Laini Taylor famous quotes

She moved like a poem and smiled like a sphinx.
-- Laini Taylor

#Sphinx #Moved

She knocked and waited, because when the door was opened from within, it had the potential to lead someplace quite different.
-- Laini Taylor

#Doors #Different

Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.
-- Laini Taylor

#Hope #Powerful #Heart

Happiness. It was the place where passion, with all its dazzle and drumbeat, met something softer: homecoming and safety and pure sunbeam comfort. It was all those things, intertwined with the heat and the thrill, and it was as bright within her as a swallowed star.
-- Laini Taylor

#Happiness #Stars #Passion

...something was starting to take shape, out of magic and will. Smoke and bone.
-- Laini Taylor

#Magic #Shapes #Bones

Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace is accord. Harmony.
-- Laini Taylor

#Peace #War #Healing

Your soul sings to mine. My soul is yours, and it always will be, in any world. No matter what happens. I need you to remember that I love you.
-- Laini Taylor

#Love You #Soul #Matter

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.
-- Laini Taylor

#Angel #Once Upon A Time #Devil

Wishes are false. Hope is true. Hope makes its own magic.
-- Laini Taylor

#Magic #Wish #False Hope

Hey! My body may be small, but my soul is large. It’s why I wear platforms. So I can reach the top of my soul.
-- Laini Taylor

#Soul #Hey #Body

I know it's not easy for you, living this life, but try to remember, always try to remember, you're not the only one with troubles.
-- Laini Taylor

#Trying #Remember #Trouble

She craved a presence beside her, solid. Fingertips light at the nape of her neck and a voice meeting hers in the dark. Someone who would wait with an umbrella to walk her home in the rain, and smile like sunshine when he saw her coming. Who would dance with her on her balcony, keep his promises and know her secrets, and make a tiny world wherever he was, with just her and his arms and his whisper and her trust.
-- Laini Taylor

#Rain #Home #Dark

Have you ever asked yourself, do monsters make war, or does war make monsters?
-- Laini Taylor

#War #Monsters #Doe

Your heart is not wrong. Your heart is your strength. You don't have to be ashamed.
-- Laini Taylor

#Heart #Ashamed

The biggest challenge for me has been in coping with my perfectionism. I have a stiflingly hard time moving forward in a project if it's not 'just right' all along the way. The trap I so easily fall into is rewriting and rewriting the same scenes over and over to make them perfect, instead of continuing on into the wild unknown of the story.
-- Laini Taylor

#Moving #Fall #Hard Times

She tastes like nectar and salt. Nectar and salt and apples. Pollen and stars and hinges. She tastes like fairy tales. Swan maiden at midnight. Cream on the tip of a fox’s tongue. She tastes like hope.
-- Laini Taylor

#Stars #Apples #Swans

You could look out the window today, see the sky raining fire, and say that it has all been for nothing, everything we've ever done, because now we've lost. But folk were born and lived and knew friendship and music in this city, ugly as it is, and all across this land that we fought for. Some grew old, and others were less lucky. Many bore children and raised them, and had the pleasure of making them, too, and we gave them that for as long as we could. Who has ever done more, my friend?
-- Laini Taylor

#Children #Rain #Land

Nothing made you feel so useless as another person's grief.
-- Laini Taylor

#Grief #Useless #Made

Once upon a time, a girl lived in a sandcastle, making monsters to send through a hole in the sky.
-- Laini Taylor

#Girl #Sky #Once Upon A Time

The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood. The girls with hungry eyes who pray each night to wake up as someone else. Urgent, unkissed, wishful girls. Like Kizzy.
-- Laini Taylor

#Girl #Dream #Eye

I was going to say the beginning is the good part, when it's all sparks and sparkles, before they are inevitably unmasked as assholes.
-- Laini Taylor

#Sparks #Sparkle

We dreamed together of the world remade.
-- Laini Taylor

#Together #World

For the way loneliness is worse when you return to it after a reprieve—like the soul’s version of putting on a wet bathing suit, clammy and miserable.
-- Laini Taylor

