Zuzana Quotes & Sayings

You read best what you read most. — Zuzana Licko

You are a conniving, deceitful hussy. I stand in awe."
"You're sitting."
"I sit in awe. — Laini Taylor

It had worked. She understood. Things can kill you. All kinds of things, like toys, or older brothers. And as she'd grown up, that list had just gotten longer and longer. — Laini Taylor

The most popular typefaces are the easiest to read; their popularity has made them disappear from conscious cognition. It becomes impossible to tell if they are easy to read because they are commonly used, or if they are commonly used because they are easy to read. — Zuzana Licko

My phone buzzes. It's from Karou: a list of conversation openers that I won't be needing. - a) Hi. I'm Zuzana. I'm actually a marionette brought to life by the Blue Fairy, and the only way I can gain a soul is if a human falls in love with me. Help a puppet out? - b) Hi. I'm Zuzana. The touch of my lips imparts immortality. Just sayin'. - c) Hi. I'm Zuzana. I think I might like you. — Laini Taylor

You are not just going to vanish like this, Karou. This isn't some goddamn Narnia book. — Laini Taylor

I want to build spires in their minds and dance shadows through like marionettes, chased by whispers and hints of the unspeakable. — Laini Taylor

Oh, gross. Your stomach is full of butterfly barf! — Laini Taylor

Around Mik, my powers desert me. I lose basic motor function, like my brain focuses all neural activity on my lips and shifts into kiss preparedness mode way too early, to the detriment of things like speech, and walking. — Laini Taylor

Karou loved Zuzana for her willingness to play out such silliness on a long kite string. — Laini Taylor

Be a Samurai.
Because you just never know what's behind the freaking sky. — Laini Taylor

What a lovely display of personhood. He's like a good book cover that grabs your gaze. Read me. I'm fun but smart. You won't be able to put me down. — Laini Taylor

Cake for later, cake as a way of life. — Laini Taylor

So, you wouldn't marry me."
"Ridiculous question. I'm eighteen!"
"Oh, it's an age thing?" He frowned. "You don't mean wild oats, do you? We're not going to have some stupid break so you can experience other
"
Zuzana put a hand over his mouth. "Gross. Don't even say it. — Laini Taylor

This wasn't a person, Zuzana thought, this was greed wearing skin. — Laini Taylor

World peace for dinner," mused Mik, scratching his beard stubble. "Does that come with fries?"
"It freaking better," said Zuzana. "Or I will send it freaking back. — Laini Taylor

The two of them were stoic and stone-faced and ten feet apart, currently not even looking at each other, but Zuzana had the impression of a pair of magnets pretending not to be magnets. Which, you know, only works until it doesn't. — Laini Taylor

No, tiny violent one. — Laini Taylor

I know. Life is so unfair. I'm still not going to pee on Karou's ex-boyfriend for you." "What? I wasn't even going to ask you to." In her most reasonable tone, Zuzana explained explained, "I just want you to pee in a balloon so I can drop it on him. — Laini Taylor

A mystery is the most stimulating force in unleashing the imagination. — Zuzana Licko

Anyone who would wear all white like that clearly has issues — Laini Taylor

We're playing Three Wishes," she told her friend. "Cake, hot bath, soft bed. How about you?"
"World peace," said Karou.
Zuzana rolled her eyes. "Yes, Saint Karou."
"Cure for cancer," Karou went on. "And unicorns for all."
"Bluh. Nothing ruins Three Wishes like altruism. It has to be something for yourself, and if it doesn't include food, it's a lie."
"I did include food. I said unicorns, didn't I?"
"Mmm. You're craving unicorn, are you?" Zuzana's brow furrowed. "Wait. Do they have those here?"
"Alas, no."
"They did," said Mik. "But Karou ate them all."
"I am a voracious unicorn predator. — Laini Taylor

So what,' said Zuzana. 'They had to be pretty stupid butterflies to fall for him anyway. You'll grow new ones with more sense. New wise butterflies. — Laini Taylor

My kingdom for caffeine," she mumbled, making prayer hands up at the ceiling.
When, however, in the next second, Issa entered with tea, Zuzana was not grateful.
"Coffee, I meant coffee," she told the ceiling, as if the universe were a waiter that had gotten her order wrong. — Laini Taylor

Man," amended Karou, rising and
bending again in mock prayer. "Thank
you, gods, for this man - " She interrupted herself to ask Zuzana, in her normal voice, "Wait. Does that make you a woman?"
She only meant that it was strange to
go from thinking of Zuzana - and herself, too - as a girl to a woman. It just sounded weirdly old. But Zuzana's response, employing full eyebrow power in the service of lechery, was, "Why, yes, since you ask. This man did make me a woman. It hurt like holy hell at first, but it's gotten better." She grinned like an anime character. "So. Much. Better."
Poor Mik blushed like sunburn, and
Karou clamped her hands over her ears.
"La la la!" she sang, and when Ziri asked her what they were saying, she blushed, too, and did not explain - which only made him blush in turn, when he grasped the probable subject matter. — Laini Taylor

