V E Schwab Vicious Quotes

But these words people threw around - humans, monsters, heroes, villains - to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.

Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.

You must make time for that which matters, for that which defines you: your passion, your progress, your pen. Take it up, and write your own story.

You don't understand," gasped Eli. "No one understands." "When no one understands, that's usually a good sign that you're wrong.

What gives you the right to play judge and jury and executioner?

The absence of pain led to an absence of fear, and the absence of fear led to a disregard for consequences.

Serena hadn't told Sydney to go home. She hadn't told her to run away. She told her to go somewhere safe. And over the course of the last week, safe had ceased to be a place for Sydney, and had become a person. Specifically, safe had become Victor.

I have a hacker, a half-dead dog, and a child. It’s hardly an arsenal.

Victor was the first to speak, and when he did, it was with an eloquence and composure perfectly befitting the situation. “Holy shit.

We are all immortal until proven otherwise?

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between Bad and Good, but between Bad and Worse. —Joseph Brodsky

You're the hero...," she said, finding his eyes,"...of your own story anyway.

You aren’t some avenging angel, Eli,” he said. “You’re not blessed, or divine, or burdened. You’re a science experiment.

Everything starts with belief. With faith.

VICTOR smiled. He was having a fabulous time killing Eli.

You want to live,” he told his reflection. His reflection looked unconvinced.

The moments that define lives aren't always obvious. They don't always scream LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there's no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren't always protracted, heavy with meaning.

If he weren't currently in the back of a cop car, he would have wanted to make a thesis note.

I hope Victor hurts him,” she said cheerfully. “A lot.” “Jesus. Three days and you’re already taking after him.

There are no good men in this game.

You asked me if I ever wanted to believe in something. I do. I want to believe in this. I want to believe that there’s more.

You remember me, and I’ll remember you, and that way we won’t be forgotten.” “That’s shit logic, Vic.” “It’s perfect.

And Ulysses stopped up his ears against the siren’s song,” recited Victor, pulling the plugs from his own ears as Serena collapsed to the dirt lot, “for it was death.

Eli screamed, and the sound made Victor feel good.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” “I get the feeling that’s not what Thomas Jefferson meant,” muttered Mitch.

And after ten years of waiting, it was Victor’s turn, to get into Eli’s head and do some ruining.

Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens.

Victor Vale was not a fucking sidekick.

Are you afraid yet? he would ask when the floor was slick with Eli’s blood. Are you afraid?

You were dead," said Victor. "Now, thanks to my friend Sydney, you're a bit less dead.

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 than we want to disprove them. We want to believe.

You can’t kill me today,” she called back. “I’m late for class.

Eli, who believed in God and had a monster inside just like Victor, but knew how to hide it better.

That we could be more. Hell, we could be heroes.” “We could be dead,” said Eli. “That’s a risk everyone takes by living.

Be lost. Give up. give In. in the end It would be better to surrender before you begin. be lost. Be lost And then you will not care if you are ever found.

He?” asked Victor incredulously. He wasn’t in the mood for God. Not this morning. “According to your thesis,” he said, “an influx of adrenaline and a desire to survive gave you that talent. Not God. This isn’t divinity, Eli. It’s science and chance.” “Maybe to a point, but when I climbed into that water, I put myself in His hands—” “No,” snapped Victor. “You put yourself in mine.

It was like watching two people, one hiding in the other’s skin.

This isn’t divinity, Eli. It’s science and chance.

Said my power went against nature. Against God.” “Charming, isn’t he?

The steps to solving a problem, from elementary math to breaking out of a police station, remained the same.

No one is going to hurt you. Do you know why?” She shook her head, and Victor smiled. “Because I’ll hurt them first.

She felt like a god. She dreamed of people who could fight back. Of wills strong enough to resist her.

SYDNEY Clarke died on a cool March day. It was just before lunch, and it was all Serena’s fault.

We want to prove things, in life, more than we want to disprove them. We want to believe.

There are no good men in this game,” said Mitch. But Sydney didn’t care about good. She wasn’t sure she believed in it. “I’m not afraid of Victor.” “I know.” He sounded sad when he said it.

I put my life into His hands.” “Well,” said Victor, earnestly, “let’s hope He gives it back.

THUD. Thud. Thud. The shovel hit wood, and stuck.

Yes, I killed him, Serena. He was very dead.

Serena hated to admit how easy and addictive it was, getting her way, even when it made her miserable.

she realized that she wasn’t a ghost, or a god. She was a monster.

All Eli had to do was smile. All Victor had to do was lie. Both proved frighteningly effective.

Mother... fucker...

Maybe you’re right,” said Victor. He was willing to admit that he felt different. “But if I’m missing something, then so are you. Life is about compromises. Or did you think because you put yourself in God’s hands that He would make you all you were and more?” “He did,” growled Eli, pulling the trigger.

If Eli really was a hero, and Victor meant to stop him, did that make him a villain?

He wished for the first time in his life that he believed in God.

You make cheating death sound so simple.” “We do seem awfully good at it,” said Victor cheerfully. He lifted his glass. “To never dying.” Eli lifted his. “To being remembered.” Their glasses clinked as Eli added, “Forever.

He wanted to see the look in Eli’s eyes when he lit them up with pain. He wanted his attention.

