Holly Black Quotes

“You will make an interesting High King,' I tell him.

He looks alarmed. 'I most definitely will not. The Folk adore Cardan and they're terrified of my sister, two excellent things. I hope they rule Elfhame for a thousand years and then pass it down to one of a dozen offspring. No need for me to be involved.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“He also says you fall in love a lot.'

That surprises a laugh out of him, although he doesn't deny any of it. 'There are certain expectations of a prince in Court.'

'You cannot be serious,' I say. 'You feel obliged to be in love?'

'I told you- I am a courtier, versed in all the courtly arts.' He's grinning as he says it, though, acknowledging the absurdity of the statement.

I find myself shaking my head and grinning, too. He's being ridiculous, but I am not sure how ridiculous.

'I do have a bad habit, he says. 'Of falling in love. With great regularity and to spectacular effect. You see, it never goes well.'

I wonder if this conversation makes him think of our kiss, but then, I was the one who kissed him. He'd only kissed back.

'As charming as you are, how can that be?' I say.

He laughs again. 'That's what my sister Taryn always says. She tells me that I remind her of her late husband. Which makes some sense, since I would have been his half brother. But it's also alarming, because she's the one who murdered him.'

Much as when he spoke about Madoc, it's strange how fond oak can sound when he tells me a horrifying thing a member of his family has done.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“He touches my cheek lightly with his fingers. 'You- I thought-'

I stare up into his eyes, puzzled by his expression.

'Are you hurt?' he asks.

I shake my head.

The prince turns away from me abruptly.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Lulled by his conversation, I let myself believe I had fooled him at the very moment he was fooling me.

He was as deceptive as the rest of his family. More, maybe.

He never let down his guard with me, not once.

Too late, I understand what's terrifying about his charm. He seems entirely open when he is unknowable. Every smile is painted on, a mask.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Because I don't like being the fool who'd been tricked. I like games, but I hate to lose.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Dear lady,' says a faerie, coming toward us from a shop that sells jewels. He has the eyes of a snake and forked tongue that darts out when he speaks. 'This hairpin looks as though it were made for you.'

It's beautiful, woven gold and silver in the shape of a bird, a single green bead in its mouth. Had it been in a display, my eyes would have passed over it as one of a dozen unobtainable things. But as he holds it out, I can't help imaging it as as mine.

'I have no money and little to trade,' I tell him regretfully, shaking my head.

The shopkeeper's gaze goes to Oak. I think he believes the prince is my lover.

Oak plays the part, reaching out his hand for the pin. 'How much is it? And will you take silver, or must it be the last wish of my heart?'

'Silver is excellent.' The shopkeeper smiles as Oak fishes through his bag for some coins.

Part of me wants to demur, but I let him buy it, and then I let him use it to pin back my hair. His fingers on my neck are warm. It's only when he lets go that I shiver.

He gives me a steady look. 'I hope you're not about to tell me that you hate it and you were just being polite.'

'I don't hate it,' I say softly. 'And I am not polite.'

He laughs at that. A delightful quality.

I admire the hairpin in every reflective surface we pass.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“We don't need her!' Oak shouts, the first time I have really seen his emotions out of his control. 'And I don't want her.'

The words hurt, the more because he cannot lie.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“They say that he can talk flowers into opening their petals at night, as though his face were that of the sun. He'll steal your heart.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I am a solitary creature, fated to be one and better as one. Forgetting that is what got me into trouble.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“It's supposed to be very beautiful, the Citadel,' Oak says. 'It is beautiful, Wren?'

When the light went through the ice of the castle, it made rainbows that danced along its cold halls. You could almost see through the walls, as though the whole place was one large, cloudy window. When I was brought to it for the first time, I thought it was like living inside a sparkling diamond.

'It's not,' I say. 'It's an ugly place.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“He gives me a smile, a strange light in his eyes. 'If we were capable of putting mistrust aside, we might be a formidable pair.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“His hand touches my back lightly, making me shiver. 'Do you know what I admire about you?'

Truly, I cannot imagine what he will say next.

'That you never stopped being angry,' he tells me. 'It can be brave to hate. Sometimes it's like hope.'

I hadn't felt brave in the Court of Teeth. I had felt only a clawing desperation, as though I was forever drowning in some vast sea, gulping seawater as I sank, and then just when I felt I was going to let myself drop beneath the waves, something would make me kick one more time. Maybe that thing was hate. Hating requires going on, even when you can no longer believe in any better future. But I am shocked that Oak, of all people, would know that.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Though he means me harm, I will miss him. I will miss the way he moves through the world, as though nothing could be so terrible that he might not laugh at it.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I feel helpless, as though he's herding me around a chessboard to checkmate.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Once my father said that conflicts are between rulers. Those that follow rulers can be perfectly nice, which is how you wind up with two perfectly nice people with daggers to each other's throats. Hyacinthe and I might have been friends, but for the part where we were set on opposite sides of a battlefield.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“You like games,' I tell him. 'How about we play one?'

'What's the wager?'

'If I win,' I say, 'You answer my question. Without evasion.'

Nothing about the way he looks at me suggests that he does not consider these to be large stakes. Still, he nods. 'And what is the game?'

'You have the piece. Just as when we were children, let's see which of us throws better.'

He nods again, taking it from his pocket. The peridot eyes glimmer. 'And if I win?'

'What do you want?' I ask.

He studies me and I study him in return. No smile now can disguise the steel underneath. 'You promise to dance with me so that our practice back in the Court of Moths won't be for nothing.'

'Those are absurd stakes,' I tell him, my cheeks hot.

'And yet they are mine,' he says.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“What if,' he says, mischief in his eyes, 'in the interest of saving time, we pretend that we've played twice more and I won once, so you owe me a dance. But you won the second time, so if you have anything else to ask me, you may.'

They are teasing words, and I am suddenly in a teasing mood.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“A stall selling cloaks in all the colours of the sky, from the first blush of dawn to deep as midnight and spangled with stars.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Don't have gold?' calls an antlered shopkeeper. 'Pay with a lock of hair, a year of your life, a dream you wish to never have again.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I know the number of steps to the top of every spire. I know every corner that a child could hide in, every place she could be dragged out from.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“...she still wears her arrogance like armour...”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“The wise old hag told them to gather up snow and form it into the shape of a daughter.

'They did this. The girl they made was delicate in form, with eyes of snow, and lips of frozen rose petals, and the sharply pointed ears of their people. When they finished sculpting her, they smiled at each other, captivated by her beauty.'
...
'When my breath blew across the girl, the spark of life lit within her, and they could see her eyelashes twitch, her tresses shiver. The child began to move. Her little limbs were slender and nearly as pale a blue as the reflection of the sky on the snow she'd been made from. Her hair, a deeper blue, like the flowers that grew nearby. Her eyes, that of the lichen that clung to rocks. Her lips, the red of that fresh-spilled blood.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I don't want to be a creature, shaped by their hands and quickened with their blood. Something made like a doll, from snow and sticks. An assemblage of parts, stranger even than the sluagh.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I reach out my hand to the fire. Since I was formed of snow, I wonder if I will melt. I hold my fingers close enough to burn, but all that happens when I snatch them back is that the tips are reddened and they sting.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“How will they sell rubies?' I ask him. 'Why not leave them something more practical?'

'As a prince of Faerie, I flatly refuse to leave cash. It's inelegant.'

Tiernan shakes his head at both of us, then pokes at the foodstuffs selecting a handful of nuts.

'Gift cards are worse,' Oak says when I do not respond. 'I would bring shame to the entire Greenbriar line if I left a gift card.'

At that, I can't help smiling a little, despite my heavy heart. 'You're ridiculous.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Despite the deep pits that lead to oubliettes, the trees that move to make you lose your way, the ice spiders that wrap their prey in frozen gossamer, the mad king, and the curse.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I couldn't be the child that they had loved.

Not after everything that happened to me. Not after learning that I am made of sticks and snow.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“It feels like being children, like playing. It occurs to me that so many awful things in my life happened before that moment, and so many awful things in his life happened after.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“In the water is a boat carved in the shape of a cormorant. At the front, the long curve of its neck makes it appear rampant, and the wings rise on either side, protecting those resting in the hull. It's beautifully made, and if I squint, I can see that it's also magical.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Just come to the Citadel by our side, and try to believe, whatever happens, whatever I say or do or have done, that my intention is for us to all survive this. For us to win.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir