Declan Lynch Quotes

“But joy is a small, tenacious crop, especially in soil that hasn't grown any for a long time.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“By the time we’re married,” Declan said eventually, “I want you to have applied for a different studio in this place because this man’s paintings are very ugly.”

Her pulse gently skipped two beats before continuing on as before. “I don’t have a social security number of my own, Pozzi.”

“I’ll buy you one,” Declan said. “You can wear it in place of a ring.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Mister Impossible

“Do we have to do this everyday? Just say you want a therapist for your birthday.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Mister Impossible

“All this time, the biggest lie Declan had told himself was that he hated his father.
What he’d really meant, every time he thought it, every single day, was: I miss him.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Greywaren

“The statement was meant for effect, and effect it got. Declan gave Matthew his most Declan of faces. He generally used one of two expressions. The first was Bland Businessman Nodding at What You’re Saying While Waiting for His Turn to Talk and the other was Reticent Father with Irritable Bowel Syndrome Realizes He Must Let His Child Use the Public Restroom First. They suited nearly every situation Declan found himself in. This, however, was a third expression: Exasperated Twentysomething Longs to Yell at His Brothers Because Oh My God. He rarely used it, but the lack of practice didn’t make it any less accomplished or any less pure Declan.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Mister Impossible

“It’s bonkers, really,” Jordan remarked. “The whole thing. A sweetmetal. Everyone’s going mad trying to get one, they’re so rare, it’s impossible. And here I am, thinking, oh, right, well, I’ll just make one, then. I never thought of myself as an egotist, but I really must have quite a pair on me.”

Declan smiled at this, turning his face away as he did, as always. “I’m just surprised you’ve never considered yourself an egotist.”

“That’s very sweet.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Mister Impossible

“The second thing he noticed was the rat. He'd had a long debate with Matthew about rats, back at the DC town house they'd shared a lifetime ago, because Matthew had wanted one. As a pet. Declan had said Matthew wouldn't want one if he'd seen a city rat. Matthew had replied the only thing that was different about a city rat was that no one loved it.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Greywaren

“A man in Florence once had a heart attack when he saw the Birth of Venus, if you can believe it,” said a voice beside him. “Palpitations are more common, though. That’s what Stendhal had. Couldn’t walk, he reported, after seeing a particularly moving work of art. And Jung! Jung decided it was too dangerous to visit Pompeii in his old age because the feeling—the feeling of all that art and history round him, it might kill him. Jerusalem… Tourists in Jerusalem sometimes wrap themselves in hotel bedsheets. To become works of art themselves, you know? Part of history. A collective unconscious toga party. One lady in the holy city decided she was giving birth to God’s son. She wasn’t even pregnant, before you ask. Funny what art will do to you. Stendhal Syndrome, they call it, after our lad with the palpitations, though I prefer its more modern name: Declan Lynch.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Mister Impossible

“How badly Declan wanted it. How badly he wanted to trust that someone else would make sure the world didn't burn down without him. How badly he wanted to be a son again, a kid again, to let someone else carry this. Carry him.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Greywaren

“Declan Lynch was a liar.

He'd been a liar his entire life. Lies came to him fluidly, easily, instinctively. What does your father do for a living? He sells high-end sports cars in the summer, life insurance in the winter. He's an anesthesiologist. He does financial consulting for divorcees. He does advertising work for international companies in English-speaking markets. He's in the FBI. Where did he meet your mother? They were on yearbook together in high school. They were set up by friends. She took his picture at the county fair, said she wanted to keep his smile forever. Why can't Ronan come to a sleepover? He sleepwalks. Once he walked out to the road and my father had to convince a trucker who'd stopped before hitting him he was really his son. How did your mother die? Brain bleed. Rare. Genetic. Passes from mother to daughter, which is the only good thing, 'cause she only had sons. How are you doing? Fine. Good. Great.

