Quotes from Girl of Nightmares

Kendare Blake ·  332 pages

Rating: (24K votes)


“Every time I question him about the feasibility, he smiles at me like he's Yoda and I'm just a dumbass without the Force.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“She crossed over death to call me. I crossed through Hell to find her.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“What?" she asks, but I don't answer. Instead I kiss her, one time, and try to tell her in that single gesture everything that she'll forget as soon as she turns away. I tell her I love her. I tell her I'll miss her. And then I let her go.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“Jesus. I have become the thing they call the third wheel.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“I don't care what your name is," she hisses. "And I don't care who you are. If you don't get him some help, I will burn your fucking place down." Go Carmel.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares



“I love her.”
“She’s dead.”
“That doesn’t mean to me what it does to other people.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“All this faux flattery. It's not enough to make me forget he's a dick. Admittedly, though, he's sort of a charismatic dick.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“Chef?" Carmel exclaims. "I could give a shit about a chef. I'm going to find the most expensive thing in that kitchen, eat one bite, and throw the rest on the floor. Then I'm going to break some plates.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“Damsels? You get sliced open, burned, and dashed against rocks about a thousand times or so. Then we'll see who the damsel is.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“He almost killed my friends. Fuck that guy.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares



“She glares at me resentfully, like I'm being unfair. But she's probably going to try to kill me, and kill me righteously, so eff you very much.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“Cassio,” she whispers. “Get me out of here.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“Jestine and I lock eyes. She's going to look away first. Even if my eyeballs have to completely dry out.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“In the sixth row of the theater, in the third chair in, Anna winks at me. Or maybe she just blinks. I can't tell. She's missing half of her face.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“It’s true what they say about answers only leading to more questions. There will always be more to find out, more to learn, more to do.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares



“I’m just saying it doesn’t always have to be spirits and magic. Sometimes hauntings are in your mind. It doesn’t make them less real.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“You'd better eat that," she says.
"I'm taking it easy on my stomach," I protest. "Come on. It just had a knife in it.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“But the mall is a thing that should not be suffered. Except maybe for Cinnabon.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“Guys," he says. "After this is over, can we go get a burger or something?"
"You're thinking about food now?" Carmel asks.
"Hey, you haven't spent the last three days fasting and doing herbal rue steams and drinking nothing but Morfran's gross chrysanthemum purification potions." Carmel and I grin at each other in the mirror. "It isn't easy becoming a vessel. I'm freaking starving.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“Everyone seems to know more than I do, and being on the shallow end of the information pool is starting to piss me off.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares



“Don't profane yourself, or the Biodag Dubh."
Oh, Mary Ann. Me and the Beedak Doo are just fine.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“Without a word, we start to walk together down the long hall. I'm so pent up and irritated with this place; I want to kick down the closed doors and break up a prayer circle, maybe juggle the athame with a couple of candles just to see the horrified looks on their faces and hear their screams of "Sacrilege!”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“She's liked you since chemistry last semester," Carmel says, scowling.
"Then you should have told her what an ass I am. Made me sound like a moronic jerk."
"Better to let her see it for herself.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“I want to cross my arms and say things like, "Don't come back if you're not going to stay!" and "If you think that nothing's changed, you're wrong." But she probably heard all this stuff from Thomas already. I wasn't the boyfriend. I don't know why I feel like I should get the chance to yell at her too.
Jesus. I have become the thing they call the third wheel.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“Your morality isn't the only morality in the world. Just because it's yours doesn't mean it's right.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares



“Can you fight?"
Jestine nods in my direction. "I can take Cas on pretty easily."
"Is that supposed to impress me?”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“His skin is black as a struck match, cracked and oozing liquid metal heat, like he's covered by a cooling layer of lava. The eyes stand out bright white. I can't make out from this distance if they have corneas. God I hope they have corneas. I hate that creepy weird-eye shit.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“This is weird. There's a dead woman in front of me like dozens of other dead women I've seen. But this one is a queen, and a famous one. If it's possible to be starstruck by the dead, then I guess that's what's happening.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“She raises her brows at Thomas and Carmel.
"How do you want to room? The two of you and the two of us? Or boys in one, girls in the other?"
"Boys in one," I say quickly.
"Right. Back in a minute." Jestine gets up to make the arrangements, leaving me with my gaping friends.
"Where'd that come from?" Carmel asks.
"Where'd what come from?"
As usual, playing dumb gets me nowhere.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares


“I’ll be here if he needs me. I’ll watch his back.”

