaves! They stay because they want to. I give them all the elk meat they can eat. And Xbox, you know, to keep their thumbs nice and agile. — Laini Taylor

Well," Loraz said, her voice as dry as the rest of her was not. "At least you still have clothes on. — Laini Taylor

That widow's peak is preposterous. God. It really makes you feel the sad dearth of widow's peaks in daily life. We could, like, use him as breeding stock to seed widow's peaks into the populace.""My god. What's with all the mating and seed talk?""I'm just saying," Zuzana said reasonably. "I'm crazy about Mik, okay, but that doesn't mean I can't do my part for the proliferation of widow's peaks. As a favor to the gene pool. You would, too, right? Or maybe ... " She shot Karou a sidelong glance. "You already have? — Laini Taylor

I cup the bead in my hand and smile as I drift toward sleep, wondering what my rainy days are going to look like now. As good as my snowy ones, I think. I'm going to need a bigger umbrella. — Laini Taylor

That faeries have forgotten the Tapestry; that is the greatest tragedy of all. It's the fabric of all creation and it's woven of dreams, the dreams of the Djinn. Dreams are real, Magpie. They're seed and water and sun. They're everything. — Laini Taylor

I have been known to say that the devil gave me my first violin. — Laini Taylor

War does that, nothing for it. Reality lays siege. Your framed portrait of life is smashed, and a new one thrust upon you. It's ugly, and you don't even want to look at it let alone hang it on the wall, but you have no choice, once you know. Once you really know. — Laini Taylor

You should quit. Cigarettes make people taste ... yellow.
Taste? Kizzy's mind did a cartwheel. Taste? Was this Jack Husk thinking about tasting her? Great God Almighty, she did not want to taste yellow if that happened, whatever yellow tasted like. — Laini Taylor

Liraz may have captured Ziri's soul like a butterfly in a bottle, but that was only a formality. It was already hers.
And, clearly, judging by the state of her laugh-sobbing in Karou's arms, hers was his, too. — Laini Taylor

As long as you want me with you."
"I want me with you," she said at once. She heard the mix-up of her words - me with you - but didn't correct herself. It was exactly what she meant. — Laini Taylor

You're like a kid when her parents come home from a party, checking their pockets for cake."
"Ooh, cake. I'll take cake. But not pocket cake, because yuck. — Laini Taylor

It wasn't disgust she felt for Karou, not anymore; it was indignation. Incredulity. A man like Akiva crosses worlds to find you, infiltrates the enemy capital just to dance with you, bends heaven and hell to avenge your death, saves your comrade and kin from torture and death, and you send him off looking gut-punched, diminished, carved hollow? — Laini Taylor

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil held a wishbone between them.
And its snap split the world in two. — Laini Taylor

As long as he had life, who deserved it so little, he would use it, wield it, and do whatever he could in its name, even if it was not, was never, enough — Laini Taylor

There is no god, you fools.
There are only monsters, and I am the worst of them. — Laini Taylor

Might they just be two ways of saying the same thing? Suppose 'Heave' and 'Hell' are just other universes. — Laini Taylor

So here we are, talking about Roman unicycles and alien sandwiches and my sister's Italian misfortunes, while hanging in between us is: MY EPIC FAILURE TO CARPE. What's wrong with me? — Laini Taylor

It's the fuel for everything our people have done to each other since the beginning. That's what makes peace seem impossible. How can you blame someone for wanting to kill the killer of their loved ones? How can you fault people for what they do in grief? — Laini Taylor

Can you believe him? Does he think if he just dangle his boy bits at you like a cat toy you'll go scampering after him?"
"Of course he thinks that," said Karou. "This is his idea of a romantic gesture. — Laini Taylor

He looked him right in the eyes and saw a man who was great and good and human, who had done extraordinary things and terrible things and been broken and reassembled as a shell, only then to do the bravest thing of all: He had kept on living, though there are easier paths to take. — Laini Taylor

He wasn't an alchemist, or a hero. He was a librarian, and a dreamer. He was a reader, and the unsung expert on a long-lost city no one cared a thing about. — Laini Taylor

And holy hell the chocolate is so intense and pure it should be named an element and given a spot on the periodic table. It would be Ch, which isn't even taken. — Laini Taylor

Cake for later, cake as a way of life. — Laini Taylor

It's an open horizon before us, as far as the eye can see: no angst and no games, just mutual delight. So simple, but so rich. Like chocolate. Not a gold-dusted truffle or a foofy pastry tower teetering on a crystal platter, but a plain, honest bar of the best chocolate in the world. — Laini Taylor

I want very much to carpe you," it says. "I may try to surprise you, though, if that's okay. Also, I can't feel my face and hands. — Laini Taylor

The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood. The girls with hungry eyes who pray each night to wake up as someone else. Urgent, unkissed, wishful girls. Like Kizzy. — Laini Taylor

As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better."
"Or worse," said Liraz.
"Yes," he conceded. "Usually worse."
Hazael cut in. "My sister, Sunshine, and my brother, Light. You two should rally the ranks. You'll have us killing ourselves by morning. — Laini Taylor

Zuzana wondered if she could have been wrong about him, but dismissed the thought. Anyone who would wear all white like that clearly had issues. Just looking at him made her wish she had a paintball gun, but hell, you couldn't pack for every eventuality. — Laini Taylor

Having hope was like dangling himself over a chasm and putting the rope in her hands. She could annihilate him if she wanted to. — Laini Taylor

Firework test fizzled past like a misbegotten angel — Laini Taylor

What are you waiting for?" he screamed, launching himself at Liraz. With a neat step and parry she sent him face-first into the ground, and with one well-placed kick turned him over, gasping, onto his back. "Kill me!" he coughed out, lying there. "I know you want to!"
But she just shook her head and smiled, and Jael wanted to howl, because her smile had ... plans in it, and in those plans, he saw, there would be no easy death. — Laini Taylor

Her despair may have gone, but it had left its heaviness draped over her, thick and bleak. — Laini Taylor