At a certain point, the truth felt worse. Truth was a closed-casket funeral attended by its estranged living relatives, Lies, Safety, Secrets.

He lied to everyone. He lied to his lovers, his friends, his brothers.

Well.

More often he simply didn't tell his brothers the truth.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“Ronan's trying to wake up the world. I'm trying to think of how to talk him out of it, but what he's talking about is a world where she never fell asleep. A world where Matthew's just a kid. A world where it doesn't matter what Hennessy does, if something happens to her. A level playing field. I don't think it's a good idea, but it's not like I can't see the appeal, because now I'm biased, I'm too biased to be clear." Declan shook his head a little. "I said I would never become my father, anything like him. And now look at me. At us."

Ah, there it was.

It took no effort to remember the way he'd looked at her the first moment he realized she was a dream.

"I'm a dream," Jordan said. "I'm not your dream."

Declan put his chin in his hand and looked back out the window; that, too, would be a good portrait. Perhaps it was just because she liked looking at him that she thought each pose would make a good one. A series. What a future that idea promised, nights upon nights like this, him sitting there, her standing here.

"By the time we're married," Declan said eventually, "I want you to have applied for a different studio in this place because this man's paintings are very ugly."

Her pulse gently skipped two beats before continuing on as before. "I don't have a social security number of my own, Pozzi."

"I'll buy you one," Declan said. "You can wear it in place of a ring."

The two of them looked at each other past the canvas on her easel.

Finally, he said, voice soft, "I should see the painting now."

"Are you sure?"

"It's time, Jordan."

Putting his jacket to the side, he stood. He waited. He would not come around to look without an invite.

It's time, Jordan.

Jordan had never been truly honest with anyone who didn't wear Hennessy's face. Showing him this painting, this original, felt like being more honest than she had ever been in her life.

She stepped back to give him room.

Declan took it in. His eyes flickered to and from the likeness, from the jacket on Portrait Declan's leg to the real jacket he'd left behind on the chair. She watched his gaze follow the line edge she had taken such care to paint, that subtle electricity of complementary colors at the edge of his form.

"It's very good," Declan muttered. "Jordan, it's very good."

"I thought it might be."

"I don't know if it's a sweetmetal. But you're very good."

"I thought I might be."

"The next one will be even better."

"I think it might be."

"And in ten years your scandalous masterpiece will get you thrown out of France, too," he said. "And later you can triumphantly sell it to the Met. Children will write papers about you. People like me will tell stories about you to their dates at museums to make them think they're interesting."

She kissed him. He kissed her. And this kiss, too, got all wrapped up in the art-making of the portrait sitting on the easel beside them, getting all mixed in with all the other sights and sounds and feelings that had become part of the process.

It was very good.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Mister Impossible

“As the crowds grew thicker, Matthew reached up for Declan's hand.

It was just like that. There was Aurora on one side, Declan on the other, and Matthew could have chosen either, but he held up his hand for Declan instead. He did not question that Declan would want to keep him secure; he just assumed that he would.

Declan looked down at Matthew. Matthew smiled up.

At that moment Declan understood that Matthew was unlike any of the other Lynches. The rest of Declan's family members were knotted with secrets, memories, lives experienced behind masks. Matthew might have been a dream, but nothing about him was pretend. Matthew was the truth.

Declan took his hand and held it tightly.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Greywaren

“He turned back to Ronan and said, voice quite calm. "You were right. I was wrong. I fucked up. I fucked it all up. Here is the situation. Bryde said I wasn't keeping you from danger, I was keeping you from being dangerous. I don't think--No. I was. That is true. What he said was true. I have been holding you back your entire life because I was afraid. I have been scared shitless every time you fell asleep since I was a kid, and I have been stopping you whenever I can. Not anymore. I am going to New York and I'm going to get a sweetmetal strong enough to wake you up."

Ronan did not move a millimeter, but one of the trails of salt water down his cheek glistened a little as one more tear was added to it.

