Carstairs Quotes & Sayings

Will: "You are not really dying, are you?"
Jem: "So they tell me."
Will: "I am sorry."
Jem: "No. Don't be ordinary like that. Don't say you're sorry. Say you'll train with me."
Will: "I'll train with you. — Cassandra Clare

I think everyone is strong and weak in different ways. — Cassandra Clare

But if you're foolish enough to want me then I will not question my good fortune. — Cassandra Clare

We're Nephilim. Every one of our life's passages has some mystical component - our births, our deaths, our, marriages, everything has a ceremony and a rune. There is one as well if you wish to become someone's parabatai. It's no small commitment. — Cassandra Clare

Jem's knees gave out, and he sank to the trunk at the foot of his bed, still playing. He played Will breathing the name Cecily, and he played himself watching the glint of his own ring on Tessa's hand on the train from York, knowing it was all a charade, knowing, too, that he wished that it wasn't. He played the sorrow in Tessa's eyes when she had come into the music room after Will had told her she would never have children. Unforgivable, that, what a thing to do, and yet Jem had forgiven him. Love was forgiveness, he had always believed that, and the things that Will did, he did out of some bottomless well of pain. Jem did not know the source of that pain, but he knew it existed and was real, knew it as he knew of the inevitability of his own death, knew it as he knew that he had fallen in love with Tessa Gray and that there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it. — Cassandra Clare

Wo men shi jie bai xiong di-we are more than brothers, Will. — Cassandra Clare

Emma Cordelia Carstairs," he said. He looked both very young and very old at the same time. There was blood at his throat where his faded rune stood out, but it wasn't his. He seemed to be searching her face, though for what, she couldn't tell. "Stay with your parabatai — Cassandra Clare

Yeah, but I kill myself training. It's just about all I do. I get up and train, and run and I split my hands on the punching bag, and I train for hours into the night, and I have to, because there is nothing else special about me and nothing else that matters. All there is, is training and finding out who killed my parents. Because they were the ones who thought I was special, and whoever took them away from me...What I have is trying. I can try harder than anyone else in the world. I can make revenge the only thing I have in my life. I can do that, because I have to. But it means it's all I have. — Cassandra Clare

Will's voice dropped. "Everyone makes mistakes, Jem."
"Yes," said Jem. "You just make more of them than most people."
"I - "
"You hurt everyone," said Jem. "Everyone whose life you touch."
"Not you," Will whispered. "I hurt everyone but you. I never meant to
hurt you."
Jem put his hands up, pressing his palms against his eyes. "Will - "
"You can't never forgive me," Will said in disbelief, hearing the
panic tinging his own voice. "I'd be - "
"Alone?" Jem lowered his hand, but he was smiling now, crookedly. "And
whose fault is that? — Cassandra Clare

Whither thou goest, I will go;
Where thou diest, will I die
And there will I be buried:
The Angel do so to me, and more also,
If aught but death part thee and me. — Cassandra Clare

If you have a soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. Whatever the color, the shape, the design of the shade that conceals it, the flame inside the lamp remains the same. You are that flame. — Cassandra Clare

( ... )Did she really tell Roddy Carstairs she could outshoot him with his own pistol?"
"No," Jason said dryly. "She told him that if he made one more improper advance to her, she would shoot him- and if she missed, she would turn Wolf loose on him. And if Wolf didn't finish the job, she had every faith I would." Jason chuckled and shook his head. "It's the first time I've been nominated for the role of hero. I was a little crushed, however, to be second choice after the dog. — Judith McNaught

I promise to charm the dickens out of him,' said Will, sitting up and readjusting his crushed hat. 'I shall charm him with such force that when I am done, he will be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.'
'The man's eighty-nine', muttered Jem. 'He may well have the problem anyway. — Cassandra Clare

Jem knotted his fingers in the material of Will's sleeve. "You are my parabatai," he said, "You said once I could ask anything of you. — Cassandra Clare

This was a voice that drew out memories stretched thin by years of recollection, like paper unfolded and refolded too many times. A voice that brought back, like a wave, the memory of another time on this bridge, a night so long ago, everything black and silver and the river rushing away under her feet ... — Cassandra Clare

