The Raven Boys Quotes & Sayings

She asked, "Okay, wait, so why is Ronan at the library?"
"Cramming," Noah said. "For an exam on Monday."
It was the nicest thing Blue had ever heard of Ronan doing. — Maggie Stiefvater

Ronan looked angry, but he was in the mood where he was going to look angry no matter what. "I don't know what I want. I don't know what the hell I am."
He got into the Camaro.
"You promised me," Gansey said through the open car door.
Ronan didn't look up."I know what I did, Gansey."
"Don't forget. — Maggie Stiefvater

You can be just friends with people, you know," Orla said. "I think it's crazy how you're in love with all those raven boys."
Orla wasn't wrong, of course. But what she didn't realize about Blue and her boys was that they were all in love with one another. She was no less obsessed with them than they were with her, or one another, analyzing every conversation and gesture, drawing out every joke into a longer and longer running gag, spending each moment either with one another or thinking about when next they would be with one another. Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn't all-encompassing, that wasn't blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she'd had this kind, she didn't want the other. — Maggie Stiefvater

I guess now would be a good time to tell you," He said. "I took Chainsaw out of my dreams. — Maggie Stiefvater

The buck stops here," Ronan said, pulling up the hand brake. "Home shit home. — Maggie Stiefvater

What happened to your face?" Blue asked.
Adam shrugged ruefully. Either he or Ronan smelled like a parking garage. His voice was self-deprecating. "Do you think it makes me look tougher?"
What it did was make him look more fragile and dirty, somehow, like a teacup unearthed from the soil, but Blue didn't say that.
Ronan said, "It makes you look like a loser."
"Ronan," said Gansey.
"I need everyone to sit down!" shouted Maura. — Maggie Stiefvater

Blue opened and closed her chilly fists. The top edges of her fingerless gloves were fraying; she'd done a bad job knitting them last year, but they had a certain trashy chic to them. If she hadn't been so vain, Blue could've worn the boring but functional gloves she'd been given for Christmas. But she was vain, so instead she had her fraying fingerless gloves, infinitely cooler though also colder , and no one to see them but Neeve and the dead. — Maggie Stiefvater

Saw him where?"
"While I was sitting outside with one of my half aunts."
This seemed to satisfy Ronan was well, because he asked, "What's the other half of her?"
"God, Ronan," Adam said. "Enough. — 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

I so despise people who keep dogs, they are cowards that havent got the curridge to bite themselfs — August Strindberg

Did you get notes for me?"
"No", Ronan replied,"I thought you were dead in a ditch. — Maggie Stiefvater

What did you see?" Blue asked. "How did he die?"
Neeve didn't take her eyes off Maura. "I saw him. And then he disappeared. Into absolutely nothing. — Maggie Stiefvater

You are being self-pitying."
"I'm nearly done. You don't have much more of this to bear."
"I like you better this way."
"Crushed and broken," Gansey said. "Just the way women like 'em. — Maggie Stiefvater

We are just ordinary people. They're special. Adam's tied to the ley line. Ronan's a dreamer. Blue amplifies all of that."
"Richie Rich is just a person," Orla said.
Yes, and he's going to die. — 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

There was a faint, amused smile on Gansey's face that meant he knew they were lying. It was a strangely wise expression; once again Blue got the sense that he seemed older than the boys he'd brought with him. — Maggie Stiefvater

The poor are sad they're poor, Adam had once mused, and turns out the rich are sad they're rich. — 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

He looked up. "Is it time already?" She nodded.

He rose and waited as she gathered her things. The dog followed them out the door, but then he bounded down the stairs to the drive. The animal sniffed intently at something on the ground and then rolled, happily rubbing his head and neck in whatever it was.

Lord Swartingham sighed. "I'll have one of the stable boys wash him before he enters the Abbey again."

"Mmm," Anna murmured thoughtfully. "What do you think of 'Adonis'?"

He gave her a look so full of incredulous horror that she was hard-pressed not to laugh. "No, I suppose not," she murmured. — Elizabeth Hoyt

He was just alive," [Gansey] said helplessly. "He just taught us four irregular verbs last week. And you killed him. — 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

Gansey and Adam are getting Adam's stuff so he can move in," Noah said. "Ronan went to the library."
" Move in! I thought he said ... wait-Ronan went where? — Maggie Stiefvater

You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not. — Maggie Stiefvater

Even though Ronan was snarling and Noah was sighing and Adam was hesitating, he didn't turn to verify that they were coming. He knew they were. In three different ways, he'd earned them all days or weeks or months before, and when it came to it, they'd all follow him anywhere. — Maggie Stiefvater

Please just tell me where you are.
His heart hurt with the wanting of it, the hurt no less painful fro being difficult to explain. — Maggie Stiefvater

After a while, there had been too much incredible beauty for him to process, and it had become invisible — Maggie Stiefvater

I'm attracted to those tragic, brooding boys in the novels, and I should learn to separate reality from fiction. — Jo Raven

Ronan did not smoke; he preferred his habits with hangovers. — Maggie Stiefvater

In other words, Botticelli's ideal women look like women and not boys. They're soft and curvaceous. Healthy and rounded. Women of the size figured in this painting were considered beautiful for centuries, if not millennia. They were the aesthetic ideal during my lifetime and long after."
He brought his mouth to her neck before whispering, "My ideal hasn't changed. — Sylvain Reynard

Not like this. At least you have a place to go. 'End of the world' ... What is your problem, Adam? I mean, is there something about my place that's too repugnant for you to imagine living there? Why is it that everything kind I do is pity to you? Everything is charity. Well, here it is: I'm sick of tiptoeing around your principles."
"God, I'm sick of your condescension, Gansey," Adam said. "Don't try to make me feel stupid. Who whips out repugnant? Don't pretend you're not trying to make me feel stupid."
"This is the way I talk. I'm sorry your father never taught you the meaning of repugnant. He was too busy smashing your head against the wall of your trailer while you apologized for being alive."
Both of them stopped breathing.
Gansey knew he'd gone too far. It was too far, too late, too much. — Maggie Stiefvater

If it had a social security number, Ronan had fought with it. — Maggie Stiefvater

Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn't all-encompassing, that wasn't blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she'd had this kind, she didn't want another. — Maggie Stiefvater

Do you know, it's really hard to be a parent. I blame it on Santa Claus. You spend so long making sure your kid doesn't know he's fake that you can't tell when you're supposed to stop."
"Mom, I found you and Calla wrapping my presents when I was, like, six."
"It was a metaphor, Blue."
"A metaphor's supposed to clarify by providing an example. That didn't clarify."
"Do you know what I mean or not?"
"What you mean is that you're sorry you didn't tell me about Butternut."
Maura glowered at the door as if Calla stood behind it. "I wish you wouldn't call him that."
"If you'd been the one to tell me about him, then I wouldn't be using what Calla told me."
"Fair enough. — Maggie Stiefvater

Behind him, he heard Ronan say, I like the way you losers thought Instagram before first aid. Fuck off. — Maggie Stiefvater

At the sight of Gansey's Aglionby sweater, Adam's father had charged out, firing on all cylinders. For weeks after that, Ronan had called Gansey "the S.R.F.," where the S stood for Soft, the R stood for Rich, and the F for something else. — Maggie Stiefvater

Aglionby Academy was the number one reason Blue had developed her two rules: One, stay away from boys because they were trouble. And two, stay away from Aglionby boys, because they were bastards. — Maggie Stiefvater

That is what you said! You think you can just pay me to talk to your friend? Clearly you pay most of your female companions by the hour and don't know how it works with the real world, but ... but.." Blue remembered that she was working to a point, but not what that point was. Indignation had eliminated all higher functions and all that remained was the desire to slap him. The boy opened his mouth to protest, and her thought came back to her all in a rush. "Most girls, when they're interested in a guy, will sit them with for free . — Maggie Stiefvater

The interior would have resembled the backseat of a really big car if the seat belts hadn't had five-point fasteners that looked like they belonged in an X-wing fighter. — Maggie Stiefvater

If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human. — Maggie Stiefvater

Blue, largely against her will, glanced to the booth he pointed to. Three boys sat at it: one was smudgy, just as he said, with a rumpled, faded look about his person, like his body had been laundered too many times. The one who'd hit the light was handsome and his head was shaved; a soldier in a war where the enemy was everyone else. And the third was -- elegant. It was not the right word for him, but it was close. He was fine boned and a little fragile looking, with blue eyes pretty enough for a girl. — Maggie Stiefvater

It was a long-held, multiheaded sensation formed from judgment, experience, and envy, and she didn't care for it. It wasn't that she necessarily thought that her negative opinions on raven boys were wrong. It was just that knowing Gansey, Adam, Ronan, and Noah complicated what she did with those opinions. It had been a lot more straightforward when she'd just assumed that she could despise them all from the thin air of the moral high ground. — Maggie Stiefvater

Henry shuffled the jewelled insect back out of his pocket. It amber heart warmed light through the pit again. "Back in the lab, of course, as father dear tries to copy it with nonmagical parts. My mother told me to keep this one to remind me of what I am."
"And what is that?"
The bee illuminated both itself and Henry: its translucent wings, Henry's wickedly cut eyebrows.
"Something more. — Maggie Stiefvater

Today, Blue thought, is the day I stop listening to the future and start living it instead. — Maggie Stiefvater

The key, Gansey found, was that you had to believe that they existed; you had to realized they were part of something bigger. Some secrets only gave themselves up to those who'd proven themselves worthy. — Maggie Stiefvater

Now Gansey grinned, the warmth of discovery starting to course through him. "So, pop quiz, Mr Parrish. Three things that appear in the vicinity of ley lines?"
"Black dogs," Adam said indulgently. "Demonic presences."
"Camaros," Ronan inserted.
Gansey continued as if he hadn't spoken. "And ghosts. Ronan, queue up the evidence if you would. — Maggie Stiefvater

More than anything, the journal wanted. It wanted more than it could hold, more than words could describe, more than diagrams could illustrate. Longing burst from the pages, in every frantic line and every hectic sketch and every dark-printed definition. There was something pained and melancholy about it. — Maggie Stiefvater

Listening to him tell the story now, it was clear to Adam that Glendower was more than a historical figure to Gansey. He was everything Gansey wished he could be: wise and brave, sure of his path, touched by the supernatural, respected by all, survived by his legacy. — Maggie Stiefvater

Raven." There was a long pause as Ronan regarded his hand. "Maybe a crow. But I doubt it. I ... yeah, seriously doubt it. Corvus corax."
Even drunk, Ronan knew the Latin name for the common raven. — Maggie Stiefvater

The demon kept pulling him unconscious, and in those short bursts of blackness, the dreamer snatched at light, and when he swam back to consciousness, he thrust the dream into reality. He shaped them into flapping creatures and earthbound stars and flaming crowns and golden notes that sang by themselves and mint leaves scattered across the blood-streaked pavement and scraps of paper with jagged handwriting on them: Unguibus et rostro.
But he was dying. — Maggie Stiefvater

I guess I make things that need energy stronger. I'm like a walking battery."
"You're the table everyone wants at Starbucks," Gansey mused as he began to walk again.
Blue blinked. "What?"
Over his shoulder, Gansey said, "Next to the wall plug. — Maggie Stiefvater

Ronan, taking in Blue's posture and Gansey below, observed, "If you spit, Blue, it would land right in his eye."
Gansey moved to the opposite side of the bed with surprising swiftness, glancing at Adam and away again as quickly. — Maggie Stiefvater

I'm not saying you're wrong, Declan," Gansey said. His ear throbbed where it had been boxed. He could feel Ronan's pulse crashing in his arm where he restrained him. His vow to consider his words more carefully came back to him, so he framed the rest of the statement in his head before saying it out loud.
"But you are not Niall Lynch, and you won't ever be. And you'd get ahead a lot faster if you stopped trying."
Gansey released Ronan.
Ronan didn't move, though, and neither did Declan, as if by saying their father's name, Gansey had cast a spell. They wore matching raw expressions. Different wounds inflicted by the same weapon. — Maggie Stiefvater

His eyes were frighteningly alive, the curve of his mouth savage and pleased. It suddenly didn't seem at all surprising that he should be able to pull things from his dreams.
In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys. — Maggie Stiefvater

He's a pit bull," Adam said.
"I know some really nice pit bulls."
"He's the kind of pit that makes the evening news. Gansey's trying to restrain him."
"How noble. — Maggie Stiefvater

But what [Gansey] said was, "I'm going to need everyone to be straight with each other from now on. No more games. This isn't just for Blue, either. All of us."
Ronan said, "I'm always straight."
Adam replied, "Oh, man, that's the biggest lie you've ever told."
Blue said, "Okay. — Maggie Stiefvater

Gansey clucked at his bedraggled reflection in the dark-framed mirror hanging in the front hallway. Chainsaw eyed herself briefly before hiding on the other side of Ronan's neck; Adam did the same, but without the hiding-in-Ronan's-neck bit. Even Blue looked less fanciful that usual, the lighting rendering her lampshade dress and spiky hair as a melancholy Pierrot. — Maggie Stiefvater

Excelsior," Gansey said bleakly.
Blue asked, "What does that even mean?"
Gansey looked over his shoulder at her. He was once more, just a little bit closer to the boy she'd seen in the churchyard.
"Onward and upward. — 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

The best-case scenario here is that you make friends with a boy who's going to die."
"Ah," said Calla, in a very, very knowing way. "Now I see."
"Don't psychoanalyse me," her mother said.
"I already have. And I say again, 'ah'. — Maggie Stiefvater