"Find whoever killed him, Ronan," Declan told him. "Find whoever killed Matthew and make sure they are never happy ever again."

He and his brother never hugged, but Declan put his hand on Ronan's warm skull for a second.

Declan said, "Be dangerous.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Greywaren

“Jordan Hennessy.
He thought about her all the time.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Mister Impossible

“I want you to give me a straight answer," Declan said. "Are you even thinking about going to college?"

"No." It was satisfying and terrible to say it out loud, a trigger pulled, the explosion over within a second. Ronan looked around for bodies.

Declan swayed; the bullet had clearly at least grazed him near a vital organ. With effort, he got the arterial spray under control. "Yeah, I figured. So the endgame is making this a career for you, isn't it?"

This was not, in fact, what Ronan wanted. Although he wanted to be free to dream, and free to live at the Barns, he did not want to dream in order to be able to live at the Barns. He wanted to be left alone to repair all of the buildings, to raise his father's cattle from their supernatural sleep, to populate the fields with new animals to be eaten and sold, and to turn the very rearmost field into a giant mudslick suitable for driving cars around in circles. This, to Ronan, represented a romantic ideal that he would do much to achieve. He wasn't sure how to tell his brother this in a persuasive, unembarrassing way, though, so he'd said, in an unfriendly way, "I was actually thinkin' of being a farmer."

"Ronan, for fuck's sake," Declan said. "Can we have a serious conversation for once?"

Ronan flipped him the bird with swift proficiency.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“It had been a long time since Ronan had gotten a proper Declan lecture. After their father died, Declan had become legally responsible for his brothers until they hit eighteen. He'd hectored Ronan constantly: Don't skip class, Ronan. Don't get another ticket, Ronan. Don't stay out late with Gansey, Ronan. Don't wear dirty socks twice in a row, Ronan. Don't swear, Ronan. Don't drink yourself into oblivion, Ronan. Don't hang out with those using losers, Ronan. Don't kill yourself, Ronan. Don't use a double Windsor knot with that collar, Ronan.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“Write your routine, Ronan. Now. While I watch. I want to see it."

7:45 A.M.: The most important meal of the day.
8:00 A.M.: Feed animals.
9:30 A.M.: Repair barns or house.
12:00 P.M.: Lunch @ that weird gas station.
1:30 P.M.: Ronan Lynch's marvelous dream emporium.

"What does this one mean, Ronan?"

It meant practice makes perfect. It meant ten thousand hours to mastery, if at first you don't succeed, there is no try only do. Ronan had spent hours over the last year dreaming ever more complex and precise objects into being, culminating in an intricate security system that rendered the Barns largely impossible to find unless you knew exactly where you were going. After Cambridge, though, it felt like all the fun had run out of the game.

"I don't ask what you do at work, Declan."

6:00 P.M.: Drive around.
7:15 P.M.: Nuke some dinner, yo.
7:30 P.M.: Movie time.
11:00 P.M.: Text Parrish.

Adam's most recent text had said simply: $4200.

It was the amount Ronan had to send to cover the dorm room repairs.

*11:30 P.M.: Go to bed.
*Saturday/Sunday: Church/DC
*Monday: Laundry & Grocery
*Tuesday: Text or call Gansey

These last items were in Declan's handwriting, his addendums subtly suggesting all the components of a fulfilling grown-up life Ronan had missed when crafting it. They only served to depress Ronan more. Look how you can predict the next forty-eight hours, seventy-two hours, ninety-six hours, look how you can predict the rest of your life. The entire word routine depressed Ronan. The sameness. Fuck everything.

Gansey texted: Declan told me to tell you to get out of bed.

Ronan texted back: why

He watched the morning light move over the varied black-gray shapes in his bedroom. Shelves of model cars; an open Uilleann pipes case; an old scuffed desk with a stuffed whale on it; a metal tree with wondrously intricate branches; heaps of laundry curled around beet-read wood shavings.

