Ve Schwab Gallant Quotes

Safe does not mean happy, does not mean well, does not mean kind.

Tired can be a kind of sick, if it lasts long enough.

But the truth is, death is everywhere. Death comes for the roses and the apples, it comes for the mice and the birds. It comes for us all. Why should death stop us from living?

I am so happy. I am so scared. The two, it turns out, can walk together, hand in hand.

Perhaps you are haunting me. What a comforting thought.

To those who go looking for doors, are brave enough to open the ones they find, and sometimes bold enough to make their own.

She knows too well what’s it like when people take one weakness and define you by it.

Put the right words into the world, never know what you’ll catch.

And dreams can never hurt you. That’s what her mother said. Of course, she knows now it isn’t true. Dreams can make you hurt yourself, dreams can make you do so many things, if you’re not careful.

After all, you can choose a thing after it’s chosen you.

Perhaps you are haunting me. What a comforting thought. Maybe it's you in the darkness.

Olivia Prior has never been a quiet girl. She has always made a point of making noise, everywhere she goes, in part to remind people that just because she cannot speak, does not mean that she is silent, and in part because she simply likes the weight of sound, likes the way it takes up space.

Everything casts a shadow," he begins. "Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.

She has declared it a reading day, she says. Nothing else to do when the weather turns.

How to exist in a world that does not want you. How to be a ghost in someone else’s home.

It was never this quiet when you were here. Isn’t that funny? How much sound a body makes. I hate the silence, hate the fact that I’m the only one making noise. I make so much of it, as if I can trick myself into thinking you’re here, just out of sight.

It does not matter what you want—the only way out is to be wanted by someone else.

They are strange, even beautiful, organic things that shift & curl beyond the page, slowly resolving into shapes.

That is the trick with the ghouls. They want you to look, but they can’t stand being seen.

Perhaps it is some primal need to face her fate, the same force that drives a girl to look beneath her bed, the knowledge that what you can’t see is always worse than what you can.

But what is safe? Tombs are safe. Merilance was safe. Safe does not mean happy, does not mean well, does not mean kind.

But it is a heavy kind of silence, the one people use when they know the answer to something but can’t decide if they should tell it.

As if love is all they need. As if they have been placed under a curse and only love will set them free. She does not see the point in that: love did not save her father from illness and death. It did not save her mother from madness and loss. The girls say love, but what they really mean is want.

It is one thing to give death form. Another to breathe life back into it.

A body needs sleep. Without it, the heart gets weak. The mind gets tired. And tired minds are pliable things.

People tend to talk to Olivia, or rather, at her, some uneasy with the silence, others treating it as an invitation.

In my dreams, I am always losing you. In my waking, you are already lost.

And Edgar sees Olivia staring at him, hands raised to ask about Matthew and the house, but he stands and turns his back. She hates that he can do that, that all he has to do to silence her is look away.

Free - such a small word for such a magnificent thing.

I will be right here,” he says. “When you come back.” All her life, Olivia has wondered what it would feel like to have a family. And now she knows. It feels like this.

The kind of dark that tricks the eyes. Makes you see things where there are none. Or miss things when they are there. The dark that lives in the spaces you know you should not look, lest you catch it in other eyes, staring back.

When people see tears, they stop listening to your hands or your words or anything else you have to say. And it doesn’t matter if the tears are angry or sad, frightened or frustrated. All they see is a girl crying.

You can choose a thing after it’s chosen you. And even if it turns out not to be a home, it is at least a house with family waiting in it.

I am so happy. I am so scared. The two, it turns out, can walk together, hand in hand.

I can shape death,” he says, gesturing to the conjured figures. “But you can give it life.

She would fight, and she would win.

stay with me. stay with me. stay with me. i would write the words a thousand times if they'd be strong enough to hold you here

Olivia hugs the journals to her front and slips out, wondering how many ghouls there are at Gallant. One for every gravestone? Do the dead always come home?

Some people are repelled by darkness. Others are drawn to it, to the static crackle of power in a place. To the hum of magic, or the presence of the dead. They can see these forces staining the world like ink in water.

Rain drums its fingers on the garden shed.

It is the difference between a language spoken and one signed, the mouth shaping words while the hands shape more, words and thoughts and feelings.

Home is a choice.,

Home is a choice.

The girls say love, but what they really mean is want. To be wanted, beyond the walls of this house. They are waiting to be rescued

Come home, the letter says. Stay away, her mother warned.

