β
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
β
β
Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
β
In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them.
Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness.
Her raven boys.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
While I'm gone," Gansey said, pausing, "dream me the world. Something new for every night.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
The Waverley sisters hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice.
β
β
Sarah Addison Allen (First Frost (Waverley Family, #2))
β
I am being perfectly fucking civil.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.
β
β
Thomas More (Utopia)
β
If you never saw the stars, candles were enough.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
I wish you could be kissed, Jane,' he said. 'Because I would beg just one off you. Under all this.' He flailed an arm toward the stars.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
I've always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.
β
β
David Benioff (City of Thieves)
β
And Ronan was everything that was left: molten eyes and a smile made for war.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
She wore a dress Ronan thought looked like a lampshade. Whatever sort of lamp it belonged on, Gansey clearly wished he had one.
Ronan wasn't a fan of lamps.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn,
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
β
Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.
β
β
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Letters and Papers from Prison)
β
He was brother to a liar and brother to an angel, son of a dream and son of a dreamer.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Until this moment, Wylan hadn't quite understood how much they meant to him. His father would have sneered at these thugs and thieves, a disgraced soldier, a gambler who couldn't keep out of the red. But they were his first friends, his only friends, and Wylan knew that even if he'd had his pick of a thousand companions, these would have been the people he chose.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
β
Man is not, by nature, deserving of all that he wants. When we think that we are automatically entitled to something, that is when we start walking all over others to get it.
β
β
Criss Jami (Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality)
β
Don't let a thief into your house three times. The first time was enough. The second time was a chance. The third time means you're stupid.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Silence was never a wrong answer.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Dying's a boring side effect.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices
β
β
George Orwell
β
So what you're saying is you can't explain it."
"I did explain it."
"No, you used nouns and verbs together in a pleasing but illogical format.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leadersβ¦and millions have been killed because of this obedienceβ¦Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thievesβ¦ (and) the grand thieves are running the country. Thatβs our problem.
β
β
Howard Zinn
β
He hadn't realized yet that Gansey could persuade even the sun to pause and give him the time.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Weβre a different sort of thief here, Lamora. Deception and misdirection are our tools. We donβt believe in hard work when a false face and a good line of bullshit can do so much more.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1))
β
Choose your leaders
with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward
is to be controlled
by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool
is to be led
by the opportunists
who control the fool.
To be led by a thief
is to offer up
your most precious treasures
to be stolen.
To be led by a liar
is to ask
to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant
is to sell yourself
and those you love
into slavery.
β
β
Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Talents (Earthseed, #2))
β
Reality's what other people dream for you.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
What do you want, Adam?
To feel awake when my eyes are open.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
I'm going to call in old debts and promises. To raise an army of assassins and thieves and exiles and commoners.
β
β
Sarah J. Maas (Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5))
β
The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesnβt hear, doesnβt speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesnβt know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesnβt know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.
β
β
Bertolt Brecht
β
It was mint and memories and the past and the future and she felt as if sheβd done this before and already she longed to do it again.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Sometimes Ronan thought Adam was so used to the right way being painful that he doubted any path that didnβt come with agony.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
You really didn't see the sadness or the longing unless you already knew it was there. But that was the trick, wasn't it? Everyone had their disappointment and their baggage; only, some people carried it in their inside pockets and not on their backs.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Arbores loqui latine. The trees speak Latin.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
A boy may be as disagreeable as he pleases, but when a girl refuses to crap sunshine on command, the world mutters darkly about her moods.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
β
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
β
β
Aesop
β
Boys like him didn't die; they got bronzed and installed outside public libraries.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Ronan's second secret was Adam Parrish.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
He danced on the knifeβs edge between awareness and sleep. When he dreamt like this, he was a king. The world was his to bend. His to burn.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Choose your words carefully, even the words you think, because they become seeds, and seeds become history.
β
β
Mary E. Pearson (Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves, #1))
β
The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you canβt fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.
β
β
Groucho Marx
β
It was a sort of ferocious, quiet beauty, the sort that wouldn't let you admire it. The sort of beauty that always hurt.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.
