Quotes from Doll Bones

“I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like DYING.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“He wondered whether growing up was learning that most stories turned out to be lies.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“There’s people who do things and people who never do—who say they will someday, but they just don’t. I want to go on a quest. I’ve always wanted to go on a quest. And now that I have one, I’m not backing down from it. I’m not going home until it’s complete.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“I thought you needed to be tougher. But I've been thinking that protecting somebody by hurting them before someone else gets the chance isn't the kind of protecting that anybody wants.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“If they were real, then maybe the world was big enough to have magic in it. And if there was magic — even bad magic, and Zach knew it was more likely that there was bad magic than any good kind — then maybe not everyone had to have a story like his father's, a story like the kind all the adults he knew told, one about giving up and growing bitter.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“It's not fair. We had a story, and our story was important. And I hate that both of you can just walk away and take part of my story with you and not even care. I hate that you can do what you're supposed to do and I can't. I hate that you're going to leave me behind. I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like dying. It feels like each of you is being possessed and I'm next.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“I hate that you can do what you're supposed to do and I can't. I hate that you're going to leave me behind. I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like dying. It feels like each one of you is being possessed and I'm next.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“Did you know that bone china had real bones in it?” Poppy said, tapping a porcelain cheek. “Her clay was made from human bones. Little-girl bones. That hair threaded through the scalp is the little girl’s hair. And the body of the doll is filled with her leftover ashes.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“He had read lots of stories where heroes succeeded in spite of long odds, where they accomplished a task that everyone else had failed at. He wondered for the first time about all the people who'd gone before those heroes, about whether they'd been at each other's throats, before everything had gone wrong. He wondered if there was a point where they realized they weren't going to make it, weren't going to beat those long odds--that in the legend that would follow, they were going to be the nameless people that failed.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“Adventuring turned out to be boring. Zach thought back to all the fantasy books he'd read where a team of questers traveled overland, and realized a few things. First he'd pictured himself with a loyal steed that would have done most of the walking, so he hadn't anticipated the blister forming on his left heel or the tiny pebble that seemed to have worked its way under his sock, so that even when he stripped off his sneaker he couldn't find it.

He hadn't thought about how hot the sun would be either. When he put together his bunch of provisions, he never thought about bringing sunblock. Aragorn never wore sunblock. Taran never wore sunblock. Percy never wore sunblock. But despite all that precedent for going without, he was pretty sure his nose would be lobster-red the next time he looked in the mirror.

He was thirsty, too, something that happened a lot in books, but his dry throat bothered him more than it had ever seemed to bother any character.

And, unlike in books where random brigands and monsters jumped out just when things got unbearably dull, there was nothing to fight except for the clouds of gnats, several of which Zach was pretty sure he'd accidentally swallowed.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“Protecting somebody by hurting them before someone else gets the chance isn't the kind of protecting that anybody wants.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“He liked the way the story unfolded as he wrote, liked the way the answers just came to him sometimes, out of the blue, like they were true things just waiting to be discovered by him.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“Poppy used to share the room with her older sister, and piles of he sister's outgrown clothes still remained spread out in drifts, along with a collection of used makeup and notebooks covered in stickers and scrawled with lyrics. A jumbled of her sister's old Barbies were on top of a bookshelf, waiting for Poppy to try and fix their melted arms and chopped hair. The bookshelves were overflowing with fantasy paperbacks and overdue library books, some of them on Greek myths, some on mermaids, and a few on local hauntings. The walls were covered in posters-Doctor Who, a cat in a bowler hat, and a giant map of Narnia.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“Quests are supposed to change us.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

“A sudden gust of wind made the branches outside shake and jitter. He couldn’t help imagining the long, bony fingers of the trees scraping against the glass. When he was a little kid, he’d had a firm belief in universally observed monster rules. He’d been sure, for example, that if he kept all parts of himself on the mattress and shrouded beneath blankets, if he kept his eyes closed, and if he pretended to be asleep, then he’d be safe. He didn’t know where he’d gotten the idea from. He did remember his mother saying he’d smother himself if he kept sleeping with his head under the comforter. Then one night—quite randomly—he fell asleep with his head above the covers like a normal person, and no monster got him. Over time he got spottier about observing his safety precautions, until he routinely slept with an arm dangling off the side of his bed and his feet kicked free of the sheets. But right then, at the sound of the wind, for one panicky moment, all he wanted was to burrow under the blankets and never come out. Tap. Tap.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones

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Popular quotes

“Steven’s words slush together as he gets to his feet. “Crossing this one off the bucket list.” Then he
unbuckles his belt and grabs the waist of his pants—yanking the suckers down to his ankles—tighty
whities and all.
Every guy in the car holds up his hands to try to block the spectacle. We groan and complain. “My
eyes! They burn!”
“Put the boa constrictor back in his cage, man.”
“This is not the ass I planned on seeing tonight.”
Our protests fall on deaf ears. Steven is a man on a mission. Wordlessly, he squats and shoves his lilywhite
ass out the window—mooning the gaggle of grannies in the car next to us.
I bet you thought this kind of stuff only happened in movies.
He grins while his ass blows in the wind for a good ninety seconds, ensuring optimal viewage. Then
he pulls his slacks up, turns around, and leans out the window, laughing. “Enjoying the full moon, ladies?”
Wow. Steven usually isn’t the type to visually assault the elderly.
Without warning, his crazy cackling is cut off. He’s silent for a beat, then I hear him choke out a single
strangled word.
“Grandma?”
Then he’s diving back into the limo, his face grayish, dazed, and totally sober. He stares at the floor.
“No way that just happened.”
Matthew and I look at each other hopefully, then we scramble to the window. Sure enough, in the
driver’s seat of that big old Town Car is none other than Loretta P. Reinhart. Mom to George; Grandma to
Steven.
What are the fucking odds, huh?
Loretta was always a cranky old bitch. No sense of humor. Even when I was a kid she hated me.
Thought I was a bad influence on her precious grandchild.
Don’t know where she got that idea from.
She moved out to Arizona years ago. Like a lot of women her age, she still enjoys a good tug on the
slot machine—hence her frequent trips to Sin City. Apparently this is one such trip.
Matthew and I wave and smile and in fourth-grader-like, singsong harmony call out, “Hi, Mrs.
Reinhart.”
She shakes one wrinkled fist in our direction. Then her poofy-haired companion in the backseat flips
us the bird. I’m pretty sure it’s the funniest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen.
The two of us collapse back into our seats, laughing hysterically.”
― Emma Chase, quote from Tied

“Jared's gray eyes bore into hers. His face filled with emotion, and his eyes looked to be just as tear-filled. 'Do you really not know the reason why I came? I came back for you. I'll always come back for you.”
― Chanda Hahn, quote from Fable

“One day, my sweet girl, some lucky man will come and help you understand the very meaning of love. He will sweep you off your feet and show you what it is to place your heart in someone else’s care to willingly offer them the gift of your soul.”
― Tillie Cole, quote from Sweet Home

“If you're from New Jersey,” Nathan had said, “and you write thirty books, and you win the Nobel Prize, and you live to be white-haired and ninety-five, it's highly unlikely but not impossible that after your death they'll decide to name a rest stop for you on the Jersey Turnpike. And so, long after you're gone, you may indeed be remembered, but mostly by small children, in the backs of cars, when they lean forward and tell their parents, 'Stop, please, stop at Zuckerman—I have to make a pee.' For a New Jersey novelist that's as much immortality as it's realistic to hope for.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Counterlife

“ever there is doubt as to the advisability of advancing a human identity to the mansion worlds, the universe governments invariably rule in the personal interests of that individual; they unhesitatingly advance such a soul to the status of a transitional being, while they continue their observations of the emerging morontia intent and spiritual purpose. Thus divine justice is certain of achievement, and divine mercy is accorded further opportunity for extending its ministry.”
― Urantia Foundation, quote from The Urantia Book

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