200+ Quotes & Sayings By Maggie Stiefvater

Maggie Stiefvater is a prolific author of contemporary fantasy and young adult novels, including the bestselling series The Raven Cycle and The Scorpio Races. She was born in Chicago and grew up in the suburbs. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor's degree in English and creative writing. She now lives in her native Illinois with her husband, three children, and two dogs.

It is possible to be in love with you just...
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It is possible to be in love with you just because of who you are. Maggie Stiefvater
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You two are too cute, ” the counter girl said, setting two cups piled with whipped cream on the counter. She had a sort of lopsided, open smile that made me think she laughed a lot. “Seriously. How long have you been going out?” Sam let go of my hands to get his wallet and took out some bills. “Six years.” I wrinkled my nose to cover a laugh. Of course he would count the time that we’d been two entirely different species. Whoa.” Counter girl nodded appreciatively. “That’s pretty amazing for a couple your age." Sam handed me my hot chocolate and didn’t answer. But his yellow eyes gazed at me possessively– I wondered if he realized that the way he looked at me was far more intimate than copping a feel could ever be. I crouched to look at the almond bark on the bottom shelf in the counter. I wasn’t quite bold enough to look at either of them when I admitted, “Well, it was love at first sight.” The girl sighed. “That is just so romantic. Do me a favor, and don’t you two ever change. The world needs more love at first sight. Maggie Stiefvater
You're like a song that I heard when I was...
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You're like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again. Maggie Stiefvater
If I were a tree, I would have no reason...
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If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human. Maggie Stiefvater
I wish you could be kissed, Jane, ' he said....
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I wish you could be kissed, Jane, ' he said. 'Because I would beg just one off you. Under all this.' He flailed an arm toward the stars. Maggie Stiefvater
Ronan said,
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Ronan said, "I'm always straight." Adam replied "Oh, man, that's the biggest lie you've ever told. Maggie Stiefvater
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Sam came around the side of the car and stopped dead when he saw me. “Oh my God, what is THAT?” I used my thumb and middle finger to flick the multicolored pom-pom on top of my head. “In my language, we call it a HAT. It keeps my ears warm.” “Oh my God, ” Sam said again, and closed the distance between us. He cupped my face in his hands and studied me. “It’s horribly cute.” He kissed me, looked at the hat, and then he kissed me again. I vowed never to lose the pom-pom hat. . Maggie Stiefvater
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You're asking me to define an abstract concept that no one has managed to explain since time began. You sort of sprang it on me, " Gansey said. "Why do we breathe air? Because we love air? Because we don't want to suffocate. Why do we eat? Because we don't want to starve. How do I know I love her? Because I can sleep after I talk to her. Why? Maggie Stiefvater
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When she opened her eyes, she was both in her body and watching it, nowhere near the cavity of the tree. The Blue that was before her stood inches from a boy in an Aglionby sweater. There was a slight stoop to his posture, and his shoulders were spattered darkly with rain. It was his fingers that Blue felt on her face. He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Tears coursed down the other Blue's face. Though some strange magic, Blue could feel them on her face as well. She could feel, too, sick, rising misery she'd felt in the churchyard, the grief that felt bigger than her. The other Blue's tears seemed endless. One drop slid after another, each following an identical path down her cheeks. The boy in the Aglionby sweater leaned his forehead against Blue's. She felt the pressure of his skin against hers, and suddenly she could smell mint. It'll be okay. Gansey told the other Blue. She could tell that he was afraid. It'll be okay. Impossibly, Blue realized that this other Blue was crying because she loved Gansey. And that the reason Gansey touched her like that, his fingers so careful with her, was because he knew that her kiss could kill him. She could feel how badly the other Blue wanted to kiss him, even as she dreaded it. Though she couldn't understand why, her real, present day memories in the tree cavity were clouded with other false memories of their lips nearly touching, a life this other Blue had already lived. Okay, I'm ready- Gansey's voice caught, just a little. Blue, kiss me. . Maggie Stiefvater
Adam smiled cheerily. Ronan would start wars and burn cities...
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Adam smiled cheerily. Ronan would start wars and burn cities for that true smile, elastic and amiable. Maggie Stiefvater
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And then I opened my eyes and it was just Grace and me - nothing anywhere but Grace and me - she pressing her lips together as though she were keeping my kiss inside her, and me, holding this moment that was as fragile as a bird in my hands. Maggie Stiefvater
Right now, it's hard to imagine that it is raining...
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Right now, it's hard to imagine that it is raining anywhere in the world. Maggie Stiefvater
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Many, many readers have written asking me wistfully about the nature of Sam and Grace's relationship, and I can assure you, that sort is absolutely real. Mutual, respectful, enduring love is completely attainable as long as you swear you won't settle for less. Maggie Stiefvater
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Voicemail #1: “Hi, Isabel Culpeper. I am lying in my bed, looking at the ceiling. I am mostly naked. I am thinking of … your mother. Call me.” Voicemail #2: The first minute and thirty seconds of “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” by the Bee Gees. Voicemail #3: “I’m bored. I need to be entertained. Sam is moping. I may kill him with his own guitar. It would give me something to do and also make him say something. Two birds with one stone! I find all these old expressions unnecessarily violent. Like, ring around the rosy. That’s about the plague, did you know? Of course you did. The plague is, like, your older cousin. Hey, does Sam talk to you? He says jack shit to me. God, I’m bored. Call me.” Voicemail #4: “Hotel California” by the Eagles, in its entirety, with every instance of the word California replaced with Minnesota. Voicemail #5: “Hi, this is Cole St. Clair. Want to know two true things? One, you’re never picking up this phone. Two, I’m never going to stop leaving long messages. It’s like therapy. Gotta talk to someone. Hey, you know what I figured out today? Victor’s dead. I figured it out yesterday, too. Every day I figure it out again. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like there’s no one I can –”Voicemail #6: “So, yeah, I’m sorry. That last message went a little pear-shaped. You like that expression? Sam said it the other day. Hey, try this theory on for size: I think he’s a dead British housewife reincarnated into a Beatle’s body. You know, I used to know this band that put on fake British accents for their shows. Boy, did they suck, aside from being assholes. I can’t remember their name now. I’m either getting senile or I’ve done enough to my brain that stuff’s falling out. Not so fair of me to make this one-sided, is it? I’m always talking about myself in these things. So, how are you, Isabel Rosemary Culpeper? Smile lately? Hot Toddies. That was the name of the band. The Hot Toddies.”Voicemail #20: “I wish you’d answer. Maggie Stiefvater
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I could still smell her on my fur. It clung to me, a memory of another world. I was drunk with it, with the scent of her. I'd got too close. The smell of summer on her skin, the half-recalled cadence of her voice, the sensation of her fingers on my fur. Every bit of me sang with the memory of her closeness. Too close. I couldn't stay away. Maggie Stiefvater
What are you wishing for?' Grace interrupted. 'To kiss you,...
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What are you wishing for?' Grace interrupted. 'To kiss you, ' I said to her. Maggie Stiefvater
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He'd only been gone two seconds, but the room got brighter when they were together, as if they were two elements that became brilliant in proximity. At Sam's clumsy efforts to carry the vacuum, Grace smiled a new smile that I thought only he ever got, and he shot her a withering look full of the sort of subtext you could only get from a lot of conversations whispered after dark. It made me think of Isabel, back at her house. We didn't have what Sam and Grace had. We weren't even close to having it. I didn't think what we had could get to this, even if you gave it a thousand years. Maggie Stiefvater
Ronan's second secret was Adam Parrish.
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Ronan's second secret was Adam Parrish. Maggie Stiefvater
In the darkness, he is invisible, but I can still...
