Seanan McGuire Quotes & Sayings

She was a woman with something to protect. That made her more dangerous than they could ever have suspected. — Seanan McGuire

Grandma Alice insists he's alive, and my mother raised me never to contradict anyone who regularly carries grenades). — Seanan McGuire

You're nobody's doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you. — Seanan McGuire

We're not out of the woods yet, people," I said, and grimaced, my eyes cheating toward the trees growing on all sides. "No pun intended. Sloane, were you being serious when you said that most of that was Demi's blood? Because I'm not quite ready to condone beating her to death." "She got a nosebleed," said Sloane, reaching forward and taking my hand in hers. Her fingers left red stains on my skin. "Sure, I had to punch her four or five times to make that happen, but nosebleeds are a normal part of being a traitorous bitch who goes over to the dark side at the first sign of trouble. — Seanan McGuire

I hate paperwork," announced Andy, looking up from his desk. "How is it that we have a form for 'you got a gingerbread house dropped on your head'? How do we have a job where that's something you'd need a form for?" "There's — Seanan McGuire

My headache was worse than ever. I groaned, raising my right hand to my temple, and the last of the comfortable darkness dissolved, leaving me inarguably awake. Damn. "Toby? — Seanan McGuire

I mean, it was hard on them. They were turning their backs on everything they'd ever known, because they'd decided there was something that mattered more than doing what they'd been taught to do. Hell, what they'd been raised to do. This wasn't a choice they made on a whim. This was everything to them. — Seanan McGuire

He's going to be okay," said Quentin. "He has to. He's Tybalt. You'd be all weird and irritating if he wasn't around."
"Weird and irritating?" I raised an eyebrow. "What gives you that idea?"
Quentin shrugged. "That's already how you get when he isn't around. — Seanan McGuire

What just happened?" asked Jeff. "Sloane just yelled at the story until it went away," I said blankly. — Seanan McGuire

That's the nature of stories. No one ever gets to know the entire thing. We just get to know the parts we have to deal with right here, right now. Before they rip our throats out. — Seanan McGuire

I just don't think it's a good idea for you to visit right now. Maybe you can come back later? I'll bake you some cookies . . ." Okay, that was it. I hadn't had a chance to use the kitchen for anything more elaborate than coffee and fried eggs, and I'd be damned if some invading monster was going to beat me to it. I stepped into the living room, bat still held in front of me like a poor man's broadsword. "You are not using my kitchen. — Seanan McGuire

Sadly, as I had come to learn, sometimes being a pincushion is my purpose in life. — Seanan McGuire

Sometimes I think Faerie goes to war as much because we can't find anyone who'd rather talk things out as for any other reason. Diplomacy is not a valued skill among the Courts. Most of our nobles would prefer to do the dance of manners and then slide a knife between someone's ribs. It's more fun than actually discussing trade sanctions and why it's rude to kill your neighbors. — Seanan McGuire

The Luidaeg sighed and put her arms around me, pulling me close. "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." I thought about objecting, but dismissed the idea and nestled against her, enjoying the feeling of security given by knowing someone bigger and stronger than I was would stop anything from hurting me. 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. A song to keep the flights of angels at bay. How many miles to Babylon? Sorry. I don't care. — Seanan McGuire

You know, just once, I want a beautiful woman to exploit me for something other than my magic and dangerous political connections. — Seanan McGuire

If you wish to find your answers, you'll need to begin thinking, not merely reacting.
Lily — Seanan McGuire

Mother Nature is a freaky lady who probably created pot so she could spend all her time smoking it. — Seanan McGuire

Why did you put spaghetti sauce into your cousin's drink?"
"Because I like it that way," said Sarah, taking the glass. "You have your chemical stimulants and I have mine, monkey. — Seanan McGuire

Hello carnivore,' said the mouse priest. He turned and bowed to Uncle Mike and Dominic. 'Hail to the High Priest of Goddammit Eat Something Already, and to the God of Hard Choices in Dark Places.' Ryan blinked. 'What?' 'It's a mouse thing, just roll with it, you'll be happier that way,' I advised. — Seanan McGuire

THE HABIT OF NARRATION, of crafting something miraculous out of the commonplace, was hard to break. Narration came naturally after a time spent in the company of talking scarecrows or disappearing cats; it was, in its own way, a method of keeping oneself grounded, connected to the thin thread of continuity that ran through all lives, no matter how strange they might become. Narrate the impossible things, turn them into a story, and they could be controlled. — Seanan McGuire

Honey, if you're telling me David Bowie is somewhere in this maze, I may forget that I'm a married man," said Andy, and followed Carlos into the wall. That — Seanan McGuire

Protecting the human race should really come with a per diem, I swear. — Seanan McGuire