#Loneliness #Soul #Way

It didn't escape Karou's notice that he found subtle ways of touching her.
-- Laini Taylor

#Touching #Way #Subtle

I know. Life is so unfair. I'm still not going to pee on Karou's ex-boyfriend for you." "What? I wasn't even going to ask you to." In her most reasonable tone, Zuzana explained explained, "I just want you to pee in a balloon so I can drop it on him.
-- Laini Taylor

#Ex Boyfriend #Tone #Balloons

What are we fighting for? What are we killing for? What do you see when you look into the future?
-- Laini Taylor

#Fighting #Looks #Killing

When it turned out that he could, Karou dropped to her knees to genuflect. "Gods of math and physics," she intoned, "I accept your gift of this clever fair-haired boy
-- Laini Taylor

#Clever #Math #Boys

A pause came between them, and it was so full of Akiva that Karou imagined she could smell him.
-- Laini Taylor

#Smell

She tasted of fairytales
-- Laini Taylor

#Fairytale

Death," said Akiva. His life was leaving him fast now that he no longer held his wound. His eyes just wanted to drift closed. "I'm ready." "Well, I'm not. I hear it's dull, being dead." She said it lightly, amused, and he peered up at her. Had she just made a joke? She smiled. Smiled He did, too. Amazed, he felt it happening, as if her smile had triggered a reflex in him. "Dull sounds nice," he said, letting his eyes flutter closed. "Maybe I can catch up on my reading.
-- Laini Taylor

#Nice #Reading #Eye

But Hazael only said, "I brought you a present." Liraz took the flower, looked at it, and then a Hazael, expressionless. And then she ate it. She chewed the flower and swallowed it. "Hmm," said Hazael. "Not the usual response." "Oh, do you give flowers often?" "Yes," he said. He probably did. Hazael had a way of enjoying life in spite of the many restrictions they lived under, being soldiers, and worse, being Misbegotten. "I hope it wasn't poisonous," he said lightly. Liraz just shrugged. "There are worse ways to die.
-- Laini Taylor

#Flower #Giving #Enjoy Life

I might try that one thing, you know, that thing people do when their eyes get all wet and stupid—what’s it called? Crying? Or NOT. I might PUNCH you instead and trust that you won’t punch me back because of my endearing smallness. It would be like punching a child.
-- Laini Taylor

#Children #Stupid #Eye

If it's not chocolate, it's not breakfast.
-- Laini Taylor

#Chocolate #Breakfast

Her courage was a guise. She wondered if courage always was, or if there were those who truly felt no fear.
-- Laini Taylor

#No Fear

Ziri's soul felt like the high roaming wind of the Adelphas Mountains and the beat of stormhunters' wings, like the beautiful, mournful, eternal song of the wind flutes that had filled their caves with music he could not possibly remember. It felt like home.
-- Laini Taylor

#Beautiful #Song #Home

Daughter of my heart,' was the message Brimstone sent just for Karou. She wanted to cry again right here in the court, thinking of it. 'Twice-daughter, my joy. Your dream is my dream, and your name is true. You are all of our hope.
-- Laini Taylor

#Daughter #Dream #Heart

Jael returned the lazy smile. "You're not my type." "Well, you're not anybody's type," said Hazael. "No, wait. I take it back. My sword says she'd like to know you better.
-- Laini Taylor

#Waiting #Lazy #Type

Long life is a burden, when it's spent in misery.
-- Laini Taylor

#Long #Misery #Life Is

So, you wouldn't marry me." "Ridiculous question. I'm eighteen!" "Oh, it's an age thing?" He frowned. "You don't mean wild oats, do you? We're not going to have some stupid break so you can experience other---" Zuzana put a hand over his mouth. "Gross. Don't even say it.
-- Laini Taylor

#Stupid #Mean #Oats

A wave of weariness took him. How could life be so unrelentingly ugly?
-- Laini Taylor