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In the darkness, he is invisible, but I can still feel him beside me. Sometimes you don't have to see something to know it is there. Maggie Stiefvater
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Cole, ” I said, “do you think I’m lovable?”“ As in ‘cuddly and’?”“ As in ‘able to be loved, ’” I said. Cole’s gaze was unwavering. Just for a moment, I had the strange idea that I could see exactly what he had looked like when he was younger, and exactly what he’d look like when he was older. It was piercing, a secret glimpse of his future. “Maybe, ” he said. “But you won’t let anybody try.” I closed my eyes and swallowed. “I can’t tell the diference between not fighting, ” I said, “and giving up.” Despite my eyelids being tightly shut, a single, hot tear ran out of my left eye. I was so angry that it had escaped. I was so angry. Beneath me, the bed tipped as Cole edged closer. I felt him lean over me. His breath, warm and measured, hit my cheek. Two breaths. Three. Four. I didn’t know what I wanted. Then I heard him stop breathing, and a second later, I felt his lips on my mouth. It wasn’t the sort of kiss I’d had with him before, hungry, wanting, desperate. It wasn’t the sort of kiss I’d had with anyone before. This kiss was so soft that it was like a memory of a kiss, so careful on my lips that it waslike a memory of a kiss, so careful on my lips that it was like someone running his fingers along them. My mouth parted and stilled; it was so quiet, a whisper, not a shout. Cole’s hand touched my neck, thumb pressed into theskin next to my jaw. It wasn’t a touch that said “I need more”. It was a touch that said “I want this.” It was all completely soundless. I didn’t think either of us was breathing. Cole sat back up, slowly, and I opened my eyes. His expression, as ever, was blank, the face he wore when something mattered. He said, “That’s how I would kiss you, if I loved you. . Maggie Stiefvater
Is this thing safe?
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Is this thing safe?"" Safe as life, " Gansey replied. Maggie Stiefvater
Life's pain. You just have to get over as much...
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Life's pain. You just have to get over as much of it as you can.- Isabel Culpeper Maggie Stiefvater
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Being Adam Parrish was a complicated thing, a wonder of muscles and organs, synapses and nerves. He was a miracle of moving parts, a study in survival. The most important thing to Adam Parrish, though, had always been free will, the ability to be his own master. This was the important thing. It had always been the important thing. This was what it was to be Adam. Maggie Stiefvater
I am so, so alive.
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I am so, so alive. Maggie Stiefvater
We have to be back in three hours,
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We have to be back in three hours, " Ronan said. "I just fed Chainsaw but she'll need it again."" This, " Gansey replied "is precisely why I didn't want to have a baby with you. Maggie Stiefvater
Fate,
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Fate, " Blue replied, glowering at her mother, "is a very weighty word to throw around before breakfast. Maggie Stiefvater
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Sensitive, " I tried. Sam translated: "Squishy.""Creative.""Dangerously emo."" Thoughtful."" Feng shui." out of 'thoughtful'?""You know, because in feng shui, you arrange furniture and plants and stuff in thoughtful ways." Sam shrugged. "To make you calm. Zenlike. Or something. I'm not one hundred percent sure how it all works, besides the thoughtful part. Maggie Stiefvater
Don't panic. Are you sitting? You probably don't need to...
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Don't panic. Are you sitting? You probably don't need to sit. Well, possibly. At least lean on something. Maggie Stiefvater
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Adam's response was buried in the sound of the first-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window! " Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead! Maggie Stiefvater
I always listen to you. Except when I don't.
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I always listen to you. Except when I don't. Maggie Stiefvater
Did you get notes for me?
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Did you get notes for me?"" No", Ronan replied, " I thought you were dead in a ditch. Maggie Stiefvater
We were so little when you took away all our...
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We were so little when you took away all our sins. Maggie Stiefvater
Mum liked to say that some things happen for a...
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Mum liked to say that some things happen for a reason, that sometimes obstacles were there to stop you from doing something stupid. Maggie Stiefvater
Right in this moment, I can´t even remember what unhappy...
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Right in this moment, I can´t even remember what unhappy feels like. Maggie Stiefvater
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But that wasn't what happened. What happened was they drove to Harry's and parked the Camaro next to an Audi and a Lexus and Gansey ordered flavors of gelato until the table wouldn't hold anymore and Ronan convinced the staff to turn the overhead speakers up and Blue laughed for the first time at something Gansey said and they were loud and triumphant and kings of Henrietta, because they'd found the ley line and because it was starting, it was starting. Maggie Stiefvater
His lips tasted cool and sharp, peppermint, winter, but his...
