Cassandra Clare · 672 pages
Rating: (23.3K votes)
“I think sometimes it's too hard to believe in yourself. You just do the things you're not sure you can do. You just act, in spite of not being certain. I don't believe I can change the world--it sounds stupid to even talk about it--but I'm going to try.”
“Pulvis et umbra sumus," said James once, out loud in class, after hearing too many whispers. "My father says that sometimes. We are but dust and shadows. Maybe I'm just -getting a head start on all of you.”
“But what about Isabelle?" Simon asked. "What do I do?"
"I have no idea," said Jace.
"So you just came here to torture me and talk about yourself?" Simon demanded.
"Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon," said Jace. "You may not remember, but that's kind of our thing.”
“We all change the world, with every day of living in it," Magnus said. "You just have to decide HOW you want to change the world.”
“Ah, there you are," said Scarsbury. "George Lovelace was beside himself. He wanted to assemble a search party for you." Simon regretted his spiteful thoughts about George's horsemanship. "Let me guess," said Simon. "Everyone else said 'Nah, being left for dead builds character.”
“I love you. I love you without the memories. I love you right now."
Isabelle said in a calm voice, "I know."
Simon stared at her. "Was that...," he said slowly. "Was that a Star Wars reference? Because if it was, I would like to declare my love all over again.”
“Mundanes can be heroes too," said James. "You should know that better than I. Your mother was a mundane! My father told me about all she did before she Ascended. Everyone here knows people who were mundanes. Why should we isolate people who are brave enough to try to become like us -who want to help people? Why should we treat them as if they're less than us, until they prove their worthiness or die? I won't do it.”
“You are the flame that cannot be put out. You are the star that cannot be lost. You are who you always have been, and that is enough and more than enough. Anyone who looks at you and sees darkness is blind.”
“Life at the Shadowunter Academy was lacking in a lot of things Simon once belived he couldn't live without: computers, music, comic books, indoor plumbing. Over the past couple of months, he'd gotten mostly used to doing without, but there was one glaring absence he still couldn't wrap his head around. Shadowhunter Academy had no nerds.”
“Little James Herondale, age two, was in fact holding a dagger quite well. He stabbed it into a sofa cushion, sending out a burst of feathers.
"Ducks," he said, pointing at the feathers.”
“In books and movies, people were either whisked away to a magical land in the clothes they were standing up in, or they glossed over the packing part entirely. Simon now felt he had been robbed of critical information by the media. Should he be putting the kitchen knives in his bag? Should he bring the toaster and rig it up as a weapon?”
“Sed lex, dura lex," said Balogh. The latin phrase had been hammered into them from the first day of the Academy, and Simon was comming to hate the sound of it -so often was it used as an excuse for acting like monsