Coldtown Quotes & Sayings

Keep going' she told herself, 'Don't look back.' But she looked anyways. — Holly Black

Maybe it was that nearly everyone else was dead and she felt a little bit dead too, but she figured that even a vampire deserved to be saved. Maybe she ought to leave him, but she wasn't going to. — Holly Black

Be careful," Aidan called from the bed. "You don't know what he might do."
"We all know what you'd do, though, don't we? — Holly Black

They have a friend - " Tana began.
"I have a friend, too," said Gavriel. "And I mean to kill him. — Holly Black

She took a deep breath, "Last chance. Are you in need of rescuing?"
His expression turned very strange, almost as if she'd struck him, "Yes," he said finally. — Holly Black

It had worked in the past, being calm, acting as though everything were normal. She hoped it would work again. "Gavriel, we have to go. Stop being so scary."
At that, he looked over and smiled again, spinning Midnight in his arms as if they'd been dancing. Winter caught her and held her upright.
"I can wait a little longer," Gavriel said. "A very little longer."
"The car keys," Tana demanded, holding out a trembling hand. He fished in his pockets - an utterly normal gesture - then dropped them into her palm ceremoniously. She picked up the bag of cash and jewels from beside the hood of the car, shoving it into her purse.
"I won't always obey you," he said softly. "One night you will ask me for something I cannot give."
She'd started to relax, but his words sent a fresh spike of terror up her spine. — Holly Black

That was seven years ago. The doctors told her father the memory would fade, like the big messy scar on her arm, but neither ever did. — Holly Black

Midnight rolled her eyes, as though Aidan was being ridiculous. "I bet you were a good girl back home," she said to Tana. "A good girl all your life until you finally met the trouble you want to get in."
"You obviously don't know her at all," Aidan told Midnight gruffly. Then he turned back to Tana. "Did he bite you? — Holly Black

He reached into the bag and drew out an odd array of manga, ripped paperbacks of books both classic and modern, and a small stack of crumpled magazines. See, I even brought some things to read aloud. I wasn't sure what you'd like, so there's a bit of everything. — Holly Black

Little mouse," a voice said through the keyhole. "Don't you know the more you wriggle, the greater the cat's delight? — Holly Black

Coldtown was dangerous. Tana knew. A glamorous cage, a prison for the damned and anyone who wanted to party with them. — Holly Black

The vampire looked at her in bewilderment. Then he glanced toward the door and his expression grew sly. "If you free me, I could hold them off. — Holly Black

Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life. — Charles Frahman

Please,Tana,please.' -lots of characters in The Coldest Girl in Coldtown — Holly Black

Her screams spiraled up into the night air — Holly Black

Fine, fine, everyone's fine," said the vampire, a mad gleam in his red eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as Bela Lugosi did in black-and-white films. "Fine as scattered pieces of sand."
She wondered how much effort it had taken him to talk to her the way he had - to, what was it he'd said? Keeping my thoughts clearly ordered - and how crazy he was going to be now, as a result of that strain. — Holly Black

In the dream, Tana's mother loved her more than anyone or anything. More than death. — Holly Black

She was unprepared for how much the way into Coldtown looked like a shoddily run DMV. — Holly Black

One of the windows was open, she noticed, curtain fluttering. The party must have gotten too warm, everyone sweating in the small house and yearning for the cool breeze just outside. Then, once the window was open, it would have been easy to forget to close it. There was still the garlic, after all, still the holy water on the lintels. Things like this happened in Europe, in places like Belgium, where the streets teemed with vampires and the shops didn't open until after dark. Not here. Not in Tana's town, where there hadn't been a single attack in more than five years.
And yet it had happened. A window had been left open to the night, and a vampire had crawled through. — Holly Black

You said you were allowed to lose it,' some part of her reminded herself.
'Not yet, not yet. — Holly Black

Tana would sit near the door to the basement with fingers in her ears, tears and snot running down her face as she cried and cried and cried. And little Pearl would toddle up, crying, too. They cried while they ate their cereal, cried while they watched cartoons, and cried themselves to sleep at night, huddled together in Tana's little bed. 'Make her stop' Pearl said, but Tana couldn't. — Holly Black

One of the great things about writing middle-grade books is that it's really a nice break, when you're writing super intense stuff like 'Coldtown', to be able to write something a little lighter - calm down and do something different. — Holly Black

Every night, in every Coldtown, people die. People are fragile. They die of mistakes, of overdoses, of sickness. But mostly they die of Death. — Holly Black