Death takes something with it. What did it take from you?” Eli lifted the gun again. “My fear.

The calm troubled him; the fact that the physical absence of pain could elicit such a mental absence of panic was at once unnerving and rather fascinating.

And this girl, this monster, had a dangerous, complicated gift.

He thought it particularly foolish to endow inmates with a detailed sense of the positions of vital organs, but there you go.

The worst part of going numb was that it took away everything but this, the smothering need to hurt, to break, to kill, pouring over him like a thick blanket of syrup until he panicked and brought the physical sensations back.

No, Sydney,” he said. “I need you to stay here.” “Why?” she asked. “Because you don’t think I’m a bad person,” he said. “And I don’t want to prove you wrong.

Trouble followed him like a shadow, clinging to him no matter how much good light he tried to stand in. In his hands, good things broke and bad things grew.

If she was willing to risk her eyebrows, that was her own business.

Victor was sinking, straight through his skin and the bed and the floor, right down into black.

Aren’t you picturesque.” The voice was cool and warm at once. Serena clutched her books to her chest and looked down at him. “What were you thinking about?” she asked. “Killing you,” he said. It was almost freeing, not being able to lie.

Everything looked the same, and that felt wrong, like the world should have registered the events of the last few days, should have changed the way she had changed.

Victor wished he could trade abilities with Eli. But first he wiped the blood from the counter, and poured himself another drink.

Sydney didn’t trust stillness. She had come to believe that it was a bad thing. A wrong, unnatural, dead thing.

It was like cooking, not baking. Baking took a sense of order. Cooking took a flare, a little art, a little luck.

She’d been betrayed, shot, saved, healed, hurt, healed again, forced to resurrect two men, only to witness the reassassination of one of them.

She went back to middle school, and tried not to touch anything dead.

Spotted with stale blood, but with her hypothesis confirmed. Sydney Clarke could raise the dead.

Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them.

What's his power?' 'Self-righteousness,' Victor said.

He might be mentally cut out for a desk job, but he doubted he’d fit behind most desks.

The glorious quiet that filled the air as his broken bones healed and his torn skin closed, and he knew that God approved.

Victor watched his friend, mesmerized by the transformation. He himself could mimic most emotions and pass them off as his, but mimicking only went so far, and he knew he could never match this … fervor.

He’d seen enough nature specials on the common room set to know that prey had eyes on the sides of their head, were constantly on guard, but predators’ eyes were forward-facing, close together, unafraid.

I see you met Eli,” said Victor. “He’s always been a bit trigger happy.

Look at the bright side,” said Victor. “You’re alive.” “Night’s still young,” said Mitch under his breath as they crossed the street.

I’m cold,” she said. “I’m Victor,

Victor couldn’t help but wonder if becoming an EO had hollowed her out the way it had him, had all of them—

Tell you what,” said Victor. “You remember me, and I’ll remember you, and that way we won’t be forgotten.

Victor had never been good, or sweet—he’d always had a sharp edge; Eli had been drawn to the metallic glint of it—

You think that if you die, and manage to come back, you’ll turn into what, one of the X-Men?

Thud. Thud. Thud.

He begged Angie but the words were cut short by the strap and the dial turning up again and the sound in the air like cracking ice and shredding paper and static.

I am not empty. I am not Hollow. I am not dead. I am Rhy Maresh. I am the king of Arnes. And I am unbreakable.

He wondered about life, and people, and science, and magic, and God, and whether he believed in any of them.

You must make time for that which matters,” he recited, “for that which defines you: your passion, your progress, your pen. Take it up, and write your own story.

It had been harder to make them dead again.

it meant she was broken the way Serena was broken, the way Eli was broken. Missing pieces.

It was the only time the heavy panic set in, panic that she would never leave, never get to go home. She would be forgotten here, wearing the same pale clothes as everyone else, blending in with the patients and the nurses and the walls, and her family would be outside in the world and she would bleed away like a memory, like a colorful shirt washed too many times.

He wanted you to rob a bank to prove you were a hero?” Skepticism dripped from Victor’s voice. “And then what?” “What the fuck does it look like, ass hat?” Barry gestured down at his body. “He killed me! The bastard walks right up in the middle of a demonstration he told me to do, and he shoots me.

The moments that define lives aren’t always obvious. They don’t always scream LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there’s no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren’t always protracted, heavy with meaning.

He hadn't meant to do it. That is to say, he hadn't set out in his car with the /intent/ to kill the janitor. But he /had/ unearthed Sykes's rotation schedule, and he /had/ gotten in his car at the same time that Sykes clocked out of his once-a-week night shift, and he /had/ seen him crossing the road, and he /had/ sped up.

Hate was too simple a word. He and Eli were bonded, by blood and death and science. They were alike, more so now than ever. And he had missed Eli. He wanted to see him. And he wanted to see him suffer. He wanted to see the look in Eli’s eyes when he lit them up with pain. He wanted his attention.

Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human. The difference between Victor and Eli, he suspected, wasn’t their opinion on EOs. It was their reaction to them. Eli seemed intent to slaughter them, but Victor didn’t see why a useful skill should be destroyed, just because of its origin. EOs were weapons, yes, but weapons with minds and wills and bodies, things that could be bent and twisted and broken and USED.