Seanan McGuire Quotes

There would be time to grab something from the dining hall before she had to go to English class. The thought of having to analyze the poetry of Emily Dickinson without calories was enough to make her want to cry. Why adults constantly wanted to know what centuries-old poems meant was beyond her. Shouldn’t someone have found the right answer by now? Or at least an answer good enough to accept?

Parents lied to children when they thought it was necessary, or when they thought that it would somehow make things better. It only made sense that children should lie to parents in the same way.

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.”

Hope hurts. That's what you need to learn, and fast, if you don't want it to cut you open from the inside out. Hope is bad. Hope means you keep on holding to things that won't ever be so again, and so you bleed an inch at a time until there's nothing left. Ely-Eleanor is always saying 'don't use this word' and 'don't use that word,' but she never bans the ones that are really bad. She never bans hope.

You know, sometimes I almost forget how creepy you are, and then you go and say something like that.

"I don't believe in destiny."
"Destiny believes in you." The fawn took a breath. "I really am sorry we had to hit you."
"I'm sorry too," said Regan.
"You understand this was for your own good."
"I understand you think this was for my own good."

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

Hope is a vicious beast. It sinks in its claws and it doesn’t let go.

“My name is Lord of the Forest,” said the stag.
Regan nodded. Every stag she’d ever met had been named Lord of the Forest, even when there was another stag only a few feet away. Deer didn’t understand irony.

“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.

“There might be spiders,” said Jacqueline. She wrinkled her nose, less out of actual distaste and more out of the knowledge that she was supposed to find spiders distasteful. She really found them rather endearing. They are sleek and clean and elegant, and when their webs got messed up, they ripped them down and started over again. People could learn a lot from spiders.

says, and I find I agree, You have to break rules if you want to break free.

Miss Hansard, who had been teaching for nearly twenty years, slumped against her desk and wondered when retirement had gone from a distant impossibility to something to be devoutly yearned for. They got younger every year. She was certain of that much, at least. They got younger, and harder to understand, every single year.

The Queen of Cakes pursed her lips. “You must be from Sumi’s world,” she said primly. “You’re just as obnoxious as she was. She’s quiet now. How did you make her that way?”
“Well, she died, so that was a large part of it,” said Kade.
“Dead people normally stay in their graves, out of the way of the rest of us.”

My name’s Christopher. I was a friend of Jack’s before she went back to the Moors. I mean, not really. Jack doesn’t have friends, she has minions who haven’t figured out their place in the grand scheme of things.