01UndatedTana would sit near the door to the basement with fingers in her ears, tears and snot running down her face as she cried and cried and cried. And little Pearl would toddle up, crying, too. They cried while they ate their cereal, cried while they watched cartoons, and cried themselves to sleep at night, huddled together in Tana's little bed. 'Make her stop' Pearl said, but Tana couldn't.Holly Black / quote ↗
02UndatedThere’s a tipping point with lies, a point where you’ve said something so many times that it feels truer than the truth.Holly Black / quote ↗
04UndatedOnce someone's hurt you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you from wanting them. Sometimes I actually think it makes the wanting worse.Holly Black / quote ↗
05UndatedDon't know. Don't care. I'm hopping on a bus and going until I can't go any farther. Until I find a place that feels like home.'He's quiet for a long time. 'How will you know what home feels like?'It hangs in the air between us, as frozen as our breaths. I don't have an answer.Holly Black / quote ↗
06UndatedIf you keep it," Daneca says, "he'll have his claws in you."Everyone has their claws in me. Everyone.Holly Black / quote ↗
07UndatedYou're yourself," Tana said, grinning. "More purely yourself than anyone I know. And if you can't see who that is anymore, then see yourself the way I see you.Holly Black / quote ↗
08UndatedWho cares about a test? There will be a million more quizzed in your life.Holly Black / quote ↗
09UndatedWhen we turn,is there something shoved inside of us or is it more that something inside of us has been released?Holly Black / quote ↗
10UndatedMy view of writing "Coldest Girl in Coldtown" was to take every single thing that I loved from every vampire book I had ever read and dump it into one book--everything I like--trying to evoke some of the decadence… Vampires are a high-class monster: They want to dress up. They want to drink a lot of absinthe, or force their victims to drink a lot of absinthe. They have big parties and have elegant rituals. I think that's a thing we associate with vampires--they are the royalty of our monsters. We expect them to be rich, we expect them to be well-dressed. I wanted to have some of that be true because I like it, and have some of it not be true because it's kind of weird.I wanted to put in the idea of infection, which I was really interested in and which was a big feature of the vampire books I read growing up. And, the fear and desire for infection--the way in which our urge towards loving vampires is nihilistic. Our fear of them is our survival instincts kicking in.Holly Black / quote ↗
11UndatedI really love folklore. I had read a lot of faerie folklore that informed the books I wrote. I also really love vampire folklore; my eighth grade research paper was on [it]. [With this project,] it was really helpful to think about the way you can use language. When you're writing about faeries, you can't call anyone "fey"; there are certain words that become forbidden because they're actualized in what faeries do. When you write about vampires, you could think the same way about things like the word "red" or "hunger"--it's interesting to think of the ways that the words have double meanings, or different meanings that shifted.Holly Black / quote ↗
12UndatedWhen Tana was six, vampires were Muppets, endlessly counting, or cartoon villains in black cloaks with red polyester lining.Holly Black / quote ↗
13UndatedThe Anne Rice books are a lot about infection. I read "Interview With the Vampire" a million times when I was in seventh and eighth grade. Also, [writing Gavriel's backstory] definitely came from those books: I sat down and reread them all and thought a lot about… the way in which vampirism is pushing away from humanity in interesting ways, and creating something new from humanity. I imprinted on those books pretty hard.Tanith Lee's "Sabella or the Blood Stone" was a big inspiration. I absolutely loved her books; when I was a kid, I wrote many bad Tanith Lee pastiches. Susie McKee Charnas' "The Vampire Tapestry." Poppy Z. Brite's "Lost Souls." Nancy Collins' "Sunglasses After Dark," which sounds like the most '80s title ever. It's about a vampire named Sonja Blue, and she goes around killing vampires. She's the only vampire who's half-alive. It's a really fun, blood-filled romp. It's very "Blade" before "Blade"--with a lady.Holly Black / quote ↗
15UndatedSo you'll teach me?" Val asked.Ravus nodded agin. "I will make you as terrible as you desire.""I don't want to be - ," she started, but he held up his hand."I know you're very brave," he said."Or stHolly Black / quote ↗
16UndatedNo trouble ever got fixed late at night," he said. "Midnight is for regrets.Holly Black / quote ↗
17UndatedShe swallowed his blood, a dark vintage from some forgotten cellar. She felt like Persephone in Hades, pomegranate seeds bursting against her teeth, juice rolling on her tongue, and the more she had, the more she hungered.Holly Black / quote ↗
18UndatedOccasionally, there are battles in the sky. One likes to imagine the angels are always triumphant. One does not like to think of the ancient and terrible scales balancing the infernal and divine as wobbling back and forth. Tilting freely, to and fro. One does not like to think that sometimes it is the angel that falls.Holly Black / quote ↗
19UndatedI wonder about death, I who may never know it. It looks much like ecstacy, the way they open their mouths as they drown, the way their fingers dig into your skin. Their eyes are wide and startled and they trash in your hands as though with an excess of passion.Holly Black / quote ↗
20UndatedYou can always count on your family to love you. And to betray you. And then to feel guilty about it.Holly Black / quote ↗
21UndatedI wonder if he really could rationalize what I did to him, really treat betrayal like the slight transgression of a recalcitrant business partner. I wonder if I hurt him. If he can rationalize what I did to him, it’s easy to imagine how he rationalized what he did to me.Holly Black / quote ↗
22UndatedI thought you were her knight, but you have become only her woodsman--taking little girls into the forest to cut out their hearts.Holly Black / quote ↗
