Avril Lin > Avril's Quotes

“Have I told you how hideous you look tonight?” Cardan asks, leaning back in the elaborately carved chair, the warmth of his words turning the question into something like a compliment.
“No” I say, glad to be annoyed back into the present. “Tell me.”
"I can't.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I love my parents' murderer; I suppose I could love anyone.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“There you are," Cardan says as I take my place beside him. "How has the night been going for you? Mine has been full of dull conversation about how my head is going to find itself on a spike.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Clap her in chains," says Randalin.
Never have I so wished there was a way for me to show I was telling the truth. But there isn't. No oath of mine carries any weight.
I feel a guard's hand close on my arm. Then Cardan's voice comes.
"Do not touch her."
A terrible silence follows. I wait for him to pronounce judgement on me. Whatever he commands will be done. His power is absolute. I don't even have the strength to fight back.
"Whatever can you mean?" Randalin says. "She's-"
"She is my wife," Cardan says, his voice carrying over the crowd.
"The rightful High Queen of Elfhame. And most definitely not in exile.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“It's shocking," he says, as though he's giving me some great compliment. "I know humans can lie, but to watch you do it is incredible. Do it again.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Mortals are fragile," I say.
"Not you," he says in a way that sounds a little like a lament. "You never break."
Which is ridiculous, as hurt as I am. I feel like a constellation of wounds, held together with string and stubbornness. Still, I like hearing it. I like everything he's saying all too well.
That boy is your weakness.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“Pitiful and pitied by no one, why have I come to the ignominy of this detestable old age, who was ruler of two kingdoms, mother of two kings? My guts are torn from me, my family is carried off and removed from me. The young king [crown prince Henry, †1183] and the count of Britanny [prince Geoffrey, †1186] sleep in dust, and their most unhappy mother is compelled to be irremediably tormented by the memory of the dead. Two sons remain to my solace, who today survive to punish me, miserable and condemned. King Richard [the Lionheart] is held in chains [in captivity with Emperor Henry VI of Germany]. His brother, John, depletes his kingdom with iron [the sword] and lays it waste with fire. In all things the Lord has turned cruel to me and attacked me with the harshness of his hand. Truly his wrath battles against me: my sons fight amongst themselves, if it is a fight where where one is restrained in chains, the other, adding sorrow to sorrow, undertakes to usurp the kingdom of the exile by cruel tyranny. Good Jesus, who will grant that you protect me in hell and hide me until your fury passes, until the arrows which are in me cease, by which my whole spirit is sucked out?"

[Third letter to Pope Celestine (1193)]”
― Eleanor of Aquitaine

“I forgive you, but only because you said 'please.'"
Smartass, I thought. Then I groaned at the instant chorus of "Please!" mixed with cries for release from Vlad's prisoners. No wonder he got so sick of the word.
"I'm only merciful to one person a day," he threw over his shoulder. "As the saying goes, today isn't your day and tomorrow doesn't look good, either.”
― Jeaniene Frost, Twice Tempted

“It is at that unfortunate moment that one of the knights stops me.
"You. Mortal girl in the mask," he says. "You smell like blood."
I turn. Frustrated and desperate as I am, I blurt out the first thing that comes to me. "Well, I am mortal. And a girl, sir. We bleed every month, just like moon swells.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“Ignifex's eyes widened a fraction. "He's a coward and a fool," he repeated distantly, as if he had learnt the words by rote. Then his gaze snapped back to me. "Why shouldn't I know my own shadow?"
"He got better than you at kissing somehow," I said. "Don't you ever wonder how?"
If Shade was really the prince-and I still thought he was-then perhaps he could stir up some of Ignifex's memories.
Maybe I wanted him to be jealous, too.
Ignifex opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. "You can meditate on that for a while. I need to go look for ways to defeat you.”
― Rosamund Hodge, Cruel Beauty

“It's just as I thought," she said. "I prefer you to every single one of these. Some of these look far too proud of themselves, and some look selfish and cruel. You are unassuming and kind. I intend to ask my father to marry me to you, instead of to the Prince in Ochinstan. Would you mind?”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Castle in the Air

“You think I am so wicked, don't you? A monster. Unnatural. How cruel of me to keep you here and rattle on about my dead grandmother whom you care nothing about. To hold back the doom I keep in store for you and tease you about your mother. I am telling you all this for a reason, you curdle-brained child. Didn't you ever have a tutor? I am teaching dead, dull history—so that you will understand why your feet carried you here instead of towards some other broken old woman's hut, and what you ended when you snapped my daughter's neck. Don't keep looking at me with that same idiot stare. Listen, or you will comprehend nothing, not even your mother. Shall I just kill you now and have my revenge? It would certainly save breath, and at my age every breath is named and numbered. I entertain you at the expense of not a few figures in that scroll of sighs, boy; do not test me." She paused, grimacing as if she truly were tallying the accounts of her lungs. "And never assume that a woman is wicked simply because she is ugly and behaves unfavorably towards you. It is unbecoming behavior for a Prince.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden

“Cardan grabs my face, fingers splayed against my neck. His breath is against my cheek. His other hand grabs my hair, winding it into a rope. ---
"Get down on your knees," Cardan says, looking insufferably pleased with himself. His fury has transmuted into gloating. "Beg. Make it petty. Flowery. Worthy of me.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I have often wondered if my past is the reason I am the way I am, if it has made me monstrous. If so, will I make a monster out of him"?”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I thought I was supposed to be good and follow the rules," I say. "But I am done with being weak. I am done with being good. I think I am goinng to be something else.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“You hate the Folk." Taryn's eyes flash as she spins her sword in an elegant strike. "You never cared about Locke. He was just another thing to take from Cardan.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“The Bomb elbows me in the side. "We came up with your code name," she mouths. I hadn't even seen her come in past the locked doors.
"What?" I feel as tired as I ever felt, and yet, for seven years, I will not be able to truly rest.
I expect her to say The Liar. She gives me a tricksy grin, full of secrets. "What else? The Queen.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Perhaps I cannot be glamoured, but that doesn't mean I cannot be broken." -The Wicked Prince”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince / The Wicked King / The Queen of Nothing

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"

"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.

"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"

"A pit full of fire."

"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"

"No, sir."

"What must you do to avoid it?"

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.”
― Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre

“I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“Reader, I married him.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre