One doesn’t have to lie to deceive.
Sometimes he forgot how small she was, because her bravery loomed so large in his mind.
If you were going to get someone’s soul, Call thought, it would be nice if you also got their superior penmanship.
I only hope he doesn’t taste the bitterness of poison on my lips.
I said I was thinking about you the whole time. – Lila.
Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway.
A heart of stone can still be broken.
You don’t think monster girls and wicked boys deserve love?
You didn’t hear the story I told,” he goes on. “A shame. It featured a handsome boy with a heart of stone and a natural aptitude for villainy. Everything you could like.
But no one chooses a future. You choose a path without being certain where it leads.
And you think it was sunrise I was waiting for and not my queen. Do you not hear her footfalls? She has never quite managed the trick of hiding them as well as one of the Folk. Surely you’ve heard of her, Jude Duarte, who defeated the redcap Grima Mog, who brought the Court of Teeth to their knees? She’s forever getting me out of scrapes. Truly, I don’t know what I would do without her.
My sweet nemesis, how glad I am that you returned.
Boys change. And so do stories.
You didn’t get what you deserved, but you don’t have to live inside that one story forever. No one’s heart has to remain stone.
Villains were wonderful. They got to be cruel and selfish, to preen in front of mirrors and poison apples, and trap girls on mountains of glass. They indulged all their worst impulses, revenged themselves for the least offense, and took every last thing they wanted. And sure, they wound up in barrels studded with nails, or dancing in iron shoes heated by fire, not just dead, but disgraced and screaming. But before they got what was coming to them, they got to be the fairest in all the land.
Playing the villain was the only thing he’d ever really excelled at.
Stories can justify anything. It doesn’t matter if the boy with the heart of stone is a hero or a villain; it doesn’t matter if he got what he deserved or if he didn’t. No one can reward him or punish him, save the storyteller.
Revenge is sweet, but ice cream is sweeter.
Because stories tell a truth, if not precisely the truth.
Above me is the same silvery moon that shines down on you. Looking at it makes me recall the glint of your blade pressed against my throat and other romantic moments.