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His lips tasted cool and sharp, peppermint, winter, but his hands, soft on the back of my neck, promised long days and summer and forever. Maggie Stiefvater
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Sam laughed, a funny, self-deprecating laugh. "You did read a lot. And spent too much time just inside the kitchen window, where I couldn't see you very well."" And not enough time mostly naked in front of my bedroom window?" I teased. Sam turned bright red. "That, " he said, "is so not the point of this conversation. Maggie Stiefvater
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..He kissed me again, farther up my neck, and I pushed him back against the wall. My mind searched for the logical thought, a rational life raft before I drowned in wanting to hiss him. I managed, "We've only met a few days ago. We don't know each other." Luke released me. "How long does it take to know someone?" I didn't know. "A month? A few months?" It sounded stupid to quantify it, especially when I didn't want to believe my own reasoning. But I couldn't just go kissing someone I knew nothing about-- it went against everything I'd ever been told. So why was it so hard to say no? He took my fingers, playing with them in between his own. "I'll wait." He looked so good in the half-light under the trees, his light eyes nearly glowing against his shadowed skin. It was useless." I don't want you to." I whispered the words, and before I'd even finished saying them, his mouth was on mine and I was melting under his lips. . Maggie Stiefvater
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I smiled sweetly at his embarressment, beginning to walk again, kicking up golden leaves. I heard him scuffling leaves behind me. "And what was the point of this again?" Forget it! " Sam said. "Do you you like this place or not?" I stoped in my tracks, spinning to face him. "Hey." I pointed at him; he raised his eyebrows and stopped in his tracks. "You didn't think Jack would be here at all, did you?" His thick black eyebrows went up even farther. Did you evan intend to look for him at all?" He held his hands up as if a surrender. "What do you want me to say?" You were trying to see if I would reconize it, wern't you?" I took anouther step, colsing the distance between us. I could feel the heat of his body, even without touching him, in the increasing cold of the day. "YOU told me about this wood somehow. How did you show it to me?" I keep trying to tell you. You wont listen. Because you're stubbon. It's how we speek- it's the only words we have. Just pictures. Just simple little picters. You HAVE changed Grace. Just not your skin. I want you to believe me." His hands were still raise, but he was starting to grin at me in the failing light. So you brought me here to see this." I stepped forward again, and he stepped back. Do you like it?" Under false pretence." Anouther step forward; anouther back. The grine widened So do you like it?" When you knew we wouldn't come across anybody else." His teeth flashed in his grin. "Do you like it?" I punched my hands into his chest. "You know I love it. You knew I would." I went to punch him, and he grabed my wrists. For a moment we stood there like that, him looking down at me with a grin half-caught on his face, and me lookingup at him: Still Life with Boy and Girl. It would've been the perfect moment to kiss me, but he didn't. He just looked at me and looked at me, and by the time I relizeed I could just as easily kiss him, I noticed that his grin was slipping away. Sam slowly lowered my wrists and relesed them. "I'm glad." he said very quietly. My arms still hung by my sides, right where Sam had put them. I frowned at him. "You were supposed to kiss me." I thought about it." I just kept looking at the soft, sad shape of his lips, looking just like his voice sounded. I was probably staring, but I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted him to kiss me and how stupide it was to want it so badly. "Why don't you?" He leaned over and gave mr the lightest of kisses. His lips, cool and dry, ever so polite and incredibly maddening. "I have to get inside soon, " he whispered "It's getting cold. Maggie Stiefvater
His yellow eyes gazed at me possessively -- I wondered...
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His yellow eyes gazed at me possessively -- I wondered if he realized that the way he looked at me was far more intimate than copping a feel could ever be. Maggie Stiefvater
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After you were bitten, I knew what would happen. I waited for you to change, every night, so I could bring you back and keep you from getting hurt." A chilly gust of wind lifter his hair and sent a shower of golden leaves glimmering down around him. He spred out his arms, letting them fall into his hands. He looked like a dark angel in an eternal autumn wood. "Did you know you get one happy day for everyone you catch?" I didn't know what he meant, even after he opened his fist to show me the quivering leaves crumpled in his palm. One happy day for every falling leaf you catch." Sam's voice was low. I watched the egdes of the leaves slowly unfold, fluttering in the breeze." How long did you wait?" It would have been romantic if hr'd had the courage to look into my face to say it, but instead, he dropped his eyes to the ground and scuffed his boots in the leaves- countless possibilities for happy days- on the ground. "I haven't stopped." And I should've said something romantic too, but i didn't have the courage, either. So instead, I watched the shy way he was chewing his lip and studying the leaves, and said, "That must've been very borring. Maggie Stiefvater
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Grace stopped in the door, dimly silhouetted by the dull gray morning light, and looked back at me, at my eyes, my mouth, my hands, in a way that made something inside me knot and unknot unbearably. I didn't think I belonged here in her world, a boy stuck between two lives, dragging the dangers of the wolves with me, but when she said my name, waiting for me to follow, I knew I'd do anything to stay with her. Maggie Stiefvater
When he kissed me, his lips soft and careful, it...
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When he kissed me, his lips soft and careful, it was all the thrill of our first kiss and all the practiced familiarity of the accumulated memory of all our kisses. Maggie Stiefvater
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I could have screamed, but I didn't. I could have fought, but I didn't. I just lay there and let it happen, wathcing the winter-white sky go gray above me. One wolf prodded his nose into my hand and agianst my cheek, casting a shadow along my face. His yellow eyes looked into mine as the other wolves moved me this way and that. I held onto those eyes for as long as I could. Yellow. And, up close, flecked brillantly with every shade of gold and hazel. I didn't want him to look away, and he didn't. I wanted to reach out and grab a hold of his ruff, but my hands stayed curled to my chest, my arms frozen to my body. I couldn't remember what it felt like to be warm. Then he was gone, without him, the other wolves closed in, too close, sufficating. Something seemed too flutter in my chest. There was no sun; there was no light. I was dying. I couldn't remember what the sky looked like. But I didn't die, I was lost in a sea of cold, and then I was reborn into a sea of warmth. I remember this: his yellow eyes. I thought I would never see them again. . Maggie Stiefvater
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I stare at him. "You can't risk not winning. Not because of me." Sean doesn't lift his eyes from the counter. "We make our move when you make yours. You on the inside, me on the outside. Corr can come from the middle of the pack; he's done it before. It's one side you won't have to worry about." I say, "I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick." Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, "It's late for that, Puck. Maggie Stiefvater
I am an equation that only she solves, These X's...
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I am an equation that only she solves, These X's and Y's by other names called, My way of division is desperatley flawed, while I multiply days without her. Maggie Stiefvater
Scent is the strongest tie to memory.
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Scent is the strongest tie to memory. Maggie Stiefvater
Because you have only known me for like fourteen seconds...
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Because you have only known me for like fourteen seconds and seven of those were us making out and you still know more about me than all of my friends in this stupid place. Maggie Stiefvater
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Somewhere fate laughs in her far-off country, because now I am the human and it is Grace I will lose again and again, immer wieder, always the same, every winter, losing more of her each year, unless I find a cure. Maggie Stiefvater
They were not creating a mess. They were just slowly...
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They were not creating a mess. They were just slowly illuminating it. Maggie Stiefvater
She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen,...
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She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, a tiny, bloody angel in the snow, and they were going to destroy her. Maggie Stiefvater
Adam understood, then, that Gansey and Blue’s awe changed this...
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Adam understood, then, that Gansey and Blue’s awe changed this place. Ronan and Adam may have seen this place as magical, but Gansey and Blue’s wonder made it holy. Maggie Stiefvater
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Derisively, Ronan said, 'No. The ancient Greeks didn't have a word for Blue.'Everyone at the table looked at him.' What the hell, Ronan?' said Adam.'It's hard to imagine, " Gansey mused, 'how this evidently successful classical education never seems to make it into your school papers.'' They never ask the right questions, ' Ronan replied. Maggie Stiefvater
I was trying to decide if you still had free...
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I was trying to decide if you still had free will as a wolf. If I was a terrible person for planning to drug my girlfriend and drag her back to my house to keep in the basement. Maggie Stiefvater
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Ronan's bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey first met him." Hold on, " Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: "Why would he be?"" No reason. Just no reason." Ronan slammed his door. Gansey asked Adam, "Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?" Adam's response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window! " Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead! . Maggie Stiefvater
I lost a horse today.'' That sounds careless. What happened?''...
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I lost a horse today.'' That sounds careless. What happened?'' She jumped off a cliff.'' A cliff! Is that normal? Maggie Stiefvater
It's rude to stare, but the great thing about staring...
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It's rude to stare, but the great thing about staring at a sedated person is that they don't know you're doing it. Maggie Stiefvater
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I started down but Sam caught my arm and knelt down himself to look. "For crying out loud, " he said. "It's a racoon." "Poor thing, " I said. "It could be a rabid baby-killer, " Cole told me primly. "Shut up, " Sam said pleasantly. Maggie Stiefvater
Are there any other missing persons living under your roof?...
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Are there any other missing persons living under your roof? Elvis? Jimmy Hoffa? Amelia Earhart? I'd just like full disclosure now, before we go any further. Maggie Stiefvater
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Make sure the seaweed lies flat.'' Okay.'' Leave an inch below the knee.'' Okay.'' It's got to be loose enough to put a finger in the top.'' Sean Kendrick.' I say it emphatically enough that the stallion's ears prick toward me. (..)Sean doesn't appear to be at all apologetic. 'I think you'd better let me do that after all.'' You're the one who had me in here in the first place.' I say. 'Now I think it's you who doesn't trust me.'' It's not just you, ' He replies. I glower at him. 'Well, I'll tell you what. I'll hold him and you wrap. That way, when it's done wrong, there's only yourself to slap. And take your jacket. I'm tired of holding it. . Maggie Stiefvater
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She tried to ignore that, this close to the man, he had the overpowering chemical scent of a manly shower gel. The sort that normally came in a black bottle, and was called something like SHOCK or EXCITE or BLUNT TRAUMA. Maggie Stiefvater
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What?” he asked in a low voice.“ You looked like you spent your last joy bill.” He hissed, “What does that even mean?”“ I don’t know. I was just trying it out.”“ Well, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense. And anyway, I’ve got plenty of joy bills. Loads.”Helen said, “What’s happening there on your phone?”“ A very small joy debit.” His older sister’s smile shone brightly. “You see, it does work. Now, did you or did you not need to get out of that room?” Gansey inclined his head in slight acknowledgment. Gansey siblings knew each other well.“ You’re so welcome, ” Helen said. “Let me know if you need me to write a joy check.”“ I really don’t think it works. Maggie Stiefvater
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Noah had wandered down the aisle, but now he gleefully returned with a snow globe. He stood behind Ronan until he pushed off the shelf to admire the atrocity. "Glitter, " whispered Noah reverentially, giving it a shake. Maggie Stiefvater
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What's happening here?" This last bit was hissed to Ronan and Noah. "Noah took a personal day."" I lost.." Noah struggled for words. "There wasn't air. It went away. The - the line! "" The ley line?" Gansey asked. Noah nodded once, a sloppy thing that was sort of a shrug at the same time. "There was nothing .. left for me." Releasing Ronan, he shook out his hands. "You're welcome, man, " Ronan snarled. He still couldn't feel his toes." Thanks. I didn't mean to .. you were there. Oh, the glitter."" Yes, " Ronan replied crossly. "The glitter. Maggie Stiefvater
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At this, Gansey rolled over onto his back and folded his hands on his chest. He wore a salmon polo shirt, which, in Blue’s opinion, was far more hellish than anything they’d discussed to this point. Maggie Stiefvater
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As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air. Maggie Stiefvater
You could write a book about things that you can't...
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You could write a book about things that you can't find on-line. Maggie Stiefvater
I wanted a library like this...[] A cave of words...
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I wanted a library like this...[] A cave of words that I'd made myself. Maggie Stiefvater
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I smiled at the stacks, inhaling again. Hundreds of thousands of pages that had never been turned, waiting for me. The shelves were a warm, blond wood, piled with spines of every color. Staff picks were arranged on tables, glossy covers reflecting the light back at me. Behind the little cubby where the cashier sat, ignoring us, stairs covered with rich burgundy carpet led up to the worlds unknown. 'I could just live here, ' I said. Maggie Stiefvater
There was nothing particularly special about her, except that she...
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There was nothing particularly special about her, except that she was good with numbers, and very good at lying, and she made her home in between the pages of books. Maggie Stiefvater
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My whole life, I had thought that my story was, again and again: Once upon a time, there was a boy, and he had to risk everything to keep what he loved. But really, the story was: Once upon a time, there was a boy, and his fear ate him alive. Maggie Stiefvater
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The walls of the arch are covered with blood-red jellies that wink and glisten at me by the light of the moon. My father told me they were completely harmless. I don't believe him. Nothing is completely harmless. Maggie Stiefvater
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Instead, though, as he drew nearer, his mind kept drifting back to Gansey's voice in the cave the day before. The tremulous note in it. The fear - a fear so profound that Gansey could not bring himself to climb out of the pit, though there was nothing physically preventing him. He had not known that Richard Gansey III had it in him to be a coward. Adam remembered crouching on the kitchen floor of his parents' double-wide, telling himself to take Gansey's oft-repeated advice to leave. "Just put what you need in the car, Adam."But he had stayed. Hung in the pit of his father's anger. A coward, too. Adam felt like he needed to reconfigure every conversation he'd ever had with Gansey in light of this new knowledge. Maggie Stiefvater
Boys
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Boys", she says, "just aren't very good at being afraid. Maggie Stiefvater
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I built an idea in my head of the hero I wanted to be, a grab bag of traits from heroes, villains, and side characters. I did not have book role models, I had book blueprints. But there remained a huge gap between the person I wanted to be and the person who I was. This was because no matter how many book blueprints I had, as much as I wanted to make myself the hero of my own life, it didn’t matter as long as I kept telling the story wrong. Nowadays, as a storyteller, I know what the problem was. I had all the elements I needed to tell a good story. But I was telling it the wrong way, so I could never get to the ending I wanted. If you tell yourself you’re a winner, you know what kind of story you’re telling, and you will march toward that.. Likewise, if you tell yourself you’re a loser, you’ve made that your story, and you will march toward that instead. The same setbacks could happen in the loser’s story as in the winner’s story, but the self-defined loser would let them be proof that they were never going to be anything. Here’s the story I was telling myself back when I was little edible child waiting to be carried away by hawks and making OCD rituals for herself: once upon a time, there was a girl who was afraid of everything. When I was 16, I realized that I knew what this story looked like and how it ended, and it wasn’t the life I wanted for myself. If I wanted my ending to look different, I needed to change the kind of story I was telling about myself. I needed to shape my events into a different genre: once upon a time, there was a woman who was afraid of nothing. At age 16, I legally changed my name from my birthname – Heidi – to one I thought sounded like the hero I wanted to be: Maggie. And I vowed that I would never be afraid of anything ever again. Did it work? No, of course not. Not right away. But it became a mission statement, my hero’s journey. . Maggie Stiefvater
76
To think you could have been dreaming the cure for cancer, " Blue said. "Look, Sargent, " Ronan retorted, "I was gonna dream you some eye cream last night since clearly modern medicine's doing jack shit for you, but I nearly had my ass handed to me by a death snake from the fourth circle of dream hell, so you're welcome." Blue was appropriately touched. "Ah, thanks, man."" No problem, bro. Maggie Stiefvater
77
Was it okay? Adam had turned down so many offers of help from Gansey. Money for school, money for food, money for rent. Pity and charity, Adam had thought. For so long, he'd wanted Gansey to see him as an equal, but it was possible that all this time, the only person who needed to see that was Adam. Now he could see that it wasn't charity Gansey was offering. It was just truth. And something else: friendship of the unshakable kind. Friendship you could swear on. That could be busted nearly to breaking and come back stronger than before. Maggie Stiefvater
78
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
Pain was a torn piece of paper.
79
Pain was a torn piece of paper. Maggie Stiefvater
80
I pressed my hand against her hair, holding her to me, filled with the certainty that she was going to hurt me again and that I didn't have the strength to push her away before she did. Maggie Stiefvater
Images barraged him. Connections darted electric. Veins. Roots. Forked lightning....
81
Images barraged him. Connections darted electric. Veins. Roots. Forked lightning. Tributaries. Branches. Vines snaked around trees, herds of animals, drops of water running tog Maggie Stiefvater
82
The hard fact of friendship is that you need to make time for new friends by first stripping out the people who are using your energy in an unsatisfying way. You have to take that risk of being friendless to make room in your life for others who will be your new best friends Maggie Stiefvater
People shouldn't have to earn kindness. They should have to...
83
People shouldn't have to earn kindness. They should have to earn cruelty. Maggie Stiefvater
His home was populated by things and creatures from Niall...
84
His home was populated by things and creatures from Niall Lynch's dreams, and his mother was just another one of them Maggie Stiefvater
85
Grace, who haunted my thoughts when I couldn’t dream Maggie Stiefvater
86
When did you get so smart?" He tapped his forehead. "Brain transplant. They put in a whale's. I'm passing all my classes with my eyes closed now, but I just can't get over this craving for krill." He shrugged. "And I feel sorry for the whale that got my brain. Probably swimming around Florida now trying to catch glimpses of girls in bikinis. Maggie Stiefvater
87
They're saying that you and Sean Kendrick were burning up the cliffs." Tommy spins me again and grins at me. "And when I say you and Sean Kendrick, I mean you and Sean Kendrick. And by burning, I mean burning. Maggie Stiefvater
Whoopdie-friggin-doo, fooled you!
88
Whoopdie-friggin-doo, fooled you! Maggie Stiefvater
What do you mean Ronan's a magical entity? Is he...
89
What do you mean Ronan's a magical entity? Is he a demon? Because this all makes sense if so. Maggie Stiefvater
Now is the time to make sure we have the...
90
Now is the time to make sure we have the strings of all the balloons we want to keep before they all float away. Maggie Stiefvater
It was a sort of ferocious, quiet beauty, the sort...
91
It was a sort of ferocious, quiet beauty, the sort that wouldn't let you admire it. The sort of beauty that always hurt. Maggie Stiefvater
I don’t care to be pretty, ” Blue shot back...
92
I don’t care to be pretty, ” Blue shot back hotly, “I care to look on the outside like I look on the inside. Maggie Stiefvater
This new world was a vicious, sleek world made of...
93
This new world was a vicious, sleek world made of street lights and tight jeans, sharp smiles and fast cars. This was a city, edited. A city, pared down to its bare minimums, beautiful and abusive. Maggie Stiefvater
94
I’m not using any word, ” Ronan said. The annoying thing about Ronan was always that he was angry when everyone else was calm, and calm when everyone else was angry. Because Blue was ready to bust a vein, his voice was utterly pacific. “I’m just telling you I’m not going. Maybe it’s wrong, maybe it’s not. My soul’s in enough peril as it is. Maggie Stiefvater
95
Why Anglo-Saxon history?” At the time it had struck the Gray Man as a foolish and unanswerable question. The things that drew him to that time period were surely unconscious and many-headed, diffused through his blood from a lifetime of influences. Maggie Stiefvater
96
It is not the outside of people that bothers me, but the inside. Maggie Stiefvater
97
The thorns thinned out and the trees grew taller and straighter, their branches not beginning until a few feet over our heads. The white, peeled bark of the birches looked buttery in the long, slanting afternoon light, and their leaves were a delicate gold. Maggie Stiefvater
98
So it comes to this: I would have lost her either way. If Cole hadn't reinfected her, I would have lost her in the hospital bed. And now Cole's wolf tozin pumps through her veins, and I lose her to the woods, like I lose everything I love. So here is me, and I am a boy watched--by her parents' suspicious eyes, since they cannot prove that I kidnapped Grace but believe nonetheless--and I am a boy watchful--because Tom Culpeper's bitterness is growing palpable in this tiny town and I will NOT bury Grace's body--and I am a boy waiting--for the heat and the fruitfulness of summer, waiting to see who will walk out of those woods for me. Waiting for my lovely summer girl. Maggie Stiefvater
99
The music video will die when we all go blind, and music will never die, because even when you can't hear it, you can feel it. Maggie Stiefvater
100
A symptom, " Brendan said, as if love were a disease only humans could catch. But there was something like fondness or respect in his voice. "You're both fools. Maggie Stiefvater