Maggie Stiefvater Quotes & Sayings

Jesus," Gansey said. "I can't take this."
"Worry is weakness, king," Gwenllian piped up. — Maggie Stiefvater

Imagine putting those sad things in the boxes and imagine taping it up with the brain tape. And imagine pushing hem into the side of your brain, where you won't trip over them when you're thinking normally, and then toss a blanket over the top.
...
Put everything in boxes but you. YOU we want to keep. Promise me you'll stay out here with us. — Maggie Stiefvater

Adam didn't need his father to go to jail. He had merely needed someone outside the situation to look at it and confirm that yes, a crime had been committed. Adam had not invented it, spurred it, deserved it. It said so on the court paperwork. Robert Parrish, guilty. Adam Parrish, free. — Maggie Stiefvater

Ronan was broken; Ronan was fixable; Ronan had a soul. — Maggie Stiefvater

Gansey was full of the knowledge that he needed to do something about Ronan Lynch before Ronan did something about Ronan Lynch. Christmas was a dangerous time to be a broken thing. — Maggie Stiefvater

Eventually, the Gray Man thought, if he resisted using it for long enough, he himself might forget his own name, and became someone else entirely. — Maggie Stiefvater

i want to remember — Maggie Stiefvater

Pain was a torn piece of paper. — Maggie Stiefvater

I JUST TOOK SOME GIRL SCOUT COOKIES OUT OF THE FREEZER."

"Oh, that's okay," Blue said. "As you smelled, we just ate."

"I'll take one," the Gray Man interjected. "If they're Thin Mints. — Maggie Stiefvater

As teenagers, we all see ourselves as outsiders ... and it's very easy to look at other people who are more popular, who have more pocket money, and it makes you feel even more like an outsider, and it does shape who you become as a person. — Maggie Stiefvater

For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.
- Rilke — Maggie Stiefvater

Right,' he said. 'So it stands to reason there's something about the line that fortifies or protects a corpse. The soul. The ... animus. The quiddity of it.'
'Gansey, seriously,' Adam interrupted, to Blue's relief. 'Nobody knows what quiddity is.'
'The whatness, Adam. Whatever it is that makes a person who they are. — Maggie Stiefvater

Why are you telling me?" Maura asked. "Why is your face so red?"

"Because you're my mother. Because you're an authority figure. Because you're supposed to inform people of your travel plans when you're hiking on dangerous trails. This is what my face always looks like. — Maggie Stiefvater

Grace: Outside, deep in the woods, I heard a long keening wail, and then another, as the wolves began to howl. More voices pitched in, some low and mournful, others high and short, an eerie and beautiful chorus. I knew my wolf's howl; his rich tone sang out above others as if begging me to hear it.
My heart ached inside me, torn between wanting them to stop and wishing they would go on for ever. I imagined myself there among them in the golden woods, watching them tilt their heads back and howl underneath a sky of endless stars. I blinked a tear away, feeling foolish and miserable, but I didn't go to sleep until every wolf had fallen silent. — Maggie Stiefvater

We are going so slow," Noah said, craning his neck to observe the inevitable queue behind them. "I think I just saw a tricycle pass us. — Maggie Stiefvater

It sure is ugly."
"Ugly, never hurt a thing."
I scoffed. "Oh, ugly has hurt some things. It's just that pretty hurts more. — Maggie Stiefvater

Noah Czerny had died. This was all that was left. That was the truth. Blue's body was a riot of shivers. She had kissed this. This thin, cold memory of a human. — Maggie Stiefvater

I'm a dirt road out in the country kind of person, but I remember thinking, I could live in Chicago. — Maggie Stiefvater

What an impossible and miraculous and hideous thing this was. An ugly plan hatched by an ugly boy now dreamt into ugly life. From dream to reality. How appropiate it was that Ronan, left to his own devices, manifested beautiful cars and beautiful birds and tenderhearted brothers, while Adam, when given the power, manifested a filthy string of perverse murders. — Maggie Stiefvater

Somehow, having a deer preside over the ceremony of a werewolf and a girl seems oddly appropriate. — Maggie Stiefvater

She leaned toward me, offering her neck, and I kissed her just behind her ear. — Maggie Stiefvater

"Even Dwarfs Started Small," Calla replied immediately. "In the original German: Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen."
Maura winced, though Blue couldn't tell if it was at the movie or at Calla's accent. — Maggie Stiefvater

Look, Adam said. He rubbed a finger over the dust of the back window. Next to a Blink-182 sticker was an Aglionby decal. — Maggie Stiefvater

Noah cackled and showed them the cassette. It boasted a handmade label marked with Ronan's handwriting: PARRISH'S HONDAYOTA ALONE TIME. The other side was A SHITBOX SING-ALONG. — Maggie Stiefvater

I want you. Feeling the grip of his hand in mine, the brush of skin on mine, seeing the way he moved in front of me, equal parts human and wolf, and remembering his smell - I ached with wanting to kiss him. — Maggie Stiefvater

Its beyond him now. its time for you to do you own thing."
"My thing? my thing only worked if Grace was here to make it work. without Grace, i have an emotionally unbalanced wolf and a Volkswagen. — Maggie Stiefvater

Cole," I said, "Don't lose this number. — Maggie Stiefvater

I saw that she was looking right at me. Not dead - dying. Funny how two things could be so similar and yet so far apart. Something about the expression in her liquid black eye made my chest hurt. It was like - patience. Or forgiveness. — Maggie Stiefvater

Strange what love taught you about your
faults. — Maggie Stiefvater

The fact was, by the time she got to high school, being weird and proud of it was an asset. Suddenly cool, Blue could've happily had any number of friends. And she had tried. But the problem with being weird was that everyone else was 'normal'. — Maggie Stiefvater

I looked good when I sang the end. — Maggie Stiefvater

Are you coming to me for wisdom?
Gansey shook his head head. 'Courage. — Maggie Stiefvater

I have another horse, Kate Connolly, if you want to ride one of the capaill uisce — Maggie Stiefvater

People shouldn't have to earn kindness. They should have to earn cruelty. — Maggie Stiefvater

It already has," Calla replied. Her eyes opened and fixed on Blue. "And it hasn't yet. Time's circular, chicken. We use the same parts of it over and over. Some of us more than others."
"Wouldn't we remember that?"
"I said time was circular," Calla replied. "I didn't say memories were. — Maggie Stiefvater

The thing about Ronan Lynch was that he wouldn't
or couldn't
express himself with words. So every emotion had to be spelled out in some other way. — Maggie Stiefvater

Fall asleep. Yes, you fall asleep. You are awake and then you close your eyes and thoughts press in and lucidity invades but then, eventually, you teeter on the edge of slumber and fall. — Maggie Stiefvater

She wasn't afraid yet. It took a lot to terrify someone who played in time and space like a bathtub. — Maggie Stiefvater

Make way for the Raven King — Maggie Stiefvater

And so you know what I did with those sad things? I put them in boxes. I put the sad things in the boxes in my head, and I closed them up and I put tape on them and I stacked them up in the corner and threw a blanket over them."
"Braintape? — Maggie Stiefvater

The voice came first, then the chill across her skin. A moment later, Noah Czerny joined her, dressed as always in his navy Aglionby sweater. Joined was perhaps the wrong verb. Manifested was better. The phrase trick of the light was even more superior. Trick of the mind was the best. Because it was rare that Blue noticed the moment Noah actually appeared. It wasn't that he gently resolved into being. It was that somehow her brain rewrote the minute before to pretend that Noah had been slouching beside her all along. — Maggie Stiefvater

Sam reached his hand toward mine and I automatically put my fingers in his. With a guilty little smile he pulled my hand toward his nose and took a sniff and then another one. His smile widened though it was still shy. It was absolutely adorable and my breath got caught somewhere in my throat. — Maggie Stiefvater

It tore my heart out, because I heard his voice. The wolves sang slowly behind him, bittersweet harmony, but all I heard was Sam. His howl trembled, rose, fell in anguish.
I listened for a long time. I prayed for them to stop, to leave me alone, but at the same time I was desperately afraid they would. Long after the other voices had dropped away, Sam kept howling, very soft and slow.
When he finally fell silent, the night felt dead. — Maggie Stiefvater

You know what I mean. I'm telling you I was stupid over it. I thought it was about trying so hard to survive that you didn't have the time to be a good parent. Obviously, that's not it. Because you and I, we're both ... wealthy in love. — Maggie Stiefvater

I can't remember when I stopped being alive. — Maggie Stiefvater

you wanted saving didn't you? — Maggie Stiefvater

Should we split up, or this a horror movie?"
"Scream if something eats you," Gansey said. — Maggie Stiefvater

