The collection / 52 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

Look, everyone talks about the unknown like it's some big scary thing, but it's the familiar that's always bothered me. It's heavy, builds up around you like rocks, until it's walls and a ceiling and a cell.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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02Undated

There were a hundred shades between a truth and lie, and she knew them all.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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03Undated

My point, continued Rhy, is for every ten that worship you, one wants to see you burn. Those are simply the odds when it comes to people like you and I.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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04Undated

And Athos had. He’d broken Holland one bone, one day, one order at a time. Until all Holland wanted, more than the ability to save his world, more than the strength to bring the magic back, more than anything, was for it to end.It was cowardice, he knew, but cowardice came so much easier than hope.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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05Undated

Please tell me this is easier to take off than it was to put on.”Calla raised a brow. “You do not think Master Kell knows how?

V.E. Schwab / quote

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06Undated

No,” he muttered, running a hand through his copper hair. “No. No. There are dozens.”“Kell?” she asked, moving to touch his arm.He shook her off. “Dozens of ships, Lila! And you had to climb aboard his.”“I’m sorry,” she shot back, bristling, “I was under the impression that I was free to do as I pleased.”“To be fair,” added Alucard, “I think she was planning to steal it and slit my throat.”“Then why didn’t you?” snarled Kell, spinning on her. “You’re always so eager to slash and stab, why couldn’t you have stabbed him?

V.E. Schwab / quote

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07Undated

Dammit Bard, you're going to set the cat on fire.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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08Undated

Next time I walk away,” she whispered into his skin, “come with me.” She let her gaze drift up to his throat, his jaw, his lips. “When this is all over, when Osaron is gone and we’ve saved the world again, and everyone else gets their happily ever after, come with me.” “Lila,” he said, and there was so much sadness in his voice, she suddenly realized she didn’t want to hear his answer, didn’t want to think of all the ways their story could end, of the chance that none of them would make it out alive, intact. She didn’t want to think beyond this boat, this moment, so she kissed him, deeply, and whatever he was going to say, it died on his lips as they met hers.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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09Undated

«This is why I run.»Because caring was a thing with claws. It sank them in, and didn't let go. Caring hurt more than a knife to the leg, more than a few broken ribs, more than anything that bled or broke and healed again. Caring didn't break you clean. It was a bone that didn't set, a cut that wouldn't close.It was better not to care - Lila tried not to care - but, sometimes, people got in. Like a knife against armor, they found the cracks, slid past the guard, and you didn't know how deep they were buried until they were gone and you were bleeding on the floor. And it wasn't fair.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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10Undated

It is an arrogant man that thinks himself a god.And an arrogant god, thought Tieren, looking to the window, that thinks himself a man.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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11Undated

I know where you sleep, Bard." She smirked. "Then you know I sleep with knives.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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12Undated

Some thought magic came from the mind, others the soul, or the heart, or the will.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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13Undated

People survived by being cautious, but they got ahead by being bold.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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14Undated

My father was a vulture. My mother was a magpie. My oldest brother is a crow. My sister, a sparrow. I have never really been a bird." Lila resisted the urge to say he might have been a peacock. It didn't seem the time.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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15Undated

Everyone thinks I have a death wish, you know? But I don't want to die - dying is easy. No, I want to live, but getting close to death is the only way to feel alive. And once you do, it makes you realize that everything you were actually doing before wasn't actually living. It was just making do. Call me crazy, but I think we do the best living when the stakes are high.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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16Undated

Death comes for us all, Brother. You cannot hide from it forever. We will die one day, you and I." "And that doesn't frighten you?" Rhy shrugged. "Not nearly as much as the idea of wasting a perfectly good life in fear of it.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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17Undated

Well, when you wonder something," said Eli, "doesn't that mean part of you wants to believe in it? I think we want to prove things, in life, more then we want to disprove them. We want to believe.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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18Undated

Kell stared at her, at a loss. Was her bravado a front, or did she truly have so little to lose? But she had a life, and a life was a thing that could always be lost.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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19Undated

Lila!" he said cheerfully. "So you aren't a figment of my brothers imagination after all.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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20Undated

Blood was magic made manifest. There it thrived. And there it poisoned. Kell had seen what happened when power warred with the body, watched it darken in the veins of corrupted men, turning their blood from crimson to black. If red was the color of magic in balance---of harmony between power and humanity---then black was the color of magic without balance, without order, without restraint.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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21Undated

Magic gave so much to Man, and Man so much to Magic, that their edges blurred, and their threads all tangled, and now they can't be pulled apart. They're bound together, you see, life to life. Halves of a whole. If anyone tried to part them, they'd both unravel.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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22Undated

She used to think that if she stole enough, the want would fade, the hunger would go away, but maybe it wasn’t that simple. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of what she didn’t have, of what she wasn’t, but what she was.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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23Undated

Everyone's immortal until they're not.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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24Undated

We still have time," Kell assured him, getting to his feet."How do you know?" asked Hastra. "We can't hear the bells down here, and there are no windows to gauge the light." "Magic," Kell said, and then, when Hastra's eyes widened, he gestured to the hourglass sitting on the table with his other tools. "And that.

V.E. Schwab / quote

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