#Ugly #Life Is #Wave

Don't I deserve to finally be free of you?
-- Laini Taylor

#Deserve

As long as he had life, who deserved it so little, he would use it, wield it, and do whatever he could in its name, even if it was not, was never, enough
-- Laini Taylor

#Names #Long #Use

It was brave," countered Issa. "It was rare. It was love, and it was beautiful.
-- Laini Taylor

#Beautiful #Brave

Soon, everything else would come rushing at him. Like the ground to a falling man, it would come rushing up and hit him all at once - the place, the company, her words; one implication would lead to another and shatter him - but around that intake of breath the world hung silent and bright, so bright, and Akiva only knew this one thing, and held on to it and wanted to live inside of it and stay there forever. Karou was alive.
-- Laini Taylor

#Fall #Men #Rushing

It was interesting the way a small hate could grow inside a big hate and take it over.
-- Laini Taylor

#Hate #Interesting #Way

These soldiers had done what they had done, and been done unto in return. This was how it went. In the cycle of slaughter, reprisal begat reprisal, forever.
-- Laini Taylor

#Forever #Soldier #Done

Perhaps Fate laid out your life for you like a dress on a bed, and you could either wear it or go naked.
-- Laini Taylor

#Fate #Bed #Dresses

The choice I mean is to protect our own innocents from the seraphim, instead of slaughtering theirs." "There are no innocent seraphim, said the wolf." "That's what they say when they kill our children.
-- Laini Taylor

#Children #Mean #Choices

Light coursed through Karou and darkness chased it-burning through her, chilling her, shimmer and shadow, ice and fire, blood and starlight, rushing, roaring, filling her.
-- Laini Taylor

#Blood #Ice #Rushing

You have only to begin, Lir. Mercy breeds mercy as slaughter breeds slaughter. We can’t expect the world to be better than we make it.
-- Laini Taylor

#World #Mercy #Slaughter

Be your own place of safety, she told herself, straightening. No crossbar in the world could protect her from what lay ahead, and neither could a tiny knife ticked in her boot - though there her tiny knife would most certainly remain - and neither could a man, not even Akiva. She had to be her own strength, complete unto herself.
-- Laini Taylor

#Men #Knives #Safety

A dream dirty and bruised is better than no dream at all.
-- Laini Taylor

#Dream #Dirty

Dead souls dream only of death. Small dreams for small men. It is life that expands to fill worlds. Life is your master, or death is
-- Laini Taylor

#Dream #Men #Soul

One world on its own is a strange enough seethe of coiling, unknowable veins of intention and chance, but two? Where two worlds mingle breath through rips in the sky, the strange becomes stranger, and many things may come to pass that few imaginations could encompass.
-- Laini Taylor

#Rip #Sky #Two

She tried to pray, but she had only ever prayed at night, and it seemed to her that the moons made poor protectors when angels chose to hunt by day.
-- Laini Taylor

#Angel #Moon #Night

Anyway, since when are you shy? Just talk to him already!' ' 'And say what? Nice fiddling, handsome man?' 'Absolutely.
-- Laini Taylor

#Nice #Men #Shy

It was one of those dreams that invade the space between seconds, proving sleep has its own physics- where time shrinks and swells, lifetimes unspool in a blink, and cities burn to ash in a mere flutter of lashes.
-- Laini Taylor

#Dream #Sleep #Space

As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better." "Or worse," said Liraz. "Yes," he conceded. "Usually worse." Hazael cut in. "My sister, Sunshine, and my brother, Light. You two should rally the ranks. You'll have us killing ourselves by morning.
-- Laini Taylor

#Morning #Brother #Cutting

Once upon a time, the sky knew the weight of angel armies on the move, and the wind blew infernal with the fire of their wings.
-- Laini Taylor

#Moving #Angel #Army

I'm going to join them", he said. And he did. When Sveva fled, Rath stayed and fought with the rebels. And died with them, right there at the toes of the mountains. And was dragged with them into a big pile. And burned
-- Laini Taylor

#Mountain #Rebel #Toes

She stabbed him in the armpit, deep, and he dropped his sword. And died. So that's what is feels like, she thought as her boldness gave away to trembling. It feels awful.
-- Laini Taylor

#Awful #Armpits #Trembling

Where am I and doing what? You might well ask. Freaky chick, you say? You can't imagine. I am priestess of a sandcastle in a land of dust and starlight.
-- Laini Taylor

#Land #Dust #Might

And yet, something tied them together, strong than any of that, something with the power to conduct her blood and breath like a symphony, so that anything she did to fight against it felt like discord, like disharmony with her self.
-- Laini Taylor

#Strong #Fighting #Symphony

Being near her was like balancing on a tipping world, trying to keep your footing as the ground wanted to roll you forward, hurl you into a spiral from which there was no recovery, only impact, and it was a longed-for impact, a sweet and beckoning collision.
-- Laini Taylor

#Sweet #Recovery #Impact

Karou saw them with her human eyes, this army she had rendered more monstrous than ever nature had, and she knew what the world would see in them if they flew to fight the Dominion: demons, nightmares, evil. The sight of the seraphim would be heralded as a miracle. But chimaera? The apocalypse.
-- Laini Taylor

#Eye #Army #Fighting

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil held a wishbone between them. And its snap split the world in two.
-- Laini Taylor

#Angel #Two #Once Upon A Time

What can a soldier do when mercy is treason, and he is alone in it?
-- Laini Taylor

#Soldier #Mercy #Treason

We are the beginning ... We always have been. This time, let it be more than a beginning.
-- Laini Taylor

I've always been a reader and a writer.
-- Laini Taylor

#Reader

Cesky Krumlov, the little jewel box of a city in southern Bohemia.
-- Laini Taylor

#Jewels #Cities #Southern

Icon of Prague, the medieval bridge crossed the Vltava between Old Town and the Little Quarter. Gothic bridge towers rose on both sides, and the whole span — pedestrian-only — was lined by monumental statues of saints.
-- Laini Taylor

#Bridges #Icons #Rose

Be an unstoppable force. Write with an imaginary machete strapped to your thigh. This is not wishy-washy, polite, drinking-tea-with-your-pinkie-sticking-out stuff. It’s who you want to be, your most powerful self. Write your books. Finish them, then make them better. Find the way. No one will make this dream come true for you but you.
-- Laini Taylor

#Dream #Powerful #Drinking

Head held high, she stepped toward the block and sank to her knees, and it was then that Akiva started to scream. His voice soared over the pandemonium - a scream to scour the souls of all gathered, a sound to drive ghosts from their nests.
-- Laini Taylor

#Block #Voice #Soul

It was a bold, wild life for a faerie - most never even left their forests - but she was a bold, wild lass, and so were her daughter and granddaughter after her, and their place in the world was everywhere and nowhere, like gypsies on wing. No home had they but their caravans and campfires, and no family but the one they'd cobbled together of crows, creatures and kindred souls they'd met on their endless journey round and round the world.
-- Laini Taylor

#Daughter #Home #Journey

What does true even mean when it comes to a face? Only souls are true, and when you spill them to the air they melt away ...
-- Laini Taylor

#Mean #Air #Soul

Love affair. Doesn't that sound so middle-aged? And also ill-fated. Like ill-fated is an understood prefix to love affair. Well, ill-fated is fine, as long as it's a meaty and fraught ill-fated love affair, not a pale and insipid one.
-- Laini Taylor

#Love #Long #Age

To a new generation of butterflies, hopefully less stupid than last. Maybe they were burgeoning even now in fat little cocoons. Or maybe not.
-- Laini Taylor

#Stupid #Butterfly #Generations

The two of them were stoic and stone-faced and ten feet apart, currently not even looking at each other, but Zuzana had the impression of a pair of magnets pretending not to be magnets. Which, you know, only works until it doesn't.
-- Laini Taylor