Amateur," Kavinsky said. "This is the way to dream back Gansey's balls for him."
"Is this going to be a thing?" Ronan demanded. He was angry, but not as angry as he would've been before he started drinking. He put his fingers on the door handle, ready to get out. "Like, is this going to be what's funny to you? Because I don't want this that bad. I can figure it out myself."
"Sure you can," Kavinsky said. He cocked a finger at him. "Give him that pen. Write him a little note with it. In fucking George Washington letters, 'Dear Dick, drive this, ex-oh-ex-oh. Ronan Lynch. — Maggie Stiefvater

He cared for languages dead long enough that they wouldn't change on him. — Maggie Stiefvater

All these perfect days, made of glass Put on the shelf where they can cast perfect shadows that stretch and grow on the imperfect days down below ... perfect shadows that shift and glow ... perfect shadows that shift and grow ... " "Sam singing on page 256 of Linger. — Maggie Stiefvater

What do we do now?" Gansey asked.
From the other room, Calla bellowed, "GO BUY US PIZZA. WITH EXTRA CHEESE, RICHIE RICH."
Blue said, "I think she's starting to like you. — Maggie Stiefvater

Gansey had no idea how old Blue was. He knew she'd just finished eleventh grade. Maybe she was sixteen. Maybe she was eighteen. Maybe she was twenty-two and just very short and remedial. — Maggie Stiefvater

She didn't immediately answer, and he didn't press her. Heart wounds, he knew, made one think more slowly. — Maggie Stiefvater

Gansey sat behind the wheel, wearing both his Aglionby uniform and an electric expression that startled Blue. It was wide-awake and glittering, a match struck just behind his eyes. She'd seen this vivid Gansey before, but usually only when they were alone. — Maggie Stiefvater

Adam asked, "What is he doing, anyway?"
"Peeing."
"Trust Lynch to deface a place like this five minutes after getting here."
"Deface? Marking his territory."
"He must own more of Virginia than your father, then."
"I don't think he's ever used an indoor toilet, now that I think about it. — Maggie Stiefvater

They're tracking the energy abnormalities, above and beyond what runs through Henrietta, and right now, they point right at him." He looked at Ronan.

Gansey, who had looked aghast at the idea of the Gray Man having to abandon his books, frowned even deeper. — Maggie Stiefvater

Life was better than death. Awake was better than asleep. — Maggie Stiefvater

That was the nightmare. That was the nightmare That was the — Maggie Stiefvater

Mom called," Gansey said. "Do I want to meet the governor the weekend after next because it would be great if I did and did I want to bring my friends? No, Mother, I would in fact not like that. Helen will be there! Yes, Mother, I assumed so but hardly consider it a plus, as I am worried she will kidnap Adam. Fine, fine, you don't have to, I know you're busy but oh dot dot dot et cetera et cetera. Oh, — Maggie Stiefvater

Making Ronan Lynch smile felt as charged as making a bargain with Cabeswater. These were not forces to play with. — Maggie Stiefvater

The ocean burned. — Maggie Stiefvater

He rolled his eyes luxuriously at her. It was like he merely absorbed her anger, saving it all up for when he needed it for himself. — Maggie Stiefvater

As I handed her the bag, the old scars on my wrist throbbed with buried memories. — Maggie Stiefvater

I saw myself as an outsider as a teen. I was home-schooled and got my G.E.D. when I was 16; I wasn't interested in high school at all and figured that college might be more entertaining. — Maggie Stiefvater

Shhhhhh, shhhhhh, says the sea, but I don't believe her. — Maggie Stiefvater

I don't care for werewolves. They're all right, I guess, if you go for the shedding, savaging the country-side thing. But they're not very scary nor very sexy and so what's the point? — Maggie Stiefvater

I think-I need to ask an embarrassing question. Do you think I could borrow a pair of scrubs? I-uh-my pants-"
"Oh!" Cried the poor nurse. "Yes. Absolutely. I'll be right back."
[ ... ]
"Thanks," I mumbled. "I'll just change here. He's not looking at anything at the moment." I gestured toward Sam, who was looking convincingly sedated.
The nurse vanished through the curtains. Sam eye's flashed open again, distinctly amused.
He whispered, "Did you just tell that man you went potty on yourself?"
"You.Shut.UP." I hissed back furiously. — Maggie Stiefvater

The thing was, Ronan knew what a face looked like, just before it was about to break. He'd seen it in the mirror often enough. Adam had fracture lines all over him. — Maggie Stiefvater