β
β
Hunter S. Thompson
β
In some parallel universe, there was a Gansey who could tell Blue that he found the ten inches of her bare calves far more tantalizing than the thirteen cubic feet of bare skin Orla sported. But in this universe, that was Adamβs job.
He was in a terrible mood.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
When Ronan thought of Gansey, he thought of moving into Monmouth Manufacturing, of nights spent in companionable insomnia, of a summer searching for a king, of Gansey asking the Gray Man for his life. Brothers.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Stand aside, and try not to catch fire if I shed sparks of genius.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
β
What's the n-never-fail universal apology?"
"'I was badly misinformed, I deeply regret the error, go fuck yourself with this bag of money.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
β
Want and need were words that got eaten smaller and smaller: Freedom, autonomy, a perennial bank balance, a stainless-steel condo in a dustless city, a silky black car, to make out with Blue, eight hours of sleep, a cell phone, a bed, to kiss Blue just once, a blister-less heel, bacon for breakfast, to hold Blue's hand, one hour of sleep, toilet paper, deodorant, a soda, a minute to close his eyes.
What do you want, Adam?
To feel awake when my eyes are open.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Calla readjusted, wrapping the silk around her other thigh instead. "Which one's he again? The pretty one?"
Blue and Gansey exchanged a look. Blue's look said, I'm so, so sorry. Gansey's said, Am I the pretty one?
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Ronan," Noah said, "I have a super bad feeling."
"It's called being dead," Ronan replied.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Do you believe,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?'
Do you believe,' said Martin, 'that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?
β
β
Voltaire (Candide)
β
I know you think you're a punk," Declan said. "But you aren't nearly as bad ass as you think you are."
"Oh, go to hell," Ronan snapped, just as the alter boys broached the rear doors.
"Guys," Matthew pleaded. "Be holy.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
I do want tomorrows with you, Jase. I want a lifetime of tomorrows.
β
β
Mary E. Pearson (Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves, #1))
β
How dare you touch my cookies, you bastard!β Jason said in utter disgust before popping the cookie into his mouth and heading back to his house.
βDamn those looked good, too,β Brad grumbled.
Haley sighed. βDonβt worry I have a second plate on my counter.β The words were barely out of her mouth when Jason abruptly changed course and headed towards her house.
βWell, there was,β she said, watching Jason walk into her house like he owned it. A minute later he walked out of her house, carrying both plates and the gallon of milk she had in her fridge. He headed back to his house, but not before he glared at Brad. βYou cookie thieving bastard,β they heard him mutter.
Brad rolled his eyes, chuckling. βAnd people wonder how I lost weight rooming with him in college.
β
β
R.L. Mathewson (Playing for Keeps (Neighbor from Hell, #1))
β
Adam's response was buried in the sound of the first-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window!"
Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead!
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Quit being so hard on yourself. We are what we are; we love what we love. We don't need to justify it to anyone... not even to ourselves.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
β
... for most practical purposes, Tarbean had two parts: Waterside and Hillside. Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicians and courtesans.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1))
β
Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Rooseveltβs eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they havenβt time to read.
β
β
David McCullough
β
Then Maura made something with butter and Calla made something with bacon and Blue steamed broccoli in self-defense.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
If Adam was stupid about his pride, Gansey was stupid about Adam.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Flustered, she replied, "You're not my - my - grandmother, or something."
"You'd talk about this with your grandmother? I can't possibly imagine discussing my dating life with mine. She's a lovely woman, I suppose. If you like them bald and racist.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
His eyes were frighteningly alive, the curve of his mouth savage and pleased. It suddenly didn't seem at all surprising that he should be able to pull things from his dreams.
In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Ronan's smile was sharp and hooked as one of the creature's claws. "'A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer's hand'."
"I can't believe Noah didn't stick around to help."
"Sure you can. Never trust the dead.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Ronan's bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey first met him.
"Hold on," Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: "Why would he be?"
"No reason. Just no reason." Ronan slammed his door.
Gansey asked Adam, "Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?"
Adam's response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window!"
Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead!
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
It began with the stars.
β
β
Mary E. Pearson (Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves, #1))
β
A secret is a strange thing.