I want to be the guy in a movie who's, I don't know, out walking his rabbit on a leash (I don't have a rabbit) and knows exactly how to strike up a quirky, compelling conversation. Though maybe if you're walking a rabbit on a leash, you don't even have to speak; the rabbit does the work for you. Not that Zuzana seems like the rabbity type. Maybe if I were walking a fox on a leash. Or a hyena. Yeah, if I had a hyena, I'd probably never have to start a conversation again.
Except for, Sorry my hyena ate your leg. — Laini Taylor

Nerves," Mik told Karou.
"Bad?"
"Terrible." Stepping up behind Zuzana, he bent down to enfold her in a spoon-hug. "Ferociously, dreadfully awful. She's unbearable. You take her. I've had enough."
Zuzana batted at him, then squealed as he buried his face in the curve of her throat and made exaggerated kissing noises. — Laini Taylor

That widow's peak is preposterous. God. It really makes you feel the sad dearth of widow's peaks in daily life. We could, like, use him as breeding stock to seed widow's peaks into the populace.""My god. What's with all the mating and seed talk?""I'm just saying," Zuzana said reasonably. "I'm crazy about Mik, okay, but that doesn't mean I can't do my part for the proliferation of widow's peaks. As a favor to the gene pool. You would, too, right? Or maybe ... " She shot Karou a sidelong glance. "You already have? — Laini Taylor

So violent. You want to mug and tase everybody these days."
"I do," Zuzana agreed. "I swear I hate more poeple every day. Everyone annoys me. If I'm like this now, what am I going to be like when I'm old?"
"You'll be the mean old biddy who fires a BB gun at kids from her balcony."
"Nah. BBs just rile 'em up. More like a crossbow. Or a bazooka. — Laini Taylor

From: Zuzana Subject: Miss Radio Silence To: Karou — Laini Taylor

Plus, it would be fun. Don't you think? I've always wanted to tase someone. Zap! Zuzana mimicked convulsions. — Laini Taylor

When he started to renew his protest, she held up a hand. What are you more afraid of: them or me with low blood sugar? — Laini Taylor

Please tell me you have to pee."
"What? No. No, I do not. Don't even ask."
"Oh, come on. I'd do it myself if I could, but I can't. I'm a girl."
"I know. Life is unfair. I'm still not going to pee on Karou's ex-boyfriend for you."
"What? I wasn't even going to ask you to." In her most reasonable tone, Zuzana explained, "I just want you to pee in a balloon so I can drop it on him."
"Oh." Mik pretended to consider this for approximately one and a half second. "No. — Laini Taylor

There was, between her and Mik, a fairy-tale promise: that when he had performed three heroic tasks, he could ask for her hand. She'd meant it in jest, but he'd taken it to heart, and was only one task down out of three - though secretly Zuzana accepted his fixing the air-conditioning in their last hotel room as a heroic act and counted it. — Laini Taylor

I'm lucky I'm even alive," she announced. "When I was little, I sucked on duck eyeballs. — Laini Taylor

Now, let's not be hasty,' said Mik 'What exactly is a samurai, really? Do you think that's something we should know before we wish it?'
'Good point. It might turn us both into Japenese men.' She squinted at him. 'Would you still love me if I were a Japenese man?'
'Of course — Laini Taylor

Scientist and smart fellow learner-of-stuff, want to do samurai-monster training with us? We intend to become dangerous. — Laini Taylor

The humans were sitting cross-legged on the floor in a circle of soldiers, pointing at things and learning more Chimaera words: salt, rat, eat, which unfortunate combination led to Zuzana rejecting the meat on her plate.
"I think it's chicken," Mik said, taking a bite.
"I'm just saying there were a lot more rats around here earlier."
"Circumstantial evidence." Mik took another bite and said, in passable Chimaera and to guffaws of laughter, "Salty delicious rat."
"It's chicken," insisted one of the Shadows That Live. Karou wasn't sure which it was, but she was flapping her arms like wings, and even producing chicken bones to prove it. — Laini Taylor

There were some piled furs in the corner, but they were gross and old, and Zuzana was pretty sure that a variety of otherworldly vermin were living out rich, multigenerational sagas in them. — Laini Taylor

Zuzana arched an eyebrow. She was a master of the eyebrow arch, and Karou envied her for it. Her own eyebrows did not function independently of each other, which handicapped her expressions of suspicion and disdain. — Laini Taylor

Me, sweep him off his feet? I know. The laws of the jungle and romance novels would have it the other way around, but I'm not going to wait one more second for that. — Laini Taylor

We read best what we read most. — Zuzana Licko

Seriously?" Zuzana muttered. "As if he knows. Like he didn't tell the last twenty-five reporters because he was saving this excellent secret knowledge just for her? — Laini Taylor

Zuzana wondered if she could have been wrong about him, but dismissed the thought. Anyone who would wear all white like that clearly had issues. Just looking at him made her wish she had a paintball gun, but hell, you couldn't pack for every eventuality. — Laini Taylor