I am so happy. I am so scared. The two, it turns out, can walk together, hand in hand.

Put the right words into the world,” he says, “never know what you’ll catch.

These dreams will be the death of me,” it said. “When I am dreaming, I know that I must wake. But when I wake, all I think about is dreaming.

Real, she is learning, is a slippery thing, not a solid black line but a shape with soft edges, a great deal of gray.

connaître l'un afin, peut-être, d'arriver à comprendre l'autre.

She has never had her own room, has always wondered how it would feel to have a space entirely hers, a door that she could close.

They say there is love in letting go but I feel only loss.

Last night, I went beyond the wall. And I met Death.

The noise is like a tide, and Olivia lets it wash over her, grateful for the sound after so much silence, even if none of them are talking about what she saw, about the fact there is another world beyond the wall.

Home is a choice. Those four words sit alone on a page in her mother’s book, surrounded by so much white space they feel like a riddle. In truth, everything her mother wrote feels like a riddle, waiting to be solved.

A house like this has too much history, and history always brings it's share of ghosts. But it's not a bad thing," he adds, packing up his kit. "Ghosts were people once, and people come in all ways, good and bad and what's between. Sure, maybe some are out to frighten, but others, I think, are just watching, wishing they could help.

All her life, she wanted a house and a garden and a room of her own. But tucked inside that want was something else: a family. Parents who smothered her with love. Siblings who teased because they cared. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews—in her mind a family was a sprawling thing, an orchard full of roots and branches.

People tend to talk to Olivia, or rather, at her, some uneasy with the silence, others treating it as an invitation.

She didn’t hear Hannah come in, but a neat little tea tray sits waiting on the ottoman. A bowl of stew. A slice of bread. A pat of butter. And a peach.

Stuur de juiste woorden de wereld in en wie weet wat je vangt

This is a dream. It would be so easy to climb inside, to stay until it felt real, to never wake up.

perhaps you are haunting me. what a comforting thought. maybe it's you in the darkness

The details scattered like seeds across the portraits. She has never had a family, and now she has a tree.

That is the trick with ghouls. They want you to look, but they can’t stand being seen.

She hates that I can do it, that all I have to do to silence her is look the other way.

That word again-- safe. But what is safe? Tombs are safe, Merilance was safe. Safe does not mean happy, does not mean well, does not mean kind.

J'ai vécu à Gallant toute ma vie. Mais on est censé choisir l'endroit où on se sent chez soi. Je n'ai pas choisi ce manoir et j'en ai assez d'y être captive.

Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in.

The steam melts from the mirror, and it’s probably just the heat of the bath, but her cheeks look brighter, her skin less pale, as if she left her old self like a soap line in the tub.

Ghost were people once and people come in all ways, good and bad and what's in between. Sure, maybe some are out to frighten, but others, I think, are just watching, wishing they could help.

She rubs her fingers over the graphite and thinks of dreams. The kind that teach through the folds of sleep and into your bed. The kind that can caress your cheek or drag you down into the dark.

He couldn’t sit still long enough to learn. But I never thought of it as still. It’s . . . something in you goes quiet, to make room for the song. These days, it feels like the closest thing I ever find to rest.

She reads the letter again, soaking in the ink, scouring the words and the space between for answers and finding none. Something wafts off the paper, like a draft. She brings the letter to her nose. It is summer, and yet, the parchment smells of autumn, brittle and dry, that narrow season when nature withers and dies, when the windows are shuttered and the furnaces belch smoke and winter waits like a promise, just out of sight.

They are only dreams, she tells herself, every time she wakes. And dreams can never hurt you. That’s what her mother said. Of course, she knows now it isn’t true. Dreams can make you hurt yourself, dreams can make you do so many things, if you’re not careful.

It is so strange, to see her face reflected, distorted, echoed in so many others. Here is the line of her cheek and the curve of her mouth. Here is the angle of her eye and the slope of her nose. The details scattered like seeds across the portraits. She has never had a family, and now she has a tree.

I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to know if it was real or if I’m expected to grow and wither here for nothing more than superstition. Wouldn’t that be funny? If it were just a story, passed from one Prior to the next until all of us forgot that it was fiction? All of us, given to the same mad delusion?

You’re free to leave, if you have somewhere else to go. But if you go—and now and then, girls do—you will not be welcomed back. Once a year, sometimes more, a girl pounds at the door, desperate to get back in, and that is how the others learn that it’s well and good to dream of happy lives and welcome homes, but even a grim tombstone of a place is better than the street.