#Love #Two #Feet

The audacity to love. Do you know what a gift that is?
-- Laini Taylor

#Audacity

The sooner you learn to finish things, and as a matter of course finish your creative endeavors, the better. It took me a long time to learn that.
-- Laini Taylor

#Long #Creative #Matter

When you are young, hone your craft and write shorter pieces instead of novels, because it's really hard to finish a novel.
-- Laini Taylor

#Writing #Pieces #Crafts

If only it were that easy to let go of hate. Just relax your face.
-- Laini Taylor

#Letting Go #Hate #Relax

And I've found that since you can't electrify yourself like a fence, the next best thing is to have murderer's eyes.
-- Laini Taylor

#Eye #Next #Fence

I am stardust gathered fleetingly into form.
-- Laini Taylor

#Stardust #Form

When I turned to writing fantasy, and writing for young people, it was joyous. It was like discovering an underground lake of ideas that went on forever.
-- Laini Taylor

#Writing #Lakes #Ideas

The main thing I've learned is that we all have to learn to work with - and appreciate - the brain we've been given, and not waste time wishing things were easier.
-- Laini Taylor

#Appreciate #Brain #Wish

Never sit staring at a blank page or screen. If you find yourself stuck, write. Write about the scene you're trying to write. Writing about is easier than writing, and chances are, it will give you your way in.
-- Laini Taylor

#Writing #Giving #Finding Yourself

It's easy to get published once you have written a really good book and the hard part, 99 percent of what you need to worry about, is really finishing it.
-- Laini Taylor

#Book #Worry #Finishing

I think with world building, it's important to create a sense of culture even if it is just a fantasy, and the best way to do that is to look at a real human culture and see what makes it cohesive.
-- Laini Taylor

#Real #Thinking #Important

I started blogging in 2006 when I had sold my first novel but it had not yet been published, in those anxious months in between while I learned the whole process.
-- Laini Taylor

#Blogging #Months #Firsts

During my second draft pass on my last book I made 20,000 words happen in a week, which is practically supernatural for me, and it would never have been possible without three nights in a hotel in my own city.
-- Laini Taylor

#Book #Night #Cities

Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.
-- Laini Taylor

#Real #Book #Character

... and holy hell the chocolate is so intense and pure it should be named an element and given a spot on the periodic table. It would be Ch, which isn't even taken.
-- Laini Taylor

#Taken #Healing #Chocolate

It's like all my life I've been this tower standing at the edge of the ocean for some obscure purpose, and only now, almost eighteen years in, has someone thought to flip the switch that reveals that I'm not a tower at all. I'm a lighthouse. It's like waking up. I am incandescent.
-- Laini Taylor

#Ocean #Years #Towers

I love bookshelves, and stacks of books, spines, typography, and the feel of pages between my fingertips. I love bookmarks, and old bindings, and stars in margins next to beautiful passages. I love exuberant underlinings that recall to me a swoon of language-love from a long-ago reading, something I hoped to remember. I love book plates, and inscriptions in gifts from loved ones, I love author signatures, and I love books sitting around reminding me of them, being present in my life, being. I love books.
-- Laini Taylor

#Beautiful #Stars #Book

There’s a long pause. But it’s not a bad pause, because Mik is looking at me like I’m the treasure from the high shelf that someone’s just taken down and put into his hands. I find I don’t mind being looked at like this. I don’t mind it at all.
-- Laini Taylor

#Taken #Hands #Long

Life doesn’t need magic to be magical. (But a little bit sure doesn’t hurt.)
-- Laini Taylor

#Hurt #Magic #Needs

I will do just as you wish,' said no cat ever.
-- Laini Taylor

#Cat #Wish #Said

Around Mik, my powers desert me. I lose basic motor function, like my brain focuses all neural activity on my lips and shifts into kiss preparedness mode way too early, to the detriment of things like speech, and walking.
-- Laini Taylor

#Kissing #Brain #Way

What a lovely display of personhood. He's like a good book cover that grabs your gaze. Read me. I'm fun but smart. You won't be able to put me down.
-- Laini Taylor

#Fun #Smart #Book