To his children, Will showed the same love he had always shown to her, fierce and unyielding. And the same protectiveness he had only ever showed to one other person: the person James had been named after. Will's parabatai, Jem. — Cassandra Clare

Beautiful," she said, and she meant it. "You are beautiful, James Carstairs. — Cassandra Clare

We're late," she said, "The show is supposed to start in ten minutes. If some people hadn't decided that 'semiformal' meant 'seminaked'-"
"Why are you calling me 'some people'?" Mark inquired. "I am only one person. — Cassandra Clare

For that was love, wasnt it
to burn bright in someone else's eyes? — Cassandra Clare

What'd he said in the car
he'd meant it. His gaze had been level and direct as he'd spoken. It had been *Julian* talking, her Jules, the one who lived in her bones and her brain and at the base of her spine, the one who was threaded all through her like veins or nerves. — Cassandra Clare

I only regret that it came too soon. I
I would have wanted to
to court your first. To take you driving, with a chaperon." (Jem)
"A chaperon?" (Tessa)
"To tell you my feelings first, before I showed them. To write poetry for you
" (Jem)
"You don't even like poetry," (Tessa)
"No. But you make me want to write it. Does that not count for anything?" (Jem) — Cassandra Clare

Emma - "
"I'm calling." Emma lunged for her phone.
"No!" Julian said, forcefully enough to stop her. "You know we can't tell anyone. About Mark - "
"You're not going to bleed to death in a car for Mark!"
"No," he said, looking at her. His eyes were eerily green-blue, the only bright color in the dark interior of the car. "You're going to fix me. — Cassandra Clare

Not giving him booze, are you? He's a little young for it. — Cassandra Clare

Carstairs looked grim. "I gave Mrs. Pollifax to Interpol like a gift and they give every evidence of having discarded her like a boring Christmas tie."
Bishop said soberly, "Well, you know she doesn't look like a gift at first glance, sir. She confuses people by looking the nice cozy grandmother type. — Dorothy Gilman

Change is no loss, Will. Not always. — Cassandra Clare

You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all. — Cassandra Clare

And that someone would pay. Revenge is a cold bedfellow, Diana had said, but Emma didn't believe that. Revenge would let her think about her parents without a cold knot forming in her stomach. She would be able to dream without seeing their drowned faces and hearing their voices cry out for her help. — Cassandra Clare

He hadn't wanted to leave Emma, but at the same time he'd thought it would help. Like an addict getting away from the source of his addiction. — Cassandra Clare

I know you have nothing to worry about. I wasn't in love with Mark. I'll never be in love with anyone again who isn't you. — Cassandra Clare

She knew she could not be Jem for Will. No one could. But slowly the hollow places in his heart were filling in. — Cassandra Clare

Will, is that you? — Cassandra Clare

You don't have to do this."
"I think I do," Julian said. "I remember making a vow to that affect."
"Whither thou goest, i will go, whatever stupid thing you do, i shall do also'." Emma said. "Was that the vow? — Cassandra Clare

I am leaving, but I am living. I will not be gone from you entirely, Will. When you fight now, I will be still by you. When you walk in the world, I will be the light at your side, the ground steady under your feet, the force that drives the sword in your hand. — Cassandra Clare

I don't know how to live in the world as a Shadowhunter without Will. I don't think i even want to. I am still a parabatai, but my other half is gone. — Cassandra Clare

If there is a life after this one, he said, let me meet you in it, James Carstairs. — Cassandra Clare

Come with me," she said. "Stay with me. Be with me. See everything with me. I have traveled the world and seen so much, but there is so much more, and no one I would rather see it with than you. I would go everywhere and anywhere with you, Jem Carstairs. — Cassandra Clare

She was standing in front of all of them in just her bra and jeans. She didn't care. She didn't feel naked- she felt clothed in rage and fury, like a warrior from one of Arthur's tales. — Cassandra Clare

You swore to stay with me," he said. "When we made our oath, as parabatai. Our souls are knit. We are one person, James."
"We are two people," said Jem.
"Two people with a covenant between us."
Will knew he sounded like a child, but he could not help it.
"A covenant that says you must not go where I cannot come with you."
"Until death," Jem replied gently.
"Those are the words of the oath. 'Until
aught but death part thee and me.' Someday, Will, I will go where none can
follow me, and I think it will be sooner rather than later. — Cassandra Clare

We are all the pieces of what we remember. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss. — Cassandra Clare

And that, she realized, fully encompassed the Carstairs family's last and most important rule of life: no matter what, never forget that everything generations of their family had accomplished could vanish in an instant. — Shelley Gray

He touched her as he usually touched his beloved violin, with a soft and urgent grace that left her breathless. — Cassandra Clare

Simon had only had a few encounters with Jem Carstairs, who was apparently as old as his wife, Tessa Gray. They both looked amazingly fit for 150 years. Tessa even looked pretty hot. (Maybe Jem looked hot too? As Simon had thought once before, he probably wasn't the greatest judge of male attractiveness.) Was it weird to think people who were twice as old as your grandparents were good-looking? — Cassandra Clare

We could - " he started, then stopped, swallowed, and started again. "We could become parabatai."
He said it shyly, half-turning his face away from her, so that the shadows partially hid his expression.
"Then they couldn't separate us," he added. "Not ever."
Emma felt her heart turn over. "Jules, being parabatai is a big deal," she said. "It's - it's forever."
He looked at her, his face open and guileless. There was no trickery in Jules, no darkness. "Aren't we forever?" he asked. — Cassandra Clare

I played it for my bride, and one day you will play for yours. — Cassandra Clare

She smiled at him. "How did you know just what I'd want to see?"
"How could I not?" he said. "When I think of you, and you are not there, I see you in my mind's eye always with a book in your hand." He looked away from her as he said it, but not before she caught the slight flush on his cheekbones. He was so pale, he could never hide even the least blush, she thought - and was surprised how affectionate the thought was. — Cassandra Clare

A great sadness welled up in Magnus at the sight of him. It was human to age and die, and Jem stood outside that humanity now, outside the light that burned so brightly and so briefly. It was cold outside that light and fire. No one had greater cause to know that cold than Magnus did. — Cassandra Clare

James, you are all the family I have. I would die for you. You know that. I would die without you. If it were not for you, I would be dead a hundred times over these past five years. I owe you everything, and if you cannot believe I have empathy, perhaps you might at least believe I know honor
honor, and debt
— Cassandra Clare

He began it, Cecily said, jerking her chin at Will, though she knew it was pointless. Jem, Will's parabatai, treated her with the distant sweet kindness reserved for the little sisters of one's friends, but he would always side with Will. Kindly, but firmly, he put Will above everything else in the world.
Well, nearly everything. — Cassandra Clare

Sometimes it's braver not to fight. Protect them, and save your vengeance for another day. — Cassandra Clare

Do you think Charlotte will let me handle the investigation?"
"Do you think you can be trusted in Downworld? The gaming hells, the dens of magical vice, the women of loose morals ... "
Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from heaven. "Would tomorrow be to early to start looking, do you think?
Jem sighed. 'Do what you like, William. You always do. — Cassandra Clare

He always wanted to play video games," said Emma. "I hate video games."
"No one is perfect, Emma."
"But some people are perfect for each other. Don't you think that has to be true? — Cassandra Clare

Your place is with me. It always will be. -Jem Carstairs — Cassandra Clare

Though Will was saying earlier," Tessa added, "that heroes all come to bad ends, and he could not imagine why anyone would want to be one, anyway."
"Ah." Jem's hand squeezed hers briefly, and then let it go. "Well, Will is looking at it from the hero's viewpoint, isn't he? But as for the rest of us, it's an easy answer."
"Is it?"
"Of course." His voice was almost a whisper now. "Heroes endure because we need them. Not for their own sakes. If Will ... — Cassandra Clare

You don't have to do this for me," Emma was saying, softly but earnestly, in a voice Cristina had never heard her use before.
I think I do," said Julian. "I think I remember making a vow to that effect."
"'Whither thou goest, I will go, whatever stupid thing you do, I will do also?'" Emma said. "Was that the vow? — Cassandra Clare

Nobody calls me 'blondie' and keeps their kneecaps. — Cassandra Clare

Jem spoke with enormous care; talking to Will about anything personal was like trying not to startle away a wild animal. — Cassandra Clare

I always loved you, Will, whatever you did. And now I need you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my hear when mine is done with beating.
No, said Will wildly. No, no, no. I will not be those things. Your eyes will see, your hands will feel, your hear will continue to beat.
But if not, Will-
If I could tear myself in half, I would-that half of me might remain with you and half follow Tessa-
Half of you would be no good to either of us, said Jem. — Cassandra Clare

When Will truly wants something," said Jem, quietly, "when he feels something - he can break your heart. — Cassandra Clare

Tiberius Nero Blackthorn. I think his parents may have gone a little overboard. It's like naming someone Magnificent Bastard. — Cassandra Clare

James reared up from his bed and threw himself into Uncle Jem's arms. He had heard some people found the Silent Brothers frightening, with their silent speech and their stitched eyes, but to him the sight of a Silent Brother's robe always meant Uncle Jem, always meant steadfast love. — Cassandra Clare

Dreams can be dangerous things. — Cassandra Clare

I know," he said, looking down at himself self-consciously. "I am not-I mean, I look-"
"Beautiful," she said, and she meant it. "You look beautiful, James Carstairs. — Cassandra Clare

This ... this ... thing?"
"A parsnip?" Jem suggested
"A parsnip planted in satan's own garden," said Will. He glanced about. "I dont suppose there's a dog I could feed it to?"
"There dont seem to be any pets about," Jem-who loved animals, even the inglorious and ill-tempered Church-observed.
"Probably all poisened by parsnips," said Will. — Cassandra Clare

I love you so much, so incredibly much," he went on, "and I forget when you're close to me, I forget who you are. I forget that you're Jem's. I'd have to be the worst sort of person to think what I'm thinking right now. But I am thinking it. — Cassandra Clare

When two souls are as one, they stay together on the Wheel. I was born into this world to love you, and I will love you in the next life, and the one after that." ~Jem Carstairs — Cassandra Clare

I am no longer a Silent Brother," he said. "Only an ordinary man. My name is James, James Carstairs. But everyone calls me Jem. — Cassandra Clare

Astriola. That IS demon pox. You had evidence that demon pox existed and you didnt mention it to me! Et tu, Brute!' He rolled up the paper and hit Jem over the head with it. — Cassandra Clare

Sticks and stones build strong houses — Melody Carstairs

She smiled. Her skin looked whiter than he recalled, and dark spidery veins were beginning to show beneath its surface. Her hair was still the color of spun silver and her eyes were still green as a cat's. She was still beautiful. Looking at her, he was in London again. He saw the gaslight and smelled the smoke and dirt and horses, the metallic tang of fog, the flowers in Kew Gardens. He saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes like Alec's, heard violin music like the sound of silver water. He saw a girl with long brown hair and a serious face. In a world where everything went away from him eventually, she was one of the few remaining constants.
And then there was Camille. — Cassandra Clare

You are my conscience. You have ever been, James Carstairs. — Cassandra Clare

If it's not on the table, don't eat it off the floor. — Melody Carstairs

We both see the same world, but in a different way. Ty feels the same joy I do, the joy of creation. We feel all the same things, only the shapes of our feelings are different. — Cassandra Clare

He can touch your soul. And there is a difference between having your heart break and having your soul shatter. — Cassandra Clare

Emma's heart was pounding. She chanced a look up at Julian. For the briefest of moments he looked like someone who'd been staggering through the Mojave Desert, half-dead from the sun, and had seen a glimmer of water up ahead only to have it turn out to be a mirage. "Still no Mark?" Emma said hastily as Cristina reached them. Not that there was a real reason Cristina would know where Mark was; Emma just didn't want her looking at Julian. Not when he looked like that. — Cassandra Clare

Reparations," said Jem very suddenly, setting down the pen he was holding.
Will looked at him in puzzlement. "Is this a game? We just blurt out whatever word comes next to mind? In that case mine is 'genuphobia'. It means an unreasonable fear of knees."
"What's the word for a perfectly reasonable fear of annoying idiots?" inquired Jessamine. — Cassandra Clare

He gripped her so tightly she could barely breathe. Then he let go. He did it as if he was forcing himself, as if he were starving and he was putting aside the last piece of food he had. But he did it. — Cassandra Clare

There is more to living than not dying. — Cassandra Clare

She did not belong to Will-she was too much herself to belong to anyone, even Jem-but she belonged with them, and silently he cursed the Consul for not seeing it. — Cassandra Clare

Will: 'Singing the praises of our fair city? We treat you well here, don't we, James? I doubt I'd have that kind of luck in Shanghai. What do you call us there again?'
Jem: 'Yang guizi ... foreign devils. — Cassandra Clare

If she kissed him, would he taste like blood or cloves or a mixture of the two? — Cassandra Clare

Carstairs is alright, I suppose. If you like that sort."
"Oh?"
"The taken. The uninterested."
"As opposed to ... you, Gabriel?"
"Well, yes. — Cassandra Clare

Trains are great dirty smoky things," said Will. "You won't like it."
Tessa was unmoved. "I won't know if I like it until I try it, will I?"
"I've never swum naked in the Thames before, but I know I wouldn't like it."
"But think how entertaining for sightseers," said Tessa, and she saw Jem duck his head to hide the quick flash of his grin. — Cassandra Clare

Remember when you tried to convince me to feed a poultry pie to the mallards in the park to see if you could breed a race of cannibal ducks?"
"They ate it too," Will reminisced. "Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck. — Cassandra Clare

He wanted to run to her, wrap her in his arms. Protect her. But it was Jem's place to do those things, not his. Not his. -Will Herondale — Cassandra Clare

You cannot reduce the situation to worm jokes, Will. This is Gabriel and Gideon's father we're discussing."
"We're not just discussing him; we're chasing him through an ornamental sculpture garden because he's turned into a worm. — Cassandra Clare

I am so ready to hunt down those tiny adorable creatures and give them what for," said Emma. "SO READY."
"Emma . . ."
"I may even tie bows on their heads."
"We have to interrogate them."
"Can I get a selfie with one of them first?"
"Eat your toast, Emma. — Cassandra Clare

So you are dying for love, then, Will said finally, his voice sounding constricted to his own ears.
'Dying a little faster for love. And there are worse things to die for. — Cassandra Clare

Jem cried out with all his remaining strength. You cannot go where I am going! Nor would I want that for you! — Cassandra Clare

Whatever you are physically ... male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy
all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside. — Cassandra Clare

No more.
The yin fen has taken so much from me: my family, the years of my life, the strength in my body, the breath in my lungs. It will not take from me this too: the most precious thing we are given by the Angel. The ability to love. I love Tessa Gray.
And I will make sure that she knows it. — Cassandra Clare

You hear that, James Carstairs? We are bound, you and I, over the divide of death, down through whatever generations may come. Forever. — Cassandra Clare

The moment of realization is: When what you thought you couldn't be without, becomes a part of the past, rather than the start of the future. — Melody Carstairs

A sort of good-bye without saying good-bye," he said. "It is a reference to a passage in the Bible. 'And Mizpah, for he said, the Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another. — Cassandra Clare

Julian: "Wikipedia knows about everything. It might be run by warlocks."
Emma: "You think that's what they do all day in the Spiral Labyrinth? Run Wikipedia?"
Julian: "I admit it seems like a letdown. — Cassandra Clare

But I will never have a bride. — Cassandra Clare

Quip fast, die young. — Cassandra Clare

Jem is nothing but goodness. That he struck you last night only shows how capable you are of driving even saints to madness. — Cassandra Clare

God, I hate rogue necromancers," said Magnus. "Why can't they just follow the rules?"
"Probably because the biggest rule is 'no necromancy'?" Emma suggested — Cassandra Clare

But Julian's blood was different. When she saw it she thought of him, shot and crumpling, the way his blood had run like water through her fingers. It was the first time in years that she'd actually thought he might die, that she might lose him. She knew what people said about parabatai, knew that it was meant to be a loss as profound as that of a spouse or a sibling. Emma had lost her parents; she had thought she knew what loss was, was prepared for it. But nothing had prepared her for the feeling that the idea of losing Jules wrenched out of her: that sky would go dark forever, that there would never be solid ground again. — Cassandra Clare

He will choose us," Julian said. "We are his family."
Kieran's eye shone. "I wouldn'tbe so sure, young Shadowhunter. Those of the Hunt are loyal to the Hunt."
"He isn't of the Hunt," Emma said. "He is a Blackthorn. — Cassandra Clare