There are three kinds of secrets. One is the sort everyone knows about, the sort you need at least two people for. One to keep it. One to never know. The second is a harder kind of secret: one you keep from yourself. Every day, thousands of confessions are kept from their would-be confessors, none of these people knowing that their never-admitted secrets all boil down to the same three words: I am afraid.
And then there is the third kind of secret, the most hidden kind. A secret no one knows about. Perhaps it was known once, but was taken to the grave. Or maybe it is a useless mystery, arcane and lonely, unfound because no one ever looked for it.
Sometimes, some rare times, a secret stays undiscovered because it is something too big for the mind to hold. It is too strange, too vast, too terrifying to contemplate.
All of us have secrets in our lives. Weβre keepers or keptfrom, players or played. Secrets and cockroaches β thatβs what will be left at the end of it all.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Tears don't become us."
"What becomes us?"
"Action.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
I don't expect life to make sense," he said after a few moments, "but it could certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
β
Ronan Lynch lived with every sort of secret.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Truth might be stranger than fiction, but it needs a better editor.
β
β
David Benioff (City of Thieves)
β
I'm sorry no one saved you.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him.
Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted.
Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to this agony till he sing in dissolution.
Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his last punishment, let the flames of hell consume him for ever.
Curse on book thieves, from the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona, Spain
β
β
Cornelia Funke (Inkheart (Inkworld, #1))
β
It was nothing, but it was Adam Parrish's nothing. How he hated and loved it. How proud he was of it, how wretched it was.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
No, you used nouns and verbs together in a pleasing but illogical format.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
It could kill you," Maura said.
Then there was the awkward moment that arrives when two thirds of the people in the room know that the other third is supposed to die in fewer than nine months, and the person who is meant to die is not one of the ones in the know.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behavior) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.
β
β
William Shakespeare (King Lear)
β
Truth that came too late was as useful as a meal to a dead man.
β
β
Mary E. Pearson (Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves, #1))
β
I've got kids that enjoy stealing. I've got kids that don't think about stealing one way or the other, and I've got kids that just tolerate stealing because they know they've got nothing else to do. But nobody--and I mean nobody--has ever been hungry for it like this boy. If he had a bloody gash across his throat and a physiker was trying to sew it up, Lamora would steal the needle and thread and die laughing. He...steals too much.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1))
β
When the skyβs falling, I take shelter under bullshit.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
β
Are you crying?"
"Only a little."
"Why?"
"Generalized sadness.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
It's awkward, isn't it?" he said.
"What's that?" I replied, my voice far too breathy.
"These moments when we're not hating each other.
β
β
Mary E. Pearson (Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves, #1))
β
What kind of knife is this?β Locke held a rounded buttering utensil up for Chainsβ inspection. βItβs all wrong. You couldnβt kill anyone with this.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1))
β
What's that?"
"Jane!" Gansey said joyfully.
Adam said, "It's a wizard in a box."
"It will do your homework," Noah added.
"And it's been dating your girlfriend," Ronan finished.
Blue scowled. "Are you all drunk?
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
He left Chainsaw behind, much to her irritation. Ronan didn't want her to learn any bad language.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Gansey had no idea how old Blue was. He knew she'd just finished eleventh grade. Maybe she was sixteen. Maybe she was eighteen. Maybe she was twenty-two and just very short and remedial.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
What is government but theft by consent?
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
β
Non mortem, somni fratem.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
It was not just a touch, an action. It was a simplification of both of them: They were no longer Noah Czerny and Blue Sargent. They were now just him and her. Not even that. They were only the time that they held between them.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She's beautiful; when you're with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence; your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she's been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you.
β
β
David Benioff (City of Thieves)
β
All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us--all who knew her--felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used--to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.
And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.
β
β
Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye)
β
What did they do to you, Kazi?β His voice was low, earnest. Even in the dim light, I was able to see the worry in his eyes.
I pretended I didnβt know what he was talking about. βWho did what?β
βWho made you afraid of an open world? An open sky? Was it Venda? Your parents?β
βNo one did anything,β I answered quietly.
βThen hold on to me,β he said. βLet me show you the stars.
β
β
Mary E. Pearson (Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves, #1))
β
You didn't know I could do that, did you?" he asked, conversationally.
"I did not, Your Majesty," Teleus gasped.
"My grandfather killed a man that way once, using the edge of the wooden sword."
"I hadn't realized the Thieves of Eddis were so warlike."
"They aren't, mostly. But like all men, Teleus, I have two grandfathers." Teleus rolled his eyes to look up at him, and the king said, "One of mine was Eddis."
"Ah," said Teleus.
"Ah, indeed," said the king.
β
β
Megan Whalen Turner (The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief, #3))
β
He said that life boils down to standing in line to get shit dropped on your head. Everyone's got a place in the queue, you can't get out of it, and just when you start to congratulate yourself on surviving your dose of shit, you discover that the line is actually circular.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
β
This isnβt about romance. A proper kiss, a proper courtship. Thereβs a way these things should be done.β
βFor proper thieves?β The corners of her beautiful mouth curled and for a moment he was afraid she would laugh at him, but she simply shook her head and drew even nearer. Her body was the barest breath from his now. The need to close that scrap of distance was maddening.
βThe first day you showed up at my house for this proper courtship, I would have cornered you in the pantry,β she said. βBut please, tell me more about Fjerdan girls.β
βThey speak quietly. They donβt engage in flirtations with every single man they meet.β
βI flirt with the women too.β
βI think youβd flirt with a date palm if it would pay you any attention.β
βIf I flirted with a plant, you can bet it would stand up and take notice. Are you jealous?β
βAll the time.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
β
One moment, she was wearing clothing, and the next moment, she was wearing a bikini. Fifty percent of the world was brown skin and fifty percent was orange nylon. From the Mona Lisa smile on Orla's lips, it was clear she was pleased to finally be allowed to demonstrate her true talents.
A tiny part of Gansey's brain said: You have been staring for too long.
The larger part of his brain said: ORANGE.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
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There were many versions of Gansey, but this one had been rare since the introduction of Adam's taming presence. It was also Ronan's favorite. It was the opposite of Gansey's most public face, which was pure control enclosed in a paper-thin wrapper of academia. But this version of Gansey was Gansey the boy. This was the Gansey who bought the Camaro, the Gansey who asked Ronan to teach him to fight, the Gansey who contained every wild spark so that it wouldn't show up in other versions. Was it the shield beneath the lake that had unleashed it? Orla's orange bikini? The bashed-up remains of his rebuilt Henrietta and the fake IDs they'd returned to? Ronan didn't really care. All that mattered was that something had struck the match, and Gansey was burning.
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Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
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Oh, it's good," Matthew said enthusiastically. It was not much of an endorsement. Matthew Lynch was a golden indiscriminate pit into which the world threw food. "It's real good. When I saw your phone number, I nearly shit myself! You could sell your phone, like, as new-in-box."
"Don't fucking swear," Ronan said.
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Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
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He was clearly related to Declan: same nose, same dark eyebrows, same phenomenal teeth. But there was a carefully cultivated sense of danger to this Lynch brother. This was not a rattlesnake hidden in the grass, but a deadly coral snake striped with warning colors. Everything about him was a warning: If this snake bit you, you had no one to blame but yourself.
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Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
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Gansey leaned back, head thrown to the side, drunken and silly with happiness. "I love this car," he said, loud enough to be heard over the engine. "I should buy four more of them. I'll just open the door of one to fall in to the other. One can be a living room, one can be my kitchen, I'll sleep in one..."
"And the fourth? Butler's pantry?" Blue shouted.
"Don't be so selfish. Guest room.
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Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
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I reached out my hand, England's rivers turned and flowed the other way...
I reached out my hand, my enemies's blood stopt in their veins...
I reached out my hand; thought and memory flew out of my enemies' heads like a flock of starlings;
My enemies crumpled like empty sacks.
I came to them out of mists and rain;
I came to them in dreams at midnight;
I came to them in a flock of ravens that filled a northern sky at dawn;
When they thought themselves safe I came to them in a cry that broke the silence of a winter wood...
The rain made a door for me and I went through it;
The stones made a throne for me and I sat upon it;
Three kingdoms were given to me to be mine forever;
England was given to me to be mine forever.
The nameless slave wore a silver crown;
The nameless slave was a king in a strange country...
The weapons that my enemies raised against me are venerated in Hell as holy relics;
Plans that my enemies made against me are preserved as holy texts;
Blood that I shed upon ancient battlefields is scraped from the stained earth by Hell's sacristans and placed in a vessel of silver and ivory.
I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritance
But Englishmen have despised my gift
Magic shall be written upon the sky by the rain but they shall not be able to read it;
Magic shall be written on the faces of the stony hills but their minds shall not be able to contain it;
In winter the barren trees shall be a black writing but they shall not understand it...
Two magicians shall appear in England...
The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;
The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;
The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;
The second shall see his dearest posession in his enemy's hand...
The first shall pass his life alone, he shall be his own gaoler;
The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside...
I sit upon a black throne in the shadows but they shall not see me.
The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it;
The stones shall make a throne for me and I shall sit upon it...
The nameless slave shall wear a silver crown
The nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country...
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Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell)
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He said, βI know somebody you could kiss.β
βWho?β She realized his eyes were amused. βOh, wait.β
He shrugged. He was maybe the only person Blue knew who could preserve the integrity of a shrug while lying down. βItβs not like youβre going to kill me. I mean, if you were curious.β
She hadnβt thought she was curious. It hadnβt been an option, after all. Not being able to kiss someone was a lot like being poor. She tried not to dwell on the things she couldnβt have.
But nowβ
βOkay,β she said.
βWhat?β
βI said okay.β
He blushed. Or rather, because he was dead, he became normal colored. βUh.β He propped himself on an elbow. βWell.β She unburied her face from the pillow. βJust, likeββ
He leaned toward her. Blue felt a thrill for a half a second. No, more like a quarter second. Because after that she felt the too-firm pucker of his tense lips. His mouth mashed her lips until it met teeth. The entire thing was at once slimy and ticklish and hilarious.
They both gasped an embarrassed laugh. Noah said, βBah!β Blue considered wiping her mouth, but felt that would be rude. It was all fairly underwhelming.
She said, βWell.β
βWait,β Noah replied, βwaitwaitwait.β He pulled one of Blueβs hairs out of his mouth. βI wasnβt ready.β
He shook out his hands as if Blueβs lips were a sporting event and cramping was a very real possibility.
βGo,β Blue said.
This time they only got within a breath of each otherβs lips when they both began to laugh. She closed the distance and was rewarded with another kiss that felt a lot like kissing a dishwasher.
βIβm doing something wrong?β she suggested.
βSometimes itβs better with tongue,β he replied dubiously.
They regarded each other.
Blue squinted, βAre you sure youβve done this before?β
βHey!β he protested. βItβs weird for me, βcause itβs you.β
βWell, itβs weird for me because itβs you.β
βWe can stop.β
βMaybe we should.β
Noah pushed himself up farther on his elbow and gazed at the ceiling vaguely. Finally, he dropped his eyes back to her. βYouβve seen, like, movies. Of kisses, right? Your lips need to be, like, wanting to be kissed.β
Blue touched her mouth. βWhat are they doing now?β
βLike, bracing themselves.β
She pursed and unpursed her lips. She saw his point.
βSo imagine one of those,β Noah suggested.
She sighed and sifted through her memories until she found one that would do. It wasnβt a movie kiss, however. It was the kiss the dreaming tree had showed her in Cabeswater. Her first and only kiss with Gansey, right before he died. She thought about his nice mouth when he smiled. About his pleasant eyes when he laughed. She closed her eyes.
Placing an elbow on the other side of her head, Noah leaned close and kissed her once more. This time, it was more of a thought than a feeling, a soft heat that began at her mouth and unfurled through the rest of her. One of his cold hands slid behind her neck and he kissed her again, lips parted. It was not just a touch, an action. It was a simplification of both of them: They were no longer Noah Czerny and Blue Sargent. They were now just him and her. Not even that. They were only the time that they held between them.
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Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))