Come Tumbling Down

The world doesn't stop spinning because you're sad, and that's good; if it did, people would go around breaking hearts like they were sheets of maple sugar, just to keep the world exactly where it is. They'd make it out like it was a good thing, a few crying children in exchange for a peace that never falters or fades. We can be sad and we can be hurt and we can even be killed, but the world keeps turning, and the things we're supposed to do keep needing to be done.

No one should have to sit and suffer and pretend to be someone they’re not because it’s easier, or because no one wants to help them fix it.

Whoever said heroism was fair?" she asked. "It's the unfairest thing of all. 'Come, oh human child, and learn to swing a sword for the sake of people who've decided the thing you're best for is dying in their name.' We were lambs for the slaughter, all of us, and if we've survived, it's not because we're special. Come on. Let's be heroes one more time.

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

New things are the best kind of magic there is.

Sometimes heroism is pressing on when the ending is already preordained.

People always mean something. Sometimes what they mean is 'you can't be trusted to remember to be kind', and then I want to bury them up to their necks in marshmallow fluff, so they'll remember how I choose kindness every single day

He kept running. Sometimes, after all, that's what must be said to make a hero: the willingness to keep running even after it becomes clear that the entire exercise is doomed to failure. Sometimes heroism is pressing on when the ending is already preordained.

We can be sad and we can be hurt and we can even be killed, but the world keeps turning, and the things we're supposed to do keep needing to be done.

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?

I know, I know, panic is fun, but sometimes revenge is better," she said. "Choose revenge. Choose better. I brought you gloves.

The world gets heavy sometimes,” said Sumi sadly. “That’s all. She’s carrying it as best she can, but … the world gets heavy. I hope she’ll be able to put it down soon.

This is terrible," said Sumi brightly. "I mean, we knew it was going to be terrible when we followed a mad scientist and her dead girlfriend to a horrifying murder world, but this is bonus terrible. This is the awful sprinkles on the sundae of doom.

You're not tall, but you walk like you are.

Her mind--brilliant, traitorous, prone to devouring itself--did not stop fretting, but at least she was in control again. It was odd, to think of one's own mind as the enemy. It wasn't always.

Sumi was Sumi. Spending time with her was like trying to form a close personal relationship with a cloud of butterflies. Pretty -- dazzling, even -- but not exactly companionable. And some of the butterflies had knives, and that was where the metaphor collapsed.

Kade winced. "You're angry." "A little bit, yes. I understand wanting to know what your allies are capable of, but the fact that I've been damaged doesn't make me broken, and you don't need to behave as if it does. This is my home, my world, and I'm going to fight to get it back, just as hard as Jack will. Harder, maybe. She'll always be a newcomer here. She loves her land, and she'll protect it, but this is where I was born. The Moon has known my first breath, all three times I've taken it, and She loves me all the same.

Weapons, at least, were predictable; weapons made sense. A sword was just a knife with delusions of grandeur. A trident was a really big fork...

Many things exist in a state of patient paradox, waiting for some change of circumstance to tilt them one way or the other.

Every monster has its natural counterbalance. Vampires and mad scientists are well-matched enough to keep the peace, even if it's sometimes kept in pieces.

That was her true gift to them: she taught them how to keep hoping in the face of a world that told them their memories were delusions, their lived experiences were lies, and their dreams were never going to come true. Perhaps that was her secret for engendering loyalty in a student body that was otherwise disinclined to trust adults, listen to them, or answer when they called. She believed . For people like her students - people like Eleanor herself - belief was the rarest gift of all.

Ah, surety," said Jack. "Have you noticed that the doors come for us when we're young enough to believe we know everything, and toss us out again as soon as we're old enough to have doubts? I can't decide whether it's an infinite kindness or an incredible cruelty.

When a scientist speaks, it behooves the ordinary soul to listen.

Here, bodies are just another tool, to be stolen or traded as the people in power see fit. Burning down someone's lab before they've been properly vanquished, on the other hand, is rude.

What could I possibly do that would be so awful?" "Everything. Every moment of the day. Since the day you were born.

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.

A little knowledge never hurt anybody,” said Sumi. “Perhaps not. But a great deal of knowledge can do a great deal of harm, and I’m long past the point of having only a little knowledge.