Tasha3d > Tasha3d's Quotes

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“It’s funny how you get under his skin.”
At first, I’m not sure I heard him right. I almost ask whom he’s talking about, because I can’t quite believe he’s admitting that high and mighty Cardan is affected by anything. “Like a splinter?” I say.
“Of iron. No one else bothers him quite the way that you do.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Nicasia's wrong about me. I don't desire to do as well in the tournament as one of the fey. I want to win. I do not yearn to be their equal. In my heart, I yearn to best them.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“If you hurt me, I wouldn't cry. I would hurt you back.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I am coming unraveled. I am coming undone.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“It’s disturbing to see him like this, behaving as though he might have emotions.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“How will I know when I’ve learned it, since I don’t know it now?” he asks.
The question sounds like a riddle. “Come back when returning feels like a hard choice instead of an easy one,” I answer finally.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“So I am to sit here and feed you information,” Cardan says, leaning against a hickory tree. “And you’re to go charm royalty? That seems entirely backward.”
I fix him with a look. “I can be charming. I charmed you, didn’t I?”
He rolls his eyes. “Do not expect others to share my depraved tastes.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“There is a pleasure in being with them,” he says. “Taking what we wish, indulging in every terrible thought. There’s safety in being awful.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“A king is a living symbol, a beating heart, a star upon which Elfhame's future is written. Surely you have noticed that since his reign began, the isles are different. Storms come in faster. Colors are a bit more vivid, smells are sharper.... When he becomes drunk, his subjects becomes tipsy without knowing why. When his blood falls, things grow.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Cardan’s gaze catches mine, and I can’t help the evil smile that pulls up the corners of my mouth. His eyes are bright as coals, his hatred a living thing, shimmering in the air between us like the air above black rocks on a blazing summer day.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Faerie might be beautiful, but its beauty is like a golden stag’s carcass, crawling with maggots beneath his hide, ready to burst.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Every day that I don’t beg Cardan for forgiveness over a feud he started is a day I win. He can humiliate me, but every time he does and I don’t back down, he makes himself less powerful. After all, he’s throwing everything he’s got at someone as weak as I am and it’s not working. He’s going to take himself down.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I consider all the things I have done to become a worthy adversary of him, but maybe I haven’t been fighting Cardan at all. Maybe I’ve been fighting my own shadow.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Vivi is right; it cost me something to be the way I am. But I do not know what. And I don't know if I can get it back. I don't even know if I want it.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Little did Prince Dain know that my real skill lies in pissing people off.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Crowns of flowers on our heads, shooting bows and arrows at the sky. Eating candied violets and falling asleep with our heads pillowed on logs. We were children. Children can laugh all day and still cry themselves to sleep at night.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I can feel the moment he gives in and gives up, pulling me to him despite the threat of the knife. He kisses me hard, with a kind of devouring desperation, fingers digging into my hair. Our mouths slide together, teeth over lips over tongues. Desire hits me like a kick to the stomach. It's like fighting, except what we're fighting for is to crawl inside each other's skin.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I try not to be too conscious of his long fingers tracing over the paper, of the sick thrill I get when he looks at me.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I thought I was playing the game of pissing off people who hated me already and eating the consequences.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“It occurs to me that maybe desire isn't something overindulging helps. Maybe it is not unlike mithridatism; maybe I took a killing dose when I should have been poisoning myself slowly, one kiss at a time.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“You said that you thought Queen Orlagh was waiting for an advantage to declare war. Instead, I think she is trying a new ruler—one she hopes she can trick or replace with another indebted to her. She thinks me young and feckless and means to take my measure.”

“So what?” I ask. “Our choice is to endure her games, no matter how deadly, or engage in a war we cannot win?”

Cardan shakes his head and drinks another cup of tea. “We show her that I am no feckless High King.”

“And how do we do that?” I ask.

“With great difficulty,” he says. “Since I fear she is right.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“You think I don’t deserve him,” I say to Cardan.
He smiles slowly, like the moon slipping beneath the waves of the lake. “Oh no, I think you’re perfect for each other.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I hate you because your father loves you even though you're a human brat born to his unfaithful wife, while mine never cared for me, though I am a prince of Faerie. I hate you because Locke used you and your sister to make Nicasia cry after he stole her from me. Besides which, after the tournament, Balekin never failed to throw you in my face as the mortal who could best me.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Someone’s really sold you a bill of goods. Plenty of mortals are better at plenty of stuff than the Folk. Why do you think we steal them away?”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“What could I become if I stopped worrying about death, about pain, about anything? If I stopped trying to belong?”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“What could I become if I stopped worrying about death, about pain, about anything? If I stopped trying to belong? Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I concentrate on what I am going to say to Vivi, instead of thinking of Cardan. I do not want to consider what happened between us. I do not want to think about the way his muscles moved or how his skin felt or the soft gasping sounds he made or the slide of his mouth against mine.

I definitely don’t want to think about how hard I had to bite my own lip to keep quiet. Or how obvious it was that I’d never done any of the things we did, no less the things we didn’t do.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Our promises don’t matter. No one expects us to have any honor. Everyone knows we lie.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince