Long Live Evil

I love you as a knife loves a throat,” he murmured as the dead overwhelmed her. “I crawled out of hell to fall at your feet.

Finding your favourite character was discovering a soul made of words that spoke to your own

In real life, people let you go. That was why people longed for the love from stories, love that felt more real than real love.

An anti-hero was just a villain with good PR

Book characters were dangerously attractive in the safest way. You didn't even know what they looked like, but you knew you liked it.

People say, I’ll give anything. The universe listens. But the universe doesn’t listen when you say, Wait, not that.

Let me be your favorite story. Let me be the greatest story you ever heard.

She curled her fingers in under the blood-slick straps of his armour. His cracked leather gloves caught on her hair. 'You don’t have to kill if you don’t like it,' Key promised. 'I’ll kill them for you.' 'Kill who?' Against her hair, she felt his mouth curve. 'Everyone.

Consider this. A witch who curses you is just telling the future you don’t want to hear.

Only heroes cared about honour. Villains were allowed to be practical.

Alcohol is a crutch.” “Useful things, crutches,” drawled the Cobra. “Ever see anyone using a crutch they didn’t need?

Key shrugged. “If you ask me, she’s too good for him.” “He’s the supreme monarch of our land, and she’s a treacherous witch whose sins scream to the sky for the gods to strike her down.” Key nodded approval. "I do like her.

Have you never considered art grants us the impossible? Art opens a door into someone else’s imagination and lets us walk through. Art is the dreamed-of escape. Art lets the dead speak and the living laugh. Art takes you away from pain when no medicine can save you. Art is the first and last

My lover left me. My friends left me. I was told to forgive them. I was blamed more for resenting mistreatment than anybody was blamed for mistreating me.

This man was so vain, he probably thought the troubadours’ songs were about him

Is my mother right?” Rahela murmured. “Are men useless? They don’t take out the trash, they don’t rescue the damsels. The only thing a villainess should do at a party is make catty remarks and spill red wine on the heroine’s dress! I never get a moment’s peace to make catty remarks.

Villains often had cruel mouths. As mouths went, Key's was a homicide.

Stories lived on problems. There was a reason Star Wars wasn't Star Peace.

The story wasn't real, but love made it matter.

Perishing for love of Lia was one of the major causes of death in Eyam, up there with being eaten by monsters, torn apart by ghouls, and plague

Villains were never morning people. They had to stay sharp for midnight plotting.

Pain is the place where we’re alone. We wish we weren’t. But we always are.

Which came first, being treated as unworthy or being unworthy? In the end, it didn’t matter. If others believed she was evil, or beautiful, or guilty, they made that true.

At the bottom were peasants, who grew food and carried away garbage. Society would collapse without them, so they were treated horribly.

In that moment his sharp luminesescence seemed blurred into more gentle brightness. He was always a riot of rapid movement and more rapid thought, animated sound and light. Marius understood what he meant. A city boy. A boy like a city.

He’s having the most flamboyant and prolonged descent into madness I ever saw.

Nobody lives forever, but a story can.

Rae clapped. “Look, everybody, Lia is coming. Yay, it’s Lia!” “Are you two close?” asked Vasilisa. “Not really, I set her up for execution last week.

At least seventy per cent of villainy was the aesthetic.