Quotes from Passenger

Alexandra Bracken ·  496 pages

Rating: (28.9K votes)


“It's our choices that matter in the end. Not wishes, not words, not promises.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“You cannot fathom the distance I would travel for you.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“In the whole course of history, war had always fallen on the shoulders of the young.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“Good ideas had in the dark were generally best left there.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“The only way out is through.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger



“It matters not who you love, but only the quality of such a love. A flower is no less beautiful because it does not bloom in the expected form. Because it lasts an hour, and not days.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“There are rules, but rules may be rewritten if only one hand holds the ink.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“She didn't need a protector or a rescuer. But she did need him.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“I've never slapped anyone before,” she admitted.
“How did you find the experience?”
“It would have been more satisfying if he'd gone flying out of his seat like I imagined.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“Love was selfish, wasn't it? It made honest men want things they had no right to. It cocooned one from the rest of the world, erased time itself, knocked away reason. It made you live in defiance of the inevitable. It made you want another's mind, body; it made you feel as if you deserved to own their heart, and carve out a place in it.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger



“What a privilege it was to never feel like you had to take stock of your surroundings, or gauge everyone’s reactions to the color of your skin.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“I love you.” For whatever small comfort it was worth, he would have the truth between them now. “Most desperately. Bloody inconvenient, that.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“How do you fight against a mountain? How do you move it when you don't even have a shovel?”
“Maybe you don't have to move it,” Etta said, folding the gown over the lid of the trunk. “Maybe you have to climb it.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“He would not surrender to the disaster of loving her.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“This was the danger, the seduction of time travel, she realized—it was the opportunity, the freedom of a thousand possibilities of where to live and how to start over. It was the beauty open to you in your life if you only stopped for a moment to look.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger



“So you'd keep me here against my will—”
“Know this pirate,” he said, his hands gripping the railing, “You are my passenger, and I will be damned before I let any harm come to you.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“You do have a choice, you know,” Etta told her after a moment. “There is always a choice.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“Society is always the same, regardless of the era. There are rules and standards, with seemingly no purpose. It's a hateful, elaborate charade, equal parts flirtation and perceived naïveté. To men we have the minds of children.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“But she wondered if, in moving outside of the natural flow of time, they had forgotten the most crucial point of life—that it wasn’t meant to be lived for the past, or even the future, but for each present moment.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“Oh my God you are despicable!” Etta snarled.
“Careful, madam, blasphemy is still a sin—”
Even if Nicholas had been the gambling sort, he never would have wagered a single coin on her next words being “Then I guess I'll see you in hell!”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger



“Nicholas felt a rueful smile spread across his face. And a curse be on him for it, because now he knew her. She'd shown him her mind, and she'd opened up her heart, and now he knew the taste of her tears. And he was wrecked.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“Rest assured,” he said, when he managed to find his voice, “there will always be a position for you on my ship.”
Her face brightened with her clever, beautiful smile. “Will you let me climb up into the rigging? Reef the sails?”
A burst of thunder rolled through him. “Absolutely not.”
She laughed again. “As if you could stop me.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“I wish you'd go a a little easier on him,” she said.
“He came in here thrashing a sword around. Was I supposed to stand idly by and do nothing?” he huffed.
“Well, you weren't supposed to try and rearrange his face with your fist.”
“I wasn't,” Nicholas protested. “He lunged up into it several times. I was only in the way.”
“You're ridiculous.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“Free the fire fluttering inside her rib cage. Work her muscles, the bow, the violin, until she played herself to ash and embers and left the rest of the world behind to smolder.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“Having actually read the Voltaire in question, I can confirm the quote is, as different from ours as the breed of spaniels is from that of greyhounds,” Nicholas said coldly. “Interesting, though, that in the end we're all just dogs.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger



“A snake could shed its skin, but never change its color.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“Half-truths only added up to a whole lie.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“What good is honour when greed eats away at its foundations?”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“How about a kiss, hey?” Etta liked that she was still able to startle him, just a little. The blank look of concentration broke as he barked out a laugh. “I don't know if that's a wise idea. We'd never leave.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger


“All I hear are Satan's hammers and the war drums of hell, thank you.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger



About the author

Alexandra Bracken
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Popular quotes

“Submission to what people call their "lot" is simply ignoble. If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another; strike out for yourself; don't listen to the shrieks of your relations, to their gibes or their entreaties; don't let your own microscopic set prescribe your goings-out and comings-in; don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbor in the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything is possible, if you will only be energetic and independent and seize the opportunity by the scruff of the neck.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, quote from Elizabeth and Her German Garden


“So I really think that your parents should let you marry me. Not right now--I have so much to do, with Mika and Philantha and the magic--but someday. Someday not too far away. I did save Thorvaldor, after all, and I expect that Mika will pay me well in exchange for my years of knowledge. She even threatened to title me--it would be just like her to want to rub everyone’s noses in my commonness. And I think that, if they have any objections, you should just--”
“Break with them?” he asked. He was trying to be serious, but one corner of his mouth kept twitching.
“Well, yes,” I admitted.
“I already did,” he said, and my mouth fell open. “Or at least, I threatened to, if they wouldn’t give me their blessing.” A thin line worked its way between his eyebrows, and his smile dimmed a little. “I think they knew it was coming, but it didn’t make my father happy. He stormed around shouting about duty, and for a while I thought I might really have to go through with it.”
The line deepened, and he glanced away from me. “That was frightening. It was my choice--is my choice--but practically it would have been…difficult. You aren’t the only person who was trained for just one thing. I don’t know if I know how to be anything but the future Earl of Rithia. I kept telling myself I could do it, become someone else if they disinherited me, but I didn’t want to break with them. I would have, but I didn’t want to.”
My heart clenched a little, seeing the glimmer of tension around his eyes.
Suddenly, the tiny grin flickered at his mouth again. “But then my father started thinking about the advantages of my marrying someone who had done the future queen such a service. After that, he was happy to give his blessing.”
I shook my head as if to clear it. I had come here asking him to do just that, but hearing it out loud seemed like something from a dream. “You really told them you wanted to marry me?” I asked.
The smile had taken over his whole face now. “I told you before: I fell under your spell before you even knew you had magic, before you saved a kingdom, back when there was no chance you would be allowed to marry me. Nothing’s really changed since then, except that now any children we have might be wizards themselves, and I’ll be hopelessly outnumbered.
“So, yes, I want to marry you. Someday. If you’ll have me,” he said modestly.
“Of course I will, you idiot,” I said with a shriek, and threw myself into his arms.”
― Eilis O'Neal, quote from The False Princess


“Pessimism is not good for the soul."
"I sold my soul years ago."
"To whom?"
"The bitch goddess Success. She cut town before paying off.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, quote from When the Bough Breaks


“To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. ROMANS 8:6”
― Stormie Omartian, quote from The Power of a Praying Wife


“Between you and me,
the words,
like mortar,
separating, holding together
those pieces of the structure ourselves.
To say them,
to cast their shadows on the page,
is the act of binding mutual passions,
is cognizance, yourself/myself,
of our sameness under skin;
it rears possible cathedrals
indicating infinity with steeply-high styli.
For when tomorrow comes it is today,
and if it is not the drop
that is eternity
glistening at the pen’s point,
then the ink of our voices
surrounds like an always night,
and mortar marks the limit of our cells.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness


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