The Archived Victoria Schwab Quotes

Lying is easy. But it's lonely." "What do you mean?" "When you lie to everyone about everything, what's left? What's true?" "Nothing," I say. "Exactly.

What if I mess up?" "Oh, you will. You'll mess up, you'll make mistakes, you'll break things. Some you'll be able to piece together, and others you'll lose. That's all a given. But there's only one thing you have to do for me." "What's that?" "Stay alive long enough to mess up again.

The funny thing about armor is that it doesn't just keep other people out. It keeps us in. We build it up around us, not realizing that we're trapping ourselves.

It takes at least three assassination attempts to scare me off. And even then, if there are baked goods involved, I might come back.

I’ve been thinking.” “A dangerous pursuit.” “Indeed.

You're trying to block out every bit of noise. But people are made of noise, Mac. The world is full of noise. And finding quiet isn't about pushing everything out. It's just about pulling yourself in.

Because the only way to truly record a person is not in words, not in still frames, but in bone and skin and memory.

Curiosity is a gateway drug to sympathy.

Free caffeine and sugar, a recipe for making friends.

Everything is valuable, in its own way. Everything is full of history.

Lying is easy. But it’s lonely.

His gaze settles on the discarded book. He leans, reaching until his fingertips graze Dante's Inferno, still on its bed of folded sheets. "What have we here?" he asks. "Required reading," I say. "It's a shame they do that," he says, thumbing through the pages. "Requirement ruins even the best of books.

Having something and losing it, it's so much crueler than never having had it.

He fought the men and he slayed the monsters and he bested the gods, and at last the hero, having conquered all, earned the thing that he wanted most. To go home.

You can't be two people. You end up being neither.

Ignorance may be bliss, but only if it outweighs curiosity. Curiosity is a gateway drug to sympathy.

I am a horrible hollow kind of tired; all I want is quiet and rest.

It’s okay to not be okay,” she says. “When you’ve been through things—whatever those things are—and you don’t allow yourself to not be okay, then you only make it worse. Our problems will tear us apart if we try to ignore them. They demand attention because they need it.

You know,” he says, “for someone who doesn’t like touching people, you keep finding ways to put your hands on me.

It becomes a game, whispered and breathless. "I hide who I am." "I fight with the dead." "I lie to the living." "I am alone.

I am not afraid of nightmares, because mine came true and I lived through them.

He leans in, resting his weathered hand on the bed. "Treat all the bad things like dreams, Kenzie. That way, no matter how scary or dark they get, you just have to survive until you wake up.

We protect the past. And the way I see it, that means we need to understand it.

Caring about someone is scary, Mac. I know. Especially when you’ve lost people. It’s easy to think it’s not worth it. It’s easy to think life will hurt less if you don’t. But it’s not life unless you care about it.

He manages a sad smile. “An omission is not the same thing as a lie, Miss Bishop. It’s a manipulation.

Things only hurt more when you can see them.

What do schools do that for?” he grumbles. “What’s the point of summer if they give you homework?” “Exactly!

More of a cookie person, myself. No offense to the other baked goods. I just like cookies.

What a mess. Truths are messy and lies are messy, and I don’t care what Da said, it’s impossible to cut a person into pielike pieces, neat and tidy.

And then I get why Wes can’t stop smiling, even though it looks silly with his eyeliner and jet-black hair and hard jaw and scars. I am not alone. The words dance in my mind and in his eyes and against our rings and our keys, and now I smile too.

The silliest things shatter you. A T-shirt discovered behind the washing machine. A toy that rolled under a cabinet in the garage, forgotten until someone drops something and goes to fetch it, and suddenly they’re on the concrete floor sobbing into a dusty baseball mitt.

A death is traumatic. Vivid enough to mark any surface, to burn in like light on photo paper.

Da used to say that lies were easy, but trust was hard. Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it's lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back.

The Archive makes us monsters. And then it breaks the ones who get too strong, and buries the ones who know too much.

Doubt is like a current you have to swim against, one that saps your strength.

But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off.

WESLEY AYERS is the stranger in the halls of the Coronado. He is the Keeper in the garden who shares my secret. He is the boy who reads me books. He is the one who teaches me how to touch.

Scary, how easy it is to forget bad things.

We’re a team, Mac,” he says. “We’ll get through this.” “Which part?” I ask. He smiles. “All of it.” And I smile back, because I want him to be right.

But once you know, you can’t go back. Not really. You can carve out someone’s memories, but they won’t be who they were before. They’ll just be full of holes. Given the choice, I’d rather learn to live with what I know.

I can see why my daughter likes you." "Do you think she's falling for my dashing good looks, my charm, or the fact that I supply her with pastries?

We make a good team, Mackenzie Bishop.” “We do.” We do, and that is the thing that tempers the heat beneath my skin, checks the flutter of girlish nerves. This is Wesley. My friend. My partner. Maybe one day my Crew. The fear of losing that keeps me in check.

Mom may be able to power a city, but Dad barely stays lit.

Isn't it strange? It's like after they die, you're only allowed to remember the good. But no one's all good.

I have to wonder if he has masks he wears, too. Maybe we all do.

You are crazy," he says. "You are a crazy, amazing girl. And you scare the hell out of me." I smile.

It’s a shame they do that,” he says, thumbing through the pages. “Requirement ruins even the best of books.

Everything about Wesley Ayers is messy. My three worlds are kept apart by walls and doors and locks, and yet here he is, tracking the Archive into my life like mud. I know what Da would say, I know, I know, I know. But the strange new overlap is scary and messy and welcome. I can be careful.

Only fools and cowards scorned fear. Fear keeps you alive.

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell...

I just want to know if you’re okay,” he says, so soft I barely hear it through the static. I’m not, not at all; but his worry gives me the strength I need to lie. To pull back and smile and tell him I’m fine.

People are made up of so many small details. Some—like the smell of cookies baking—we can recreate. Or at least try.

The world isn’t that black-and-white, is it? It doesn’t all boil down to with or against. Some of us just want to stay alive.

Well, there's this new girl who just moved in on floor three. Her family's re-opening the cafe. I hear she likes to lie, and hit people." "Oh yeah? Well, there's that strange goth guy, the one who's always lurking around Five C." "Strangely hot in a mysterious way, though, right?

The shared secret of our second lives hangs between us, not like a weight, but like a lifeline.

You, Mackenzie Bishop,” he says as we hit the landing, “have been a very bad girl.” “How so?” He rounds the banister at the base of the staircase. “You involved me in a lie! Don’t think I didn’t catch it.

There have been times when I've wavered. When I thought maybe I wanted to be normal. But the thing is, what we do, it's in our blood. It's who we are. Normal wouldn't fit us, even if we wanted to wear it.

Knowledge is power," she finishes, and I open my eyes to find her rounding the chair, "but ignorance can be a blessing.

Da thought of people as books to be read, but I've always thought of them more as formulas- full of variables, but always the sum of their parts.

It’s not that Mom didn’t keep anything, it’s that she kept the wrong things. We leave memories on objects we love and cherish, things we use and wear down.

I want the things most people don’t notice. The ring and the key and the way you have of wearing everything on the inside.

I suppose it doesn't matter how they get out. All that matters is they do. And when they do, they must be found. They must go back.

I watch him fight back a smile and lose. What comes through isn’t smug, or even crooked. It’s proud. And I can’t help it. I smile a little too.

And when he presses his lips into the curve of my throat, I can feel his tears on my skin. “You are an idiot,” I say, even as I guide his face and mouth to mine. I kiss him, not gently, but desperately. Desperately, because he’s worth it—because life is terrifying and short and I don’t know what will happen. All I know is that here and now, I am still alive, and I want to be with Wesley Ayers. Here and now I want to feel his arms wrapped around me. I want to feel his lips on mine. I want to feel his life tangling with mine. Here and now is all we have, and I want to make it worth whatever happens next.

You sure have a lot of piercings for a guy with a needle phobia.” “I am the master of my fears

The worse thing you can do in a fight is stop moving. When someone attacks, they create force, movement, momentum, but you'll be okay as long as you can see and feel the direction of that force and travel with it.

But if you weren’t a Keeper…if you lost someone and you thought they were gone forever, and then you learned you could get them back, you’d be there with the rest of them, clawing at the walls to get through.

Everything that rises will fall. Empires, societies, governments. None of them lasts forever. Why? Because even though they are the products of change, they become resistant to change. The longer a society survives, the more it clings to its power, and the more it resists progress. The more it resists progress- resists change- the more its ciizens demand it. In response, the society tighten its grip, desperate to maintain control. It's afraid of losing its hold.

He used to tell me there were no bad dreams. Just dreams. That when we call them good or bad, we give importance to them. I know that doesn't make it better, Mac. I know it's easy to talk like that when you're awake. But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off.

Don't you see, Owen?" "See what?" "The day's over.

After a year of tiptoeing through our lives, trying not to set off memories like landmines.

A confession: I am not a good friend. Lyndsey writes letters, Lyndsey makes calls. Lyndsey makes plans. Everything I do is in reaction to everything she does, and I’m terrified of the day she decides not to pick up the phone, not to take the first step. I’m terrified of the day Lyndsey outgrows my secrets, my ways. Outgrows me.

There’s an empty shelf here with your name and dates?” “There is. And it was beginning to sound nice. But then I got called in to this meeting. An induction ceremony. Some crazy old man and his granddaughter.” He stands, guides me up beside him. “And I don’t regret it. Now, go home.

Smiling is the worst thing you can do if you want the world to think you're okay when you're not. Some people can't help it - it's like a tic, a tell - and others do it on purpose, thinking people will buy whatever they're selling if it comes with a flash of teeth. But the truth is, smiling only makes a lie harder to pass off. It's like a giant crack in the front of a mask.

Da used to say that only fools and cowards scorned fear. Fear keeps you alive.

The only way to truly record a person is not in words, not in still frames, but in bone and skin and memory.

So stop fighting. Let the noise go white. Let it be like water. And float.

I pull the key from around my neck and slip it into the hole beneath my brother’s card. It doesn’t turn. It never turns. But I never stop trying.

And that’s when I realize how tired I am, of lies and omissions and half-truths. I put Wes in danger, but he’s still here—and if he’s willing to brave this chaos with me, then he deserves to know what I know. And I’m about to speak, about to tell him that, tell him everything, when he brings his hand to the back of my neck, pulls me forward, and kisses me. The noise floods in. I don’t push back, don’t block it out, and for one moment, all I can think is that he tastes like summer rain. His lips linger on mine, urgent and warm. Lasting.

If you mean a few little things—the exact sound of his voice, the shade of his hair, then okay, yeah. You’re going to forget. But Ben isn’t those things, you know? He’s your brother. He’s made up of every moment in his life. You’ll never forget all of that.

His lips linger on mine, urgent and warm. Lasting. And then he pulls away, breath ragged. His hand falls from my skin, and I understand. He’s not wearing his ring. He didn’t just kiss me. He read me.

People are made of so many fragile pieces.

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

I do want it. I want you to stay. Time and disease are taking you from me. You’ve told me, made it clear, this is the only way I can keep you close. I will not lose that.

Aunt Joan broke her hip a few years back. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still pretty damn fierce. Lightning fast with her cane, in fact. I’ve got the scars to prove it.

I am still frozen when he reaches out and brushes a finger over the three lines etched into the surface of my ring, then twists one of his own rings to reveal a cleaner but identical set of lines. The Archive’s insignia. When I don’t react—because no fluid lie came to me and now it’s too late—he closes the gap between us, close enough that I can almost hear the bass again, radiating off his skin. His thumb hooks under the cord around my throat and guides my key out from under my shirt. It glints in the twilight. Then he fetches the key from around his own neck. “There,” he says cheerfully. “Now we’re on the same page.

M. That’s what I call her, this normal, nonexistent me. It’s not that I’ve never done those things, kissed or danced or just “hung out.” I have. But it was put-on, a character, a lie. I am so good at it—lying—but I can’t lie to myself. I can pretend to be M; I can wear her like a mask. But I can’t be her. I’ll never be her.

And besides, if my soul's impeccable taste in music throws you off, then learn to tune me out.

As nice as his touch was, it’s not what lingers with me while I work. It’s his words. Two words I tried to shut out, but they cling to me. What if echoes in my head as I hunt. What if haunts me through the Narrows. What if follows me home.