Carmel smiles. “Better watch all sides. He can be downright clumsy sometimes.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from Girl of Nightmares



About the author

Kendare Blake
Born place: Seoul
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“I won’t give my heart to another girl until God shows me it’s my wife.”
― Eric Ludy, quote from When God Writes Your Love Story


“Time spent looking back in anger is time wasted.”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment


“The Dying Man"

in memoriam W.B. Yeats

1. His words

I heard a dying man
Say to his gathered kin,
“My soul’s hung out to dry,
Like a fresh salted skin;
I doubt I’ll use it again.

“What’s done is yet to come;
The flesh deserts the bone,
But a kiss widens the rose
I know, as the dying know
Eternity is Now.

“A man sees, as he dies,
Death’s possibilities;
My heart sways with the world.
I am that final thing,
A man learning to sing.

2. What Now?

Caught in the dying light,
I thought myself reborn.
My hand turn into hooves.
I wear the leaden weight
Of what I did not do.

Places great with their dead,
The mire, the sodden wood,
Remind me to stay alive.
I am the clumsy man
The instant ages on.

I burned the flesh away,
In love, in lively May.
I turn my look upon
Another shape than hers
Now, as the casement blurs.

In the worst night of my will,
I dared to question all,
And would the same again.
What’s beating at the gate?
Who’s come can wait.

3. The Wall

A ghost comes out of the unconscious mind
To grope my sill: It moans to be reborn!
The figure at my back is not my friend;
The hand upon my shoulder turns to horn.
I found my father when I did my work,
Only to lose myself in this small dark.

Though it reject dry borders of the seen,
What sensual eye can keep and image pure,
Leaning across a sill to greet the dawn?
A slow growth is a hard thing to endure.
When figures our of obscure shadow rave,
All sensual love’s but dancing on a grave.

The wall has entered: I must love the wall,
A madman staring at perpetual night,
A spirit raging at the visible.
I breathe alone until my dark is bright.
Dawn’s where the white is. Who would know the dawn
When there’s a dazzling dark behind the sun.

4. The Exulting

Once I delighted in a single tree;
The loose air sent me running like a child–
I love the world; I want more than the world,
Or after image of the inner eye.
Flesh cries to flesh, and bone cries out to bone;
I die into this life, alone yet not alone.

Was it a god his suffering renewed?–
I saw my father shrinking in his skin;
He turned his face: there was another man,
Walking the edge, loquacious, unafraid.
He quivered like a bird in birdless air,
Yet dared to fix his vision anywhere.

Fish feed on fish, according to their need:
My enemies renew me, and my blood
Beats slower in my careless solitude.
I bare a wound, and dare myself to bleed.
I think a bird, and it begins to fly.
By dying daily, I have come to be.

All exultation is a dangerous thing.
I see you, love, I see you in a dream;
I hear a noise of bees, a trellis hum,
And that slow humming rises into song.
A breath is but a breath: I have the earth;
I shall undo all dying with my death.

5. They Sing, They Sing

All women loved dance in a dying light–
The moon’s my mother: how I love the moon!
Out of her place she comes, a dolphin one,
Then settles back to shade and the long night.
A beast cries out as if its flesh were torn,
And that cry takes me back where I was born.

Who thought love but a motion in the mind?
Am I but nothing, leaning towards a thing?
I scare myself with sighing, or I’ll sing;
Descend O gentlest light, descend, descend.
I sweet field far ahead, I hear your birds,
They sing, they sing, but still in minor thirds.

I’ve the lark’s word for it, who sings alone:
What’s seen recededs; Forever’s what we know!–
Eternity defined, and strewn with straw,
The fury of the slug beneath the stone.
The vision moves, and yet remains the same.
In heaven’s praise, I dread the thing I am.

The edges of the summit still appall
When we brood on the dead or the beloved;
Nor can imagination do it all
In this last place of light: he dares to live
Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings
Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.”
― Theodore Roethke, quote from The Collected Poems


“The universe has no opinion of us. No matter how much we want to pretend, real life does not contain the quality of story. No arcs, no morals, no meaning. Life is what we make of it.”
― John Joseph Adams, quote from The Living Dead


“poster of San Francisco. The image of the Golden Gate Bridge with Alcatraz off in the distance was one of her favorites. If she could visit one place in the world, that’s where she would go.”
― Marie Force, quote from Everyone Loves a Hero


Interesting books

The Mystery of Providence
(460)
The Mystery of Provi...
by John Flavel
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat
(9.6K)
The Supremes at Earl...
by Edward Kelsey Moore
An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist
(3K)
An Appetite for Wond...
by Richard Dawkins
John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs
(2K)
John Barleycorn: Alc...
by Jack London
The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls
(3.5K)
The Cavendish Home f...
by Claire Legrand
The Windflower
(1.7K)
The Windflower
by Laura London

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.