Gansey texted back: don't make me get on a plane I'm currently chained to one of the largest black walnut trees in Oregon”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“Declan Lynch knew he was boring.

He'd worked very hard to be that way, after all. It was a magic trick he didn't expect any prize from but survival, even as he looked at other lives and imagined them his. He didn't fool himself. He knew what he was allowed to do and to want and to put in his life.

Jordan Hennessy didn't belong.

But still, when he came back from the National Gallery of Art to his empty town house, he closed the door behind him and for a moment he just leaned against it, eyes closed, pretending--no, not even pretending. He just didn't think. For one second of one minute of the day, he didn't run the probabilities and worst-case scenarios and possibilities and consequences. For one second of one minute of the day, he just let himself feel.

There it was:

Happiness.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“Declan had been told a long time ago that he had to know what he wanted, or he'd never get it. Not by his father, because his father would never have delivered such pragmatic advice in such a pragmatic way. No, even if Niall Lynch believed in the sentiment, he would have wrapped it up in a long story filled with metaphor and magic and nonsense riddles. Only years after the storytelling would Declan be sitting somewhere and realize that all along Niall had been trying to teach him to balance his checkbook, or whatever the tale had really been about. Niall could never just say the thing.

No, this piece of advice--You have to know what you want, or you'll never get it--was given to Declan by a senator from Nevada he'd met during a DC field trip back in eighth grade. The other children had been bored by the pale stone restraint of the city and the sameness of the law and government offices they toured. Declan, however, had been fascinated. He'd asked the senator what advice he had for those looking to get into politics.

"Come from money," the senator had said first, and then when all the eighth graders and their teachers had stared without laughing, he added, "You have to know what you want, or you'll never get it. Make goals."

Declan made goals. The goal was DC. The goal was politics. The goal was structure, and more structure, and yet more structure. He took AP classes on political science and policy. When he traveled with his father to black markets, he wrote papers. When he took calls from gangsters and shady antique auction houses, he arranged drop-offs near DC and wrangled meetings with HR people. Aglionby Academy made calls and pulled strings; he got names, numbers, internships. All was going according to plan. His father's will conveniently left him a townhouse adjacent to DC. Declan pressed on. He kept his brothers alive; he graduated; he moved to DC.

He made the goal, he went towards the goal.

When he took his first lunch meeting with his new boss, he found himself filled with the same anticipation he'd had as an eighth grader. This was the place, he thought, where things happened. Just across the road was the Mexican embassy. Behind him was the IMF. GW Law School was a block away. The White House, the USPS, the Red Cross, all within a stone's throw.

This was before he understood there was no making it for him. He came from money, yeah, but the wrong kind of money. Niall Lynch's clout was not relevant in this daylight world; he only had status in the night. And one could not rise above that while remaining invisible to protect one's dangerous brother.

On that first day of work, Declan walked into the Renwick Gallery and stood inside an installation that had taken over the second floor around the grand staircase. Tens of thousands of black threads had been installed at points all along the ceiling, tangling around the Villareal LED sculpture that normally lit the room, snarling the railing over the stairs, blocking out the light from the tall arches that bordered the walls, turning the walkways into dark, confusing rabbit tunnels. Museumgoers had to pick their way through with caution lest they be snared and bring the entire world down with them.

He had, bizarrely, felt tears burning the corners of his eyes.

Before that, he hadn't understood that his goals and what he wanted might not be the same thing.

This was where he'd found art.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Mister Impossible

“That was when Matthew punched him.

It amazed him, the punch. Not the shape of the blow. Niall had taught all the boys to box when they were much younger, and although Matthew hadn't used this knowledge until then, it turned out his hands and arms and shoulders still remembered it in some deep, subconscious way.

