Seanan McGuire

Her accusations had been met with reality, and they didn’t have anyplace else to go.

You look like the kind of girl who might know stuff about lichen.

"Only one way to find out," said Kade, and started walking.
"Why do people always say that?" muttered Cora, trailing along at the rear of the group. There's always more than one way to find something out. People only say there's only one way when they want an excuse to do something incredibly stupid without getting called on it. There are lots of ways to find out, and some of them even involve not pissing off a man who goes by 'the Lord of the Dead.'"
"Yeah, but they wouldn't be as much fun, now would they?"

If your friends would stop wanting you around because you’re not exactly like them, they’re not very good friends.

We can’t make things that happened not have happened by wishing that they hadn’t.

Clothes matter," he said, draping the vest over his arm and reaching for a pile of neatly folded blouses. "Clothes are part of how you learn to feel like yourself, and not someone who just happens to look like you. Don't you remember what it was like when someone else decided what you were going to wear?

There are many good things in the world, and each of them happens for the first time only once, and never again.

Time is the alchemy that turns compassion into love.

It can be easy, when hearing about someone else’s adventures in a far-off, magical land, to say “I would never choose the mundane world over the fantastical. I would run into rivers of rainbow as fast as my legs would carry me, and I would never once look back.” It is so often easy, when one has the luxury of being sure a thing will never happen, to be equally sure of one’s answers. Reality, it must sadly be said, has a way of complicating things, even things we might believe could never be that complicated.

Quests were a lot like dogs, Cora thought. They were much more attractive when seen from a distance, and not barking in the middle of the night or pooping all over the house. She had been there for every terrible, wearying, bone-breaking moment of this quest, and it held no magic for her. She knew it too well.

There are moments that change everything, and once things have been changed, they do not change back.

“Jack?” Kade took a cautious step forward. “Are you…?”
“There are only a certain number of possible ways to end that question, and the answer to all of them is ‘no,’” said Jack.

If you want to help her, you need to help yourself first. No one serves their friends by grinding themselves into dust on the altar of compassion.

The nameless girl stared at Cora. “You’re insane.”
“Probably,” said Cora placidly. “Sticks and stones, as the sages say; sticks and stones. I know what I am and I’m happy this way, and saying something true shouldn’t be an insult, ever, because that’s not how words want to work.”

Cora was very good at ignoring people who told her to do foolish things.