Solution?"
"Stop Kavinsky."
They eyed each other.
"I don't suppose," Gansey said slowly, "that we could just ask him nicely."
"Hey, Churchill tried to negotiate with Hitler."
Gansey frowned. "Did he?"
"Probably. — Maggie Stiefvater

I don't know if I'd want to be comforted, if I'm being honest. If I'm being forced to eat soot, I want to know that somewhere else in the world, someone else has to eat soot as well. I want to know that soot tastes terrible. I don't want to be told that soot's good for the digestion. And of course, by soot, I mean beans. — Maggie Stiefvater

Then he closed his eyes and began to dream. — Maggie Stiefvater

Persephone was dead. Gansey couldn't believe it, not because he could not believe in the nearness of death
he could not STOP believing in the nearness of death
but because he would not have expected PERSEPHONE to do something as mortal as dying. — Maggie Stiefvater

The world didn't have words to measure hate. There were tons, yards, years. Volts, knots, watts. Ronan could explain how fast his car was going. He could describe exactly how warm the day was. He could specifically convey his heart rate. But there was no way for him to tell anyone else exactly how much he hated Aglionby Academy.
Any unit of measurement would have to include both the volume and the weight of the hate. And it would also have to include a component of time. The days logged in class, wasted, useless, learning skills for a life he didn't want. No single word existed, probably, to contain the concept. All, perhaps. He had all the hate for Aglionby Academy.
Thief? Aglionby was the thief. Ronan's life was the dream, pillaged. — Maggie Stiefvater

I didn't know what to say. It kind of hurt just to look at her, in a way i'd forgotten. Sort of like a splinter - not when you first get it under your skin, but the slow ache after it has been taken out. — Maggie Stiefvater

Sloughing my skin / escaping it's grip / stripped of my wit / it hurts to be me . — Maggie Stiefvater

When Sean sees that I didn't hear him, he leans forward to my ear again. I can't think of the last time I was so close to another person. I can feel the rise and fall of his chest when he breathes. His words are warm in my — Maggie Stiefvater

I wasn't sure if I admired him for feeling everything so hard and fiercely, or if I was contemptuous of him for having so much emotion that he had to spill it out every window of the house. — Maggie Stiefvater

i was an open wound — Maggie Stiefvater

It wasn't that he expected to see the dead. All of the sources said that church watchers had to possess the second sight, and Gansey barely possessed first sight before he put his contacts in. He just hope for something. — Maggie Stiefvater

Let me introduce you. These are my friends: Ronan, Adam Parrish, and Jane."
Adam's expression focused. Became Adam-like. He blinked over to Gansey.
"Blue," Blue corrected.
"Oh, yes, you are blue," Malory agreed. "How perceptive you are. What was the name? Jane? This is the lady I spoke to on the phone all those months ago, right? How small she is. Are you done growing?"
"What!" Blue said. — Maggie Stiefvater

As I pulled aside the linen curtain to the back room, I heard the front door open again. If it was Christina returning to make a second effort at my leggings, I was going to be forced to get loud, and I didn't like getting loud.
But it wasn't Christina I heard at the front of the store.
Instead, a very familiar voice said, "No, no, I'm looking for something very particular. Oh, wait, I just saw it."
I turned around.
Cole St. Clair smiled lazily at me.
I gave so many damns at once that it actually hurt. — Maggie Stiefvater

It was the opposite of Gansey's most public face, which was pure control enclosed in a paper-thin wrapper of academia. — Maggie Stiefvater

Are you crying?"
"Only a little."
"Why?"
"Generalized sadness. — Maggie Stiefvater

Sean reaches between us and slides a thin bracelet of red ribbons over my free hand. Lifting my arm, he presses his lips against the inside of my wrist. I'm utterly still; I feel my pulse tap several times against his lips, and then he releases my hand.
"For luck," he says. He takes Dove's lead from me.
"Sean," I say, and he turns. I take his chin and kiss his lips, hard. I'm reminded, all of a sudden, of that first day on the beach, when I pulled his head from the water.
"For luck," I say to his startled face. — Maggie Stiefvater

He was just upset Dad liked you the best. I didn't care. Everybody has favorite things. Mom liked me best anyway. — Maggie Stiefvater

His mother's father had been a diplomat, an architect of fortunes; his father's father had been an architect, a diplomat of styles. — Maggie Stiefvater