No, what amazed Matthew about the punch was that it appeared at all. The fact that his hand made a fist and the fist took a journey and the journey ended on Declan's face. The punch knocked Declan right off his stool and onto his back on the tile floor, fancy brogues pointing at the ceiling light. It knocked the breath right out of him (Matthew heard it) and it knocked the car keys right out of his pocket (Matthew saw it). A second later, his spilled coffee cup rolled off the counter and joined him on the floor with a clatter.

It amazed Matthew that his hand, right after punching Declan, snatched the car keys off the floor. It was like he was a whole different person. It was like he was Ronan.

"How do you like it?!" Matthew shouted daringly.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Greywaren

“He couldn't find Matthew. He couldn't find Declan. He couldn't find Adam.

He was trapped here.

All this time, he had judged Declan for being so staid as he took extreme measures to keep his brothers safe. But all this time, that was what Ronan should have been doing. He had so much power before the ley line was shut down. He should have been guarding his family, not the other way around. Instead he acted like a petulant kid. He made up the task of guarding the world, which meant nothing to him, instead of guarding his family, which meant everything to him.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Greywaren

“Declan had a feeling like there was a version of himself that might never take another step off this sidewalk. That might just stand here forever until his heart stopped beating, however long that took.

But instead he squared his shoulders. He took a breath. He felt empty.

He texted Jordan: you were the story I chose for myself.

Then he walked back into the hotel.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Greywaren

“You save all the smart things to talk about with her and then just point out people walking dogs to me.'
'Do you or don't you like it when I point out dogs?' Declan asked.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Mister Impossible

“I want you to give me a straight answer," Declan said. "Are you even thinking about going to college?"

"No." It was satisfying and terrible to say it out loud, a trigger pulled, the explosion over within a second. Ronan looked around for bodies.

Declan swayed; the bullet have clearly at least grazed him near a vital organ. With effort, he got the arterial spray under control. "Yeah, I figured. So the endgame is making this a career for you, isn't it?"

This was not, in fact, what Ronan wanted. Although he wanted to be free to dream, and free to live at the Barns, he did not want to dream in order to be able to live at the Barns. He wanted to be left alone to repair all of the buildings, to raise his father's cattle from their supernatural sleep, to populate the fields with new animals to be eaten and sold, and to turn the very rearmost field into a giant mudslick suitable for driving cars around in circles. This, to Ronan, represented a romantic ideal that he would do much to achieve. He wasn't sure how to tell his brother this in a persuasive, unembarrassing way, though, so he'd said, in an unfriendly way, "I was actually thinkin' of being a farmer."

"Ronan, for fuck's sake," Declan said. "Can we have a serious conversation for one?"

Ronan flipped him the bird with swift proficiency.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“I want you to give me a straight answer," Declan said. "Are you even thinking about going to college?"

"No." It was satisfying and terrible to say it out loud, a trigger pulled, the explosion over within a second. Ronan looked around for bodies.

Declan swayed; the bullet have clearly at least grazed him near a vital organ. With effort, he got the arterial spray under control. "Yeah, I figured. So the endgame is making this a career for you, isn't it?"

This was not, in fact, what Ronan wanted. Although he wanted to be free to dream, and free to live at the Barns, he did not want to dream in order to be able to live at the Barns. He wanted to be left alone to repair all of the buildings, to raise his father's cattle from their supernatural sleep, to populate the fields with new animals to be eaten and sold, and to turn the very rearmost field into a giant mudslick suitable for driving cars around in circles. This, to Ronan, represented a romantic ideal that he would do much to achieve. He wasn't sure how to tell his brother this in a persuasive, unembarrassing way, though, so he'd said, in an unfriendly way, "I was actually thinkin' of being a farmer."

"Ronan, for fuck's sake," Declan said. "Can we have a serious conversation for once?"

Ronan flipped him the bird with swift proficiency.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“This is going to be a story about the Lynch brothers.

There were three of them, and if you didn't like one, try another, because the Lynch brother others found too sour or too sweet might be just to your taste. The Lynch brothers, the orphans Lynch. All of them had been made by dreams, one way or another. They were handsome devils, down to the last one.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“Write your routine, Ronan. Now. While I watch. I want to see it."

7:45 A.M.: The most important meal of the day.
8:00 A.M.: Feed animals.
9:30 A.M.: Repair barns or house.
12:00 P.M.: Lunch @ that weird gas station.
1:30 P.M.: Ronan Lynch's marvelous dream emporium.

"What does this one mean, Ronan?"

It meant practice makes perfect. It meant ten thousand hours to mastery, if at first you don't succeed, there is no try only do. Ronan had spent hours over the last year dreaming ever more complex and precise objects into being, culminating in an intricate security system that rendered the Barns largely impossible to find unless you knew exactly where you were going. After Cambridge, though, it felt like all the fun had run out of the game.

"I don't ask what you do at work, Declan."

6:00 P.M.: Drive around.
7:15 P.M.: Nuke some dinner, yo.
7:30 P.M.: Movie time.
11:00 P.M.: Text Parrish.

Adam's most recent text had said simply: $4200.

It was the amount Ronan had to send to cover the dorm room repairs.

*11:30 P.M.: Go to bed.
*Saturday/Sunday: Church/DC
*Monday: Laundry & Grocery
*Tuesday: Text or call Gansey

These last items were in Declan's handwriting, his addendums subtly suggesting all the components of a fulfilling grown-up life Ronan had missed when crafting it. They only served to depress Ronan more. Look how you can predict the next forty-eight hours, seventy-two hours, ninety-six hours, look how you can predict the rest of your life. The entire word routine depressed Ronan. The sameness. Fuck everything.

Gansey texted: Declan told me to tell you to get out of bed.

Ronan texted back: why

He watched the morning light move over the varied black-gray shapes in his bedroom. Shelves of model cars; an open Uilleann pipes case; an old scuffed desk with a stuffed whale on it; a metal tree with wondrously intricate branches; heaps of laundry curled around beet-red wood shavings.

Gansey texted back: don't make me get on a plane I'm currently chained to one of the largest black walnut trees in Oregon”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“Where were you really?" Declan asked. When Ronan just raised an eyebrow, Declan said, "Fine, don't tell me. I assume you're just blowing off everything I told you about not chasing trouble, because that's what you do, isn't it? I keep my head down and you dream up a fucking skywriter that says 'kill me please.'"

"Goes to show," Ronan said, "you don't need a priest in the house for a sermon. We still hitting the zoo?"

Declan, to Ronan's surprise, grabbed both of Ronan's arms and propelled him to the doorway of the nave via biceps. Ronan could feel his brother's fingers digging into him. It had been a long time since either of them had landed a fist on each other's faces, but Ronan remembered it in the pressure of those fingertips.

Declan hissed in his ear, "You see that kid there? Head down? You know him, right, your baby brother? I don't know where the hell you really were, but while you were there, that kid was putting the pieces together. While you were out doing fuck all with yourself, he figured out you dreamt him. So no, we are not. Still. Hitting. The. Zoo.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“He felt a bright humming energy all through him, something he hadn't felt in a very long time. His stomach was a ruin. His life in black and white; this moment in color.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“The Lynch brothers, the brothers Lynch. In a way, the Lynch brothers had always been the most important and truest definition of the Lynch family. Niall was often gone, and Aurora was present but amorphous. Childhood was the three of them tearing through the woods and fields around the Barns, setting things on fire and digging holes and wrestling. Secrets bound them together far more tightly than friendship ever could, and so even when they went to school, they remained the Lynch brothers, the brothers Lynch. Even after Niall died and Ronan and Declan had fought for a year, they'd remained tangled together, because hate binds as strongly as love. The Lynch brothers, the brothers Lynch.

Ronan didn't know who he would be without them.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk