Ink Blood Sister Scribe Quotes

Cold was easier to bear when you’d never been warm.

When you're growing up, you don't ask whether your family's good, do you? Especially if you don't know anything else. They're just your family.

...it's the steps themselves that make a path, instead of the other way round. We are creating even as we believe we are following.

...when things are very beautiful and comfortable on the surface, it can be harder to see the ugliness underneath.

Cold was easier to bear when you'd never been warm.

It amazed her, how once the unfamiliar became well-known you could never go back.

She was a person made for the present, not the past. She couldn't afford to forget that.

She just wanted to take one step that belonged to her, make one move that she had independently decided to make, but at every turn it felt as if her strings were being pulled by unseen hands.

If she left- when she left- Antarctica would be a memory, than a memory of a memory, and eventually it would just be a story. Pearl would be just a story, a swirl of remembered feelings, someone she'd talk about at bars to strangers who would become friends and then strangers again. All these stories, what did they add up to? A life?

In Gil's world, women found them- selves in mirrors: they became hypnotized and stared into their own eyes until they recognized themselves, and once they did, the mirror ceased to be a trap and became instead a doorway. An escape route. A path.

But the mass itself had been so boring that even her fantasies of rescuing Jesus and giving him a tender, thorough sponge bath couldn't keep her awake.

Being invisible is actually so uncomfortable, it's like bees are crawling inside my skin. I'm really over it.

She didn't know for sure whether she truly remembered this day or only remembered the story of it - but whether the memories were fabricated or not, Esther had them.

It was like tasting a feeling and the feeling was power.

Good-looking, blue-eyed men were usually the least trustworthy of anyone

Killing had been added, suddenly, to the list of what she was capable of. It had gone from unthinkable to possible. Was this how people tipped over into darkness?

...the closet of her sexual subconscious was full of petticoats.

Collins made a noise of displeasure. "Is Richard hiding a crazy wife up here, or what?" "Why Collins, I didn't have you down as a Bronte fan." "I had a thing for Jane. Hot little weirdo. So, what's up here?

... when the physical and emotional boundaries of one's life were small, when one had walked every inch of one's allotted space many times over, it was easy to forget ignorance and feel a sort of mastery, instead.

... every word and movement made with a heightened sense of surreality, as if she could reach out a hand and alter the fabric of the world. That's what killing was, wasn't it? To remove someone from existence was to rip a hole in what was real.

...she sometimes felt so alone she worried she might vanish like the ink in an overused book. But here, with wildlife all around her and magic sweet in the air like good cider, she felt her lines and colours returning, her edges darkening, her core filling in.

I mean, the thread looks like it could be a combination of hair and sinew. The glue is likely rendered collagen." He pinched the cover between thumb and forefinger. "The leather's probably human skin." "Okay," Collins said, "great, well, if you need me, I'll be outside screaming.

I fell in love with you first,' Cecily always said to Esther. 'Your father was a bonus.

It was hard to imagine wearing lace underwear and 'sexting,' but easy to imagine wearing lots of complicated layers and rolling around in front of a fireplace.

And because this was his life and he had more or less accepted that it was the only one he would ever have, he'd decided to take pride in what he could of it.

But when you were the one and only, it meant you were alone. Nicholas had been alone all his life.

She was at the point of tiredness where nothing seemed real, as if she'd already started dreaming.

Nicholas had read the word "threadbare" in books but hadn't ever actually seen it.

... they were both, in their own ways, looking for freedom . . . though what Nicholas's own freedom might look like was unclear. He hoped it would not look like Boston.

Nicholas was still afraid; desperately so. But the only thing more terrifying than the thought of leaving the Library was the thought of staying.

The ground was endless, white, receding. The station dollhouse-sized and then teacup-sized and then ant-sized and then gone.

Mystery creates intrigue, which creates desire, which creates commodity.

...being in danger is its own kind of lock and key. There's a freedom in safety, Nicholas. Remember that.

It’s manufactured responsibility,” said Esther. “Your family took that responsibility on purpose, just like my family did.You say ‘responsibility,’ I hear ‘power.

The Library holds power,” said Maram. “And power is always a reflection of the world that has created it, regardless of intention.

Esther had not yet fully examined her own feelings, because they were so big she was worried they’d eat her if she let them open their mouths.

He'd never felt so passionately all-caps about another person as Pearl seemed to feel about Esther, and certainly no one had ever felt that way about him. He expected to be sad about this realisation and instead found that he was mostly curious. Maybe if he really did manage to get free of the Library once and for all, if he began to lead a life on his own terms, all-caps was a feeling he himself might someday find.

Rather, it spoke of a kind of preordained movement, a socially constructed pathway that forced people, particularly women, into a series of steps they’d been tricked into believing they’d chosen for themselves.

Joanna had always known that there was quite a lot she didn't understand about the world, about the books, about her parents and their history. But when the physical and emotional boundaries of one's life were small, when one had walked every inch of one's allotted space many times over, it was easy to forget ignorance and feel a sort of mastery, instead. This house, that path, those books, that mountain; Joanna was used to being the expert and used to the safety that came with expertise.

Not used to visiting the houses of commoners, are we, Prince Nicholas?' 'I'm not a prince,' said Nicholas. 'Technically, I'm a very minor baron.' 'Excuse me, your majesty.' 'The correct honorific is my lord.' 'No,' said Esther. 'Not even as a joke.

Crystals of old honey on her body's tongue, long hardened, were loosening in the warmth of her spilling blood, turning from grain to syrup, a slow sweet hum of wings unfurling from deep within her and looping outward, solid and multitudinous, the comb in her chest and the workers in her veins, and the hive all around her.

she left—when she left—Antarctica would be a memory, then a memory of memory, and eventually it would be just a story. Pearl would be just a story, a swirl of remembered feelings, someone she’d talk about at bars to strangers who would become friends and then strangers again. All these stories, what did they add up to? A life?

Her whole childhood she’d devoured stories of children with dead and missing mothers, often easier to find than stories of children whose mothers were alive and well. The absence of a mother was a promise of adventure; mothers made things too safe, too comforting. Children with mothers didn’t need to look outside their homes for affirmation of their supremacy in someone’s story. They didn’t need to write their own protagonism.

Her whole childhood, she'd devoured stories of children with dead and missing mothers, often easier to find than stories of children whose mothers were alive and well. The absence of a mother was a promise of adventure; mothers made things too safe, too comforting. Children with mothers didn't need to look outside their homes for affirmation of their supremacy in someone's story. They didn't need to write their own protagonism. Esther remembered Cecily complaining about this when they'd watched The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White, offended by the lack of loving birth mothers and the prevalence of monstrous stepmothers. She'd squeezed Esther tight and smeared her cheek with red kisses and said, 'This evil stepmother loves you very much.' But despite Cecily's love, which Esther had never doubted, she had already identified within herself the same motherless quality that drove Ariel to shore, Cinderella to the ball, Snow White into the forest. Her motherlessness was intrinsic to her sense of self, and her sense of self was all she had these many years alone. What would it mean if her mother was alive? Not only alive, but aware of Esther and watching out for her, passing notes through magic mirrors and protecting her from afar, her own fairy godmother. What would it mean if her mother had not died, but left her?

He'd spent the majority of his life in this house and until recently had felt he'd known it in the same alert, instinctive way he knew his own body; knew its coldest stones and softest sofas, knew the best place to find midafternoon sun, knew which rooms the staff cleaned at which hours and which rooms were rarely cleaned at all, knew every hallway, every painting. Turning a corner was like bending and elbow. Opening a door like blinking an eye.

It took her a moment, as always, to acclimate to the roar that surged in her mind's ears, a sound she had attempted to describe to her sister and mother more than once but never could. Like being filled with golden bees that were all actually one bee, which was actually a field of shining wheat rustling beneath a blazing sun. It was a sound but not a sound. It was in her ears but it was in her head. It was like tasting a feeling and the feeling was power.

Later, as the sisters grew, Esther hyperfocused on their differences, but as a little kid she'd been far more hypnotised by their sameness. They both loved chewing lemon peels and watermelon rinds, loved pictures of goats but not actual goats, loved putting sand in their hair so they could scratch it out later, loved watching their parents slow-dance in the living room to Motown records. They loved the sound of the wind, the sound of breaking ice, the sound of coyotes calling on the mountain. They disliked zippers, ham, the word 'milk', flute music, the gurgling sound of the refrigerator, Cecily's long weekends away, Abe's insistence on regular chess matches, and days with no clouds. They disliked the boxes of books that came to their door daily or were lugged home by their father, disliked their dusty lonesome smell and how they consumed Abe's attention. They disliked when their parents closed the bedroom door and fought in whispers. They hated the phrase 'half sister.' There had been no half about it.

At first each bookstore felt magical. Not the kind of magic Esther had grown up with but the kind she'd read about in novels, the kind that was all possibility, the chance that with one right turn in the forest or one fate- ful conversation with an old woman a person's life might change forever. She would enter a store and take in the march of spines lined up on the shelves, the dust motes glittering in the sun, the mouthwatering smell of paper and cardboard and glue and words, and think, this is it. Every time. It never was.

Are they organised?' Nicholas called to her. 'What's your system?' 'Right now they're grouped by how many estimated uses they have left,' Joanna said, glancing away from Collins. 'I reorganise them a lot, though, just for fun.' She was aware, too late, how extremely un-fun this made her sound, but Collins saw her face and said, 'Don't worry, Nicholas is no fun, either.' 'Well, I haven't been given much of a chance, have I?' Nicholas said, carefully putting the book back in place. 'For all we know, I might be absolutely amazing at karaoke.' 'Karaoke's fun people who suck at dancing.

But magic could make the world better,” Nicholas tried. “No, it couldn’t,” said Maram, her voice sharp. “Your uncle understands this. You need to understand it, also. That is whywe keep commissions small and personal, why you will never write for governments or corporations or leaders of political rebellions,no matter how intriguing their cause or how much money they offer. We are not here to change the world with these books, Nicholas.Part of the reason we collect them is to keep them from the world, because the world misuses power and the Library participated in that misuse for centuries. Do you see what I amsaying?

A sense of isolation so complete it was almost a sound, a grim buzz, the way she imagined magic sounded.

What was the point of fighting if there was nothing, no one, to fight for?

Each of the volumes in the collection felt to Joanna like old friends, all the cracks and blemishes well known and forgiven, and save for the book Abe had died with, she knew the story behind each one.

...the tension between them was so thick and sticky it was almost visible, like layers of cobweb.

Promise me something,' she said. 'I'll promise you anything I can without lying to you again.' Pearl nodded. 'If magic really does exist, and you really can erase my memory, and I let you do it- you have to promise to come find me again once you're safe. You have to promise me to tell me everything that happened, and tell me again about your parents, and the books. Fill in all the blanks. I don't want to forget forever. I want to know.' She took a shuddering breath. 'But I don't think I can handle knowing right now. Alone.' Esther wanted this to be a promise she could keep. 'Yes,' she said. 'I promise.' 'Swear it to me,' said Pearl, extending her little finger, but instead Esther uncurled her other fingers and pressed a kiss to her palm. 'I swear it.

There's one thing I don't want you to forget,' she said to Pearl. 'Even with your concussion. I don't want you to forget that I really care about you. More than I've cared about anyone in a long, long time. Whatever happens next... that isn't going to change.

Wasn't wishing someone unprotected the same as wishing them harm?

She had done this so many times: watched a twelve-month life recede below her as she flew away from it. A year felt so long unless it was all you had.

Even without understanding the words, her sister's voice hit Joanna like a hammer against glass. It was unchanged, that voice. It sounded like Joanna's childhood, sunlit and safe and gone.

If this is the book I think it is... I'm relatively certain it's human.' A hot, sour feeling rose in the back of Esther's throat. 'What do you mean, human?' 'I mean the thread looks like it could be a combination of hair and sinew. The glue is likely rendered collagen.' He pinched the cover between thumb and forefinger. 'The leather's probably human skin.' 'Okay,' Collins said, 'great, well, if you need me, I'll be outside screaming.

Her grief had felt so heavy and she had wanted to find somewhere to put it, a container big enough and strong enough and old enough to hold it. She'd wanted to share it.

Good-looking blue-eyed men were usually the least trustworthy of anyone- how many times had she read of a villain with "icy blue eyes"? But Collins's eyes weren't icy at all. They were homey, soft, an old-denim blue like a pair of perfectly worn-in jeans, and they were focused on her now, full of hope. She found she didn't want to say no to him.

So you love him because he loves you,' said Nicholas, disappointed at the lack of romance in this reply. 'That doesn't sound like a good reason to love someone?

Curiouser and curiouser,' said Nicholas. 'Creepier and creepier,' corrected Collins.

Nothing could be worse than being stared at by his own eye.

Not used to visiting the houses of commoners, awe we, Prince Nicholas?' 'I'm not a prince,' said Nicholas. 'Technically, I'm a very minor baron.' 'Excuse me, your majesty.' 'The correct honorific is my lord.' 'No,' said Esther. 'Not even as a joke.

Like most children, Nicholas had loved myths and fairy tales, but unlike most children he'd never seen himself in the plucky heroes and heroines who spat jewels from blessed mouths or spun wheat into gold or stumbled across magic beans, magic lamps, magic geese. His place was outside the stories, where someone, he imagined, was writing all the spells that made the magic possible. So he'd based many of his early, experimental books on the tales he enjoyed: an enchantment for a harp that made all who heard it weep; a spell to steal a person's voice and hide it in a seashell.

Secrets are bad news, Nicholas. In the end, they're only make you feel worse.

Stepping through the mirror was like no physical experience he'd ever had. It was like swimming if the water was made of treacle and also of outer space, sweet and airless and tugging and infinite, and dark in a way that wasn't a binary to light but rather a different state entirely, complete unto itself. The body of the darkness was sound, which was sensation: countless wings brushing against one another, countless blades of golden grass moving in an endless wind, every distant highway ever heard.

Maybe he should apologise for the version of himself that would've accepted the loss of her life and filled a pen with her blood. But how exactly did one apologise for theoretical monstrosity? He wasn't very good at apologising for things he had done.

Are you and him...' 'Nah,' said Collins, and glanced at her sidelong. 'I, um, I prefer... long hair.

Hey, Nicholas?' Collins said in the mirror. 'Hey, Collins?' 'It's fucking creepy when you smile to yourself like that.' Nicholas smiled wider.

Clouds looked different from above. They peaked and valleyed like a landscape, their hollows purple with unshed water, summits blazing white and pink in the last flares of the evening sun. Knolls and mesas went wispy at the edges, trailing off into the blue sky like smoke and breaking the illusion of solidity that almost made it seem the plane could put its wheels down and land.

The thrum of magic filled the air; the endless sugar of a hot blue sky, the beat of a thousand gossamer wings, a wind that moved anything on earth that could be moved, which was everything.

Romance novels are about connection. About people who connect with one another against the odds- despite their differences, their flaws, their secrets. In a romance novel you never have to worry, you know everything will end happily.' 'Unlike real life,' Collins said. 'In real life you have to worry.' 'Exactly. That's why I used to prefer novels.' 'Used to?' 'Now I'm not so sure.' He tilted his head. 'I've spent the last six months under a silencing spell that basically ruled out any chance I had of connecting with another person,' he said. 'Take it from me. The real thing is worth all the worry in the world.

Secrets were currency and Isabel intended to stay rich.

Abe Kalotay died in his front yard in late February, beneath a sky so pale it seemed infected.

It was a line that became a wall as time passed, a stone wall like the ones that snaked through the forests around her childhood Vermont home, relics from a time before the trees had reclaimed the fields and the walls were divisions between properties, between families.

...she loved the first snow of the season, when all the faded browns of the sleeping earth were awakened into a new kind of aliveness, everything coarse made suddenly delicate, everything solid turned lacy and insubstantial. Magic that didn't need words to enact itself year after year.

...listening for the bodily hum that ran like syrup through her veins whenever she was near a book... but the ink stayed black and silent.

Their other books hummed like summer bees. This book throbbed like unspent thunder and when she opened the cover the handwritten words swam in front of her eyes, rearranging themselves every time a letter nearly became clear.

The words themselves eluded her eyes, they swam and darted like the colours of a kaleidoscope.

...she went to the usual spot on her finger and poked with the sharp tip until a drop of blood welled obediently to the surface. It was the brightest colour in the room, more alive than even the body it had just quit.

And suddenly Esther began to feel it. Crystals of old honey on her body’s tongue, long hardened, were loosening in the warmth of her spilling blood, turning from grain to syrup, a slow sweet hum of wings unfurling from deep within her and looping outward, solid and multitudinous, the comb in her chest and the workers in her veins and the hive all around her.

always thought it suggested, on some palindromic level, that it’s the steps themselves that make a path, instead of the other way round. We are creating even as we believe we are following.

much of life was either an opportunity to be discouraged or to press on,

In the golden porch light his lashes cast long, sooty shadows on his cheeks, and he was chewing on his lower lip in a way that made her want to stomp her foot.

botanical historian

ringing, and he was having trouble focusing his eyes.

mother

she loved the first snow of the season, when all the faded browns of the sleeping earth were awakened into a new kind of aliveness, everything coarse made suddenly delicate, everything solid turned lacy and insubstantial. Magic that didn’t need words to enact itself year after year.

So, who cared, anyway? Magic was stupid and pointless. His talents were stupid and pointless. Probably he, Nicholas, was also stupid and pointless.

He'd never felt so passionately all-caps about another person as Pearl seemed to feel about Esther, and certainly no one had ever felt that way about him. He expected to be sad about this realiza- tion, and instead found that he was mostly curious. Maybe if he really did manage to get free of the Library once and for all, if he began to lead a life on his own terms, all-caps was a feeling he himself might someday find.

It’s not for us to ask how,” her father had said, over and over. “We’re here to protect the books, to give them a home, to respect them — not to interrogate them.

He twined around her legs, hopefully nosed the empty tuna bowl, then darted off toward whatever adventures awaited a small cat in a large forest. She tracked his streaking figure until she lost him amid the trunks and dead leaves and pine needles.

violence

much of life was either an opportunity to be discouraged or to press on, and she’d always chosen to press on.

Maybe if he really did manage to get free of the Library once and for all, if he began to lead a life on his own terms, all-caps was a feeling he himself might someday find.