I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that fighting Tybalt wouldn't get me out of the darkness. It would strand me there. — Seanan McGuire

That's basically the cherry on top of this week's sundae of suck. — Seanan McGuire

If something happened to Gillian, I'd rip the world down to save her, even if she spat in my face when I did. That's what parenthood means. — Seanan McGuire

Have to go see the official housing, but I should be able to sneak out after sunset. Meet you back at our usual spot?" "Ah, yes; I'd missed this phase in our relationship. The intrigue. The subterfuge. The frequent need for tetanus shots." Dominic — Seanan McGuire

There's one thing the Brothers Grimm got very, very wrong: There's no such thing as "ever after." That would require that the story ever end. — Seanan McGuire

I whirled, fighting a wave of dizziness as I pointed at Sylvester and snapped, "Don't you 'October' me. He is my family . Even if you couldn't respect that, I don't understand how the hell you got Quentin to go along with you."
- Toby to Sylvester in reference to Tybalt. — Seanan McGuire

The night-haunts never lie. They could, if they wanted to, but they don't really see the point. The truth is so much more dangerous than a lie. — Seanan McGuire

Sometimes I miss the dark. — Seanan McGuire

You know what, honey? You're right. It's time to change my approach. Can you give me one of those nice concussion grenades? — Seanan McGuire

I've never liked being looked at like I was a hero. I always wind up letting someone down. Sometimes I get lucky. Sometimes the only person who gets hurt is me. — Seanan McGuire

It was easier than I expected, maybe because I was too angry and too afraid to really pay attention to what I was doing. Things are always easy when you refuse to let yourself remember how dangerous they are. — Seanan McGuire

If anything attacked us, we could just panic at it until it went away. — Seanan McGuire

Jan built herself an ivory tower to keep the wolves out; she never dreamed they were already inside. — Seanan McGuire

'Feed' is about zombies and politics and blogging. It's about how George Romero actually saved the world! It's 'Night Of The Living Dead' meets 'The West Wing.' — Seanan McGuire

Dr. Reynard - not the name that he was born with, but then, how many people can be truly defined by their original names in both childhood and maturity? A truly sensible culture would grant a person a new name with every decade of their life, until age and perspective allowed them to choose the name that would grace their tombstone - closed his door. — Seanan McGuire

How much does the iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones remember of the heart of the star in which they were born? And if they can forget that terrible, magnificent heat and light, what hope do I have of being more than an unremarkable footnote to you? — Seanan McGuire

Faeries are real. Magic is real. My tendency to greet dangerous situations by plunging in headfirst and seeing how long it takes to get myself covered head to toe in blood is also real. — Seanan McGuire

Boring' is not a virtue. — Seanan McGuire

This isn't an army marching on the Mists. This isn't a case you have to solve. It's just a bunch of nobles coming to puff their chests out at each other an try to look important. Do what I do. Bring popcorn. — Seanan McGuire

The problem with people who say monsters don't really exist is that they're almost never saying it to the monsters. - Alice Healy — Seanan McGuire

The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club. — Seanan McGuire

The hour was growing nigh for crustacean vengeance. — Seanan McGuire

I smiled. I know how creepy I am when I smile. Whoever came up with "skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood" and thought people would find it attractive really wasn't thinking things through. — Seanan McGuire

Because hope is a knife that can cut through the foundations of the world, said Sumi. Her voice was suddenly crystalline and clear, with none of her prior whimsy. She looked at Nancy with calm, steady eyes. Hope hurts. That's what you need to learn, and fast, if you don't want it to cut you open from the inside out. Hope is bad. Hope means you keep on holding to things that won't ever be so again, and so you bleed an inch at a time until there's nothing left. Ely-Eleanor is always saying 'don't use this word' and 'don't use that word,' but she never bans the ones that really bad. She never bans hope. — Seanan McGuire

A lady is never truly embarrassed. And if she is, a lady is never gauche enough to leave survivors. — Seanan McGuire

The history of the human race has been one long quest to find new, novel things, and then kill, eat, or enslave them. There's a reason the aliens haven't made an appearance yet, is what I'm saying. The — Seanan McGuire

Try your best. That's always been good enough for the people who love you. — Seanan McGuire

Remember that most people, human or cryptid, don't like what they don't understand. They're not wired for that kind of compassion. Feel sorry for them, unless they form an angry mob and march on your house. When that happens, release the hounds. - Evelyn Baker — Seanan McGuire

If I were to make a list of shit that is so clearly a terrible idea that I shouldn't have to explain to people why I'm not going to do it, walking into the hedge maze behind a mansion full of dead bodies would have been right up there. Not top 5 maybe, but high enough that I wouldn't have expected people to make me do it. — Seanan McGuire

It smells like mulberries."
"Sometimes it smells like bananas or artichokes. — Seanan McGuire

There weren't any fairy tales in the streets around me. If there was ever a
Cinderella, her glass slippers shattered under her weight and she limped home bleeding from the ball. — Seanan McGuire

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

He on his way." "Maybe he'll bring a sword." "Maybe he'll bring a tank." I shook my head. "I hate being rescued." "Then why aren't we trying to get to the car?" "Because I hate being eaten even more. — Seanan McGuire

My dear October, we are bound by an enchanted rose made from the hair of a Duchess, and my blood is covering your hand. You can learn anything you wish to know about me merely by licking you fingers." Tybalt laughed a little. "Yes, you may ask me a question. — Seanan McGuire

You are covered in blood," Tybalt said again, stressing the words harder this time. "It makes me tense." There was a thud as the guard hit the floor, and Tybalt returned to my side.
"Wow. You must be tense a lot."
He sighed. "You have no idea. — Seanan McGuire

Watching 'Doctor Who' in the United States meant I was always behind the times - PBS didn't get new episodes until two years after they ran, and I was aware of the show's cancellation before the characters themselves knew, at least in my corner of the world. — Seanan McGuire

One day you will have to tell me where you acquired this aversion to walking on solid ground," said Dominic. "Try having a baby sister whose idea of a good time involves pit traps and land mines," I advised. — Seanan McGuire

Whoever was responsible for naming the fae races should really have put more thought into making them pronounceable when drunk. — Seanan McGuire

Boring' is not a virtue.
-May — Seanan McGuire

Logic and loss aren't always great friends. Sometimes we mourn for the things that hurt us. Sometimes, that's okay. — Seanan McGuire

What's to stop the populace from decrying you as a witch and rising against you?"
"I don't know. A couple hundred years of social evolution, combined with a general failure to believe in anything that doesn't have a Wikipedia entry? — Seanan McGuire

I'm always depressed when a book ends, because those are my friends for however long the book takes to write. Since I spend so many hours with these fictional people, I sometimes see them more than my real friends. And then they're gone, and we'll never be together like that again. — Seanan McGuire

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

Running through an unfamiliar forest filled with thorns is half an exercise in masochism, and half an obstacle course from the deepest reaches of Hell. — Seanan McGuire

In the end there's never a sanctuary. You run until there's nowhere left to run to, and then you fight, and then you die, and then it's over. That's how the world works, and if there's any way to change that, I hope someone's eventually planning to let me know. — Seanan McGuire

How quickly they grow apart, when there is something to be superior about. — Seanan McGuire

Thirty minutes out, people," I said. "Where the fuck does she live, Jupiter?" asked Sloane. "Close," I said. "She's in a housing development out near the edge of the wildlife preserve. I guess she likes being close to nature." "Or she's cuckoo-bats," said Sloane. "That's a horrible commute. I'd be road-raging weekly." "That's why we don't let you drive," said Andy. "Henry, you going to light it up?" "No," I said. "No lights, no sirens. We do this quiet." "Because we're so subtle," said Sloane. — Seanan McGuire

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

Going to straight-up fucking murder you, and drink a latte out of your skull." "You forgot to mention poison," I said, taking — Seanan McGuire

What's the point of holding on if I can't save the ones that I can't afford to lose? — Seanan McGuire

Anyone who says the past was perfect is a liar and wasn't there. Everything that thinks can aspire, and everything that aspires wants something better than what they've left behind them. — Seanan McGuire

Never rush anyone who's personally witnessed continental drift. — Seanan McGuire

Fuck that; I want to be a dentist, said Sloane, and stalked down the hall, leaving the rest of us to follow. — Seanan McGuire

Being a King sort of sucks," I said.
Quentin wrinkled his nose, "So does your outfit."
"Blood is in this season. — Seanan McGuire

Love doesn't care what you want. Love doesn't care if it's convenient. Love pursues its own agenda, and there's no bullet in the world that can take it down. More's the pity. — Seanan McGuire

We're good," said Rose, sounding faintly disgusted. "Get into the digestive tract of the hybrid dead woman. Everything's fine. — Seanan McGuire

I require something so horrifically alcoholic that it makes livers tremble with fear and run for their lives when its name is uttered. — Seanan McGuire

Good question," I said, more slowly. "When does she get in?" "What?" Alex blinked. "Your sister?" I said. He was a lot less attractive when he looked that confused. "When does she come on shift? — Seanan McGuire

I told them you almost certainly were not a serial killer, and that they were being horribly sexist by assuming that of the two of us, only you were capable of committing murder. That may have been a tactical error - it got me rather a lot more questioning that I hadn't exactly been planning on." "Well, yes. It's usually unwise to tell the police you could be a serial killer if you really, really wanted to. — Seanan McGuire