Wesley's touch lingers on my skin. His music echoes through my head. I remind myself as I scrub my skin that we are both liars and con artists. That we will always have secrets, some that bind us and some that cut between us, slicing us into pieces.

Lies are easy, but trust is hard. Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it's lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back. And doubt, Da warned, is like a current you have to swim against, one that saps your strength.

It wouldn’t bring her back.” “I know. Trust me, I do. And I would have done far worse,” he says, “if I’d thought there was a way to bring Regina back. I would have traded places. I would have sold souls. I would have torn this world apart. I would have done anything, broken any rule, just to bring her back.

Are you going to be okay?” I close my eyes. “I don’t know, Wes. Everything hurts. I don’t know how to make it stop. It hurts when I breathe. It hurts when I think. I feel like I’m drowning, and it’s my fault, and I don’t know how to be okay. I don’t know if I can be okay. I don’t know if I should be allowed to be okay.

I am blotting out pieces of my life. I am blotting out everything but this. But him. I exhale as he brushes against me, my body beginning to uncurl, to loosen at his fingertips. I am letting him wash over me, drown every part of me that I don’t need in order to kiss or to listen or to smile or to want. This is what I want. This is my drug. The pain, both skin-deep and deeper, is finally gone. Everything is gone but the quiet. And the quiet is wonderful.

I left the window open, she says. And just like that, the world pulls back into focus. I stop spinning and something in me cracks—not something literal like bones, thank god, but something just as deep—and I’m so ready for this damn night to end, but I don’t want it to end here.

Why did you take this job?” I ask. “It doesn’t make sense. You’re so young—” “It was an honor to be promoted,” she says, but the words have a hollow ring. I can see her drawing back into herself, into her role. “Who did you lose?” I ask. Carmen flashes a smile that is at once dazzling and sad. “I’m a Librarian, Miss Bishop. I’ve lost everyone.

Wes hits the table. "You broke into a crime scene without me?" "Be glad, Wes, or we would have both been caught." "We're a team, Mac. You don't go committing crimes without your partner in crime. Besides, if I'd been with you, we probably wouldn't have been caught. I could have stood at the door and made wild bird sounds or something when the cops came back. And if we did get caught, or mugshots would look fabulous.

I want to be oblivious to the hurt written on her face. I want to be selfish and young and normal. M would be that way. She would need space to grieve. She would rebel because her parents were simply uncool, not because one was wearing a horrifying happy mask and the other was a living ghost. She’d be distant because she was preoccupied with boys or school, not because she’s tired from hunting down the Histories of the dead, or distracted by her new hotel-turned-apartment, where the walls are filled with crimes.

There is a mirror across from me, and I check my reflection in it before heading home. Despite the bone-deep fatigue and the growing fear and frustration, I look…fine. Da always said he’d teach me to play cards. Said I’d take the bank, the way things never reach my eyes. There should be something—a tell, a crease between my eyes, or a tightness in my jaw. I’m too good at this. Behind my reflection I see the painting of the sea, slanting as if the waves crashing on the rocks have hit with enough force to tip the picture. I turn and straighten it. The frame makes a faint rattling sound when I do. Everything in this place seems to be falling apart.

He lowers my hand and untangles his fingers. The noise fades, my chest loosening by degrees until I can breathe, like coming up through water. Again my eyes are drawn to the leather cord around his neck, the charm buried beneath the black fabric of his shirt. My gaze drifts down his arms, past his rolled sleeves, toward the hand that just let go of mine. Even in the twilight I can see a faint scar. “Looks like you’ve lost a couple fights of your own,” I say, running my fingers through the air near his hand, not daring to touch. “How did you get that?” “A stint as a spy. I wasn’t much good.” A crooked line runs down the back of his hand. “And that?” “Scuff with a lion.” Watching Wesley lie is fascinating. “And that?” “Caught a piranha bare-handed.” No matter how absurd the tale, he says it steady and simple, with the ease of truth. A scratch runs along his forearm. “And that?” “Knife fight in a Paris alley.” I search his skin for marks, our bodies drawing closer without touching. “Dove through a window.” “Icicle.” “Wolf.” I reach up, my fingers hovering over a nick on his hairline. “And this?” “A History.