The Thorn of Istra, her mind supplied. That's the Thorn of Istra.
Lots. He's killed lots and lots and lots. — Holly Black

I think we're all better off with you chained up - just not here."
"Are you sure?" Aidan asked. "Gavriel's still a vampire."
"He warned me about you and about them. He didn't have to. I'm not going to repay that by - " She hesitated, then frowned. "What did you call him?"
"That's his name." Aidan sighed. "Gavriel. The other vampires, while they were tying me to the bed, they said his name."
"Oh." With a final tug she pulled the blanket free and tossed it over to Gavriel. — Holly Black

Every kid had to do a different project for that class. Tana had made a diorama, with a shoe box and a lot of red poster paint, to represent a news article that she'd cut out of the paper - one about three vampires on the run from Corpus Christi who'd break into a house, kill everyone, and then rest among the corpses until night fell again.
Which made her wonder if there could still be a vampire in this house, the vampire who had slaughtered all these people. Who'd somehow overlooked her, who'd been too intent on blood and butchery to open every door to every hall closet or bathroom, who hadn't swept aside a shower curtain. It would murder her now, though, if it heard her moving. — Holly Black

The basement smelled damp, like mold and minerals, as she started down the creaking, wooden stairs. Her mother had stopped screaming the moment the door opened. Everything was very quiet as Tana descended, the scratch of her shoes on the wood loud in her ears. Her foot hesitated on the last step. Then something knocked her down. — Holly Black

What got you chained up?" she asked the vampire.
"I fell in with bad company," he said, straight-faced, and for a moment she wasn't sure if he was joking. It rattled her, the idea that he might have a sense of humor.
"Be careful," Aidan called from the bed. "You don't know what he might do."
"We all know what you'd do, though, don't we?" the vampire accused Aidan in his silky voice. — Holly Black

Gazing at her for a long moment with something like horror, as though he was seeing her for the first time, he spoke. "You are more dangerous than daybreak."
Before Tana could reply, he stepped into the lengthening shadows of morning and was gone. — Holly Black

I'm sorry,' she said to each of the dead as she unzipped and unfastened their things, 'I'm sorry Courtney. I'm sorry Marcus. I'm sorry Rachel. I'm sorry Jon. I'm sorry I'm alive and you're dead. I'm sorry I was asleep. I'm sorry I didn't save you and now I'm taking your things. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. — Holly Black

I don't want to be a vampire' she told herself. But in her dreams, she kind of did. — Holly Black

She had shrieked and shrieked for her mother, but her mother was already there. Her mother was the monster. — Holly Black

I'm going to take off your gag. And if you try to bite me or grab me or anything, I'll hit you with this thing as hard as I can as many times as I can. Understood? — Holly Black

He let out a hiss of pain,then smiled that crooked, sheepish smile he always fell back on when he was caught doing something bad. Sorry. I-I didn't mean to. I just- I've been lying here for hours, thinking about blood. — Holly Black

The big question of vampires, the question that hunts governments and individuals alike, the question that bug me every night when I see their red eyes watching citizens of Coldtown the ways hungry cats watch fishin a bucket is: what are they? Are they diseased or demonic? Are they humans who have become ill, deserving hospitals and care, as some have argued? Or are they the bodies of our loved ones animated by some dark force that we ought to seek to destroy? — Holly Black

His voice had a faint trace of an accent she couldn't place - one that made her pretty sure he was no local kid infected the night before. — Holly Black

Tell them I'm like you," Gavriel said as they began to slow down.
Aidan laughed. "I think they can see you're not like us anymore."
"No," he said. "Tell them you know me. That I'm like you, one of you. From the party. Tell them."
"Wait," said Winter. "Wait. Is he saying he wasn't at the party? Did you meet him by the side of the road? Did you pick up a hitchhiker who coincidentally turned out to be a vampire?"
Gavriel fixed his gaze on Winter. "You know me," he said, and a chill went up Tana's spine. "You've known me since outside the rest stop, when I turned and the light hit my face."
"What does he mean?" Midnight asked.
"I don't know," Winter said in an odd voice. "Nothing. — Holly Black

His wax-white skin was cool to the touch when she brushed his neck to find the knot of cloth. She'd never been this close to a vampire,never realized what it would be like to be so near to someone who didn't breathe, who could be as still as any statue. His chest neither rose not fell. Her hands shook. — Holly Black

My view of writing "Coldest Girl in Coldtown" was to take every single thing that I loved from every vampire book I had ever read and dump it into one book
everything I like
trying to evoke some of the decadence ... Vampires are a high-class monster: They want to dress up. They want to drink a lot of absinthe, or force their victims to drink a lot of absinthe. They have big parties and have elegant rituals. I think that's a thing we associate with vampires
they are the royalty of our monsters. We expect them to be rich, we expect them to be well-dressed. I wanted to have some of that be true because I like it, and have some of it not be true because it's kind of weird.
I wanted to put in the idea of infection, which I was really interested in and which was a big feature of the vampire books I read growing up. And, the fear and desire for infection
the way in which our urge towards loving vampires is nihilistic. Our fear of them is our survival instincts kicking in. — Holly Black

If one of the people who'd gone Cold drank human blood, the infection mutated. It killed the host and then raised them back up again, Colder than before. Cold through and through, forever and ever. — Holly Black

Maybe like the bat in the birdcage, Gavriel had been waiting for dark, waiting to get out of the chains, drink Aidan's blood, and escape. But when she showed up, he figured he could use them for a ride through daylight, so long as he seemed harmless enough to need saving. A chill crept up her spine. — Holly Black

Aidan pulled against his bonds. "They keep talking to him in a whole bunch of languages. A lot of French. Something about the Thorn of Istra. I think he's in trouble."
"Are you?" Tana asked.
"Not exactly," said Gavriel. — Holly Black

Looking over at the lump of comforter and jackets and shadow where Gavriel was hiding, she took a deep breath. "I won't leave you," she told Aidan. "I promise."
No one else was going to get killed today, not if she could save them. Certainly not someone she'd once thought she loved, even if he was a jerk. Not some dead boy full of good advice. And she hoped not herself, either. — Holly Black

Maybe if we wrap some of those around you, then even if the blanket slips, you won't burn. We can duct-tape it together. As long as you don't mind looking ridiculous."
The vampire smiled a closemouthed smile. — Holly Black

Death is the dropping of the flower, that the fruit may, swell. — Henry Ward Beecher

She made her voice as firm as possible. "Don't let them catch you."
He hesitated, clearly surprised by her words. Then he smiled again, inclining his head in a shallow bow, acknowledging everything she'd left unsaid. "Traveling with you was a delight worth any delay, but I can delay no longer. — Holly Black

He just looked like a pretty boy, tall and lanky. She thought again of the crumpled paper in her purse and of him, caged beneath a cemetery. How long had he been there? How long had he looked just as he did now? A hundred years? Two hundred? Could he even remember the press of time? Maybe having stepped outside of it would drive anybody crazy. — Holly Black

He smiled, a real smile, the kind real boys gave real girls. "It's been a very long time since anyone worried for me. — Holly Black

We'll call him Maynard McSmollet and he can be from two towns over," said Aidan, snickering. "No one really knew him that well, kept to himself, but he was crashing the party because he could never resist a kegger - or how about Roderick Spoon? Roddy. The Rodster. He was in band and played electric keyboards but got kicked out of several schools for setting small fires. Yeah, that's better. What do you think, Gavriel? — Holly Black

Seems like Death came back for me."
He grinned, a subtly odd grin that somehow made her smile back. "You drove him off again. Sleep, Tana. I will guard you from Death, for I have no fear of him. We have been adversaries for so long that we are closer than friends. — Holly Black

We all labor against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases — Thomas Browne

It came to her, all of a sudden, the words he'd said to her in Lance's house.
If I'm hurt, you must be very careful. No, Tana, you must listen. You must be careful of me.
He hadn't been worried he was going to get hurt. He'd been worried that he was going to hurt someone else. — Holly Black

Are you sure?" Aidan asked, "Gavriel's still a vampire."
"He warned me about you and about them. He didn't have to. I'm not going to repay that by-" she hesitated, then frowned. "What did you call him?"
"That's his name," Aidan sighed, "Gavriel. The other vampires, while they were tying me to the bed, they said his name."
"Oh." With a final tug she pulled the blanked free and tossed it over to 'Gavriel — Holly Black

Haven't you watched the feeds?" Winter asked her, more gently. "Vampires like anything and everything that keeps them from getting bored. Anything and everything." — Holly Black

He must have been handsome when he was alive and was handsome still, although made monstrous by his pallor and her awareness of what he was. His mouth looked soft, his cheekbones as sharp as blades, and his jaw curved, giving him an off-kilter beauty. His black hair a mad forest of dirty curls. — Holly Black

Behind Tana there was the sounds of splintering wood, as though something very large had hot the door. "No," she said softly, "Oh no. No."
"Leave me," said Gavriel.
... "Shut up or I might," she told him. — Holly Black