Sloane slipped into the room the way a knife slips into a wound: silently, and with the potential to do a lot of damage to anything that happened to get in her way. — Seanan McGuire

There are a lot of issues with the three-tens," I said. "First off, a lot of the time, the poor kids who wind up cast as 'princes' get thrown out of second-story windows and permanently maimed. There have been reports of Rapunzels who sunk so deep into their stories that they actually could cure blindness with their tears, but we haven't had one of those in years, and it's not company policy to let unmonitored memetic incursions progress to that level. — Seanan McGuire

And I am clearly coming around too often and putting up with too much of your monarchist bullshit, because you seem to have forgotten the essential fact that I. Will. Fuck. You. Up." The Luidaeg took a step toward Arden. — Seanan McGuire

Who has a hedge maze in a residential neighborhood? ... serial killers presumably, people who enjoy Steven King novels a bit too much, and people that are hoping one night they will wake up to find David Bowie standing at their window. — Seanan McGuire

I am what I am, and there's much about me that won't be changed with any amount of wishing or wanting. I'm sorry for that. I'd trade a great deal to share an afternoon in the hay with you, dust in the air and sweat on our skins and neither of us caring. But I'm afraid the experience would drive me mad. I am a creature of sterile environments. It's too late for me to change. — Seanan McGuire

Why does Eleanor let you have that much acid?" he asked. "Why would you want that much acid? You don't need that much acid."
"Except that it appears I do, since I have just enough to dissolve a human body, and we have a human body in need of dissolving," said Jack. "Everything happens for a reason. And Eleanor didn't 'let' me have this much acid. I sort of collected it on my own. For a rainy day."
"What were you expecting it to rain?" said Christopher. "Bears? — Seanan McGuire

Jacqueline ran like she had been saving all her running for this moment, for this place where no one could see her, or scold her, or tell her that ladies didn't behave that way, sit down, slow down, you'll rip your dress, you'll stain your tights, be good. She was getting grass stains on her knees and mud under her fingernails, and she knew she'd regret both those things later, but in the moment, she didn't care. She was finally running. She was finally free.
Jillian ran more slowly, careful not to trample the flowers, slowing down whenever she felt like it to look around herself in wide-eyed wonder. No one was telling her to go faster, to run harder, to keep her eyes on the ball; no one wanted this to be a competition. For the first time in years, she was running solely for the joy of running, and when she tripped and fell into the flowers, she went down laughing. — Seanan McGuire

When in doubt, play dead. Well, unless you might be dealing with a ghoul, or a basilisk, or something else that likes its meat a little ripe. Actually, when in doubt, just start shooting. - Alice Healy — Seanan McGuire

It gets better. It never gets easy, but it does start to hurt a little less. — Seanan McGuire

At least that would be a new disgusting swamp experience, instead of a disgusting swamp experience I'd already had several times that day. — Seanan McGuire

This was always the difficult part, back when she'd been at her old school: explaining that "asexual" and "aromantic" were different things. — Seanan McGuire

Technically this is assault and Henry would tell me to verbally request that you not file a sexual harassment claim against me," she said, turning back to Priya. "Honestly, I don't give a shit. I just want you to wake up. Although you know, you're pretty hot and all." This, too, was part of the story. Sleeping Beauties liked declarations of love, or attraction, or just "damn, girl, look at that body" before they were kissed awake. — Seanan McGuire

Doors opened everywhere. Maybe one day, the children of this world who had gone to that world to save themselves would see a door that didn't fit right with the walls around it, something with a doorknob made of a moon, or a knocker that winked. Maybe they could still go home, — Seanan McGuire

Kade was possibly the most beautiful boy she'd ever seen. She wanted to spend hours sitting with him and talking about pointless things. She wanted to feel his hand against her skin, to know that his presence was absolute and focused entirely on her. The trouble was, it never seemed to end there, and that was as far as she was willing to go. — Seanan McGuire

She can stop traffic with a smile. I can stop traffic, too. I just tend to do it by crashing my car into something. — Seanan McGuire

Sorry ... I got distracted listening to you and hot glued myself to my unicorn — Seanan McGuire

Painters and sculptors and designers, they take raw materials and turn them into art. Dancers turn themselves into art. We are poetry in motion when we do our jobs right, and we can stop your heart with the point of a toe or the angle of a limb. But — Seanan McGuire

The petty-minded fools here think surgery and butchery are the same thing. — Seanan McGuire

There is no fighting in the Library. Anyone who starts a fight or responds to a challenge will be thrown out. You may think you can take me. You're probably right. But none of you can take the Library. — Seanan McGuire