Ronan, I think you need to tell them, too.
Ronan's expression, if anything, was betrayed. This was wearying; Gansey could see precisely the argument that it was heaving towards. Adam would shoot something cool and truthful over the bow, Ronan would fire back a profanity cannon, Adam would drip gasoline in the path of the projectile, and then everything would be on fire for hours. — Maggie Stiefvater

You're asking me to define an abstract concept that no one has managed to explain since time began. You sort of sprang it on me," Gansey said. "Why do we breathe air? Because we love air? Because we don't want to suffocate. Why do we eat? Because we don't want to starve. How do I know I love her? Because I can sleep after I talk to her. Why? — Maggie Stiefvater

I had done something wrong. I shouldn't have shown him. But he had known, hadn't he? What had I done? I retreated quickly down the aisle, pushing my way through the double doors into the porch, where I swiped one of my eyes dry. For a long moment I stood in the dim room, looking blankly at the flyers for bake sales and Bible studies on the noticeboard.
Then I heard him shout, "Damn you! Why?"
I looked through the clear glass of the porch doors to see if he spoke to some barely seen faerie. But to my eyes, there was no one there but Luke and God. — Maggie Stiefvater

In her small voice, Persephone said, "I have nothing to add." After a moment of consideration, she added, however, "If you are going to punch someone, don't put your thumb inside your fist. It would be a shame to break it. — Maggie Stiefvater

But she touched his neck, right where his hair was cut evenly above the collar of his shirt. He was very still. His skin was hot, and she could very, very faintly feel his pulse beneath her thumb. It wasn't like when she was with Adam. She didn't have to guess what to do with her hands. They knew. This was what it should have felt like with Adam. Less like playacting and more like a foregone conclusion. — Maggie Stiefvater

There was another pause, and Gansey realized she'd hung up. He leaned back against the fridge, eyes closed, guilty, comforted, wild, contained. In twenty-four hours, he'd be waiting for this again.
You know better you know better you know better
"What the hell, man?" Ronan said.
Gansey's eyes flew open just as Ronan hit the lights. He stood in the doorway, headphones looped around his neck, Chainsaw hulking like a tender thug on his shoulder. Ronan's eyes found the phone by Gansey's leg, but he didn't ask, and Gansey didn't say anything. Ronan would hear a lie in a second, and the truth wasn't an option. Jealousy had ruined Ronan for the first several months of Adam's introduction into their group; this would hurt him more than that. — Maggie Stiefvater

And then, even if I pulled all that off, if I took something that big out of my dream, it would drain the ley line, possible making Cabeswater disappear again, this time with us in it, sending us all to some never-never land of time-space fuckery that we might never escape from. — Maggie Stiefvater

Is everything all right?" asked the woman across from him. Gansey blinked at her. "Oh, yes, thank you."

There were no circumstances under which he would've answered that question in any other way. Possibly if he'd discovered a family member had died. Possibly if one of his limbs had been separated from his body.

Possibly. — Maggie Stiefvater

Offending her, although he couldn't seem to stop teasing her. Some of my favorite shirts are blue. However, I also like Jane — Maggie Stiefvater

A scientist has a frog and he says, "Jump, frog." The frog jumps ten feet. The scientist writes down, FROG JUMPS 10 FEET. Then the scientist chops of one of the frogs' legs and says, "Jump, frog." and the frog jumps five feet. The scientist writes CUT OFF ONE FOOT, FROG JUMPS 5 FEET. Then he chops off another leg and says, "Jump." and the frog jumps two feet. The scientist writes down CUT OFF TWO LEGS, FROG JUMPS TWO FEET. Then he cuts off all the frogs' legs and says, "Jump." and the frog just lies there.The scientist writes down the conclusions of the test: CUTTING OFF ALL THE FROGS' LEGS MAKES THE SUBJECT GO DEAF. — Maggie Stiefvater

Okay, get out of here. Scram. Farewell," Piper said as more of the wall moved uneasily, the uppermost surface shifting dustily to the floor. "Go be short somewhere else. — Maggie Stiefvater

Adam said, "You were smart to figure it out."
"Oh, I don't know," Gansey replied, but it was clear he was proud. Adam felt like he had helped a bird hatch from an egg. — Maggie Stiefvater

I am an equation that only she solves, These X's and Y's by other names called, My way of division is desperatley flawed, while I multiply days without her. — Maggie Stiefvater

I'm not asking him to stay, Ronan thought. Only to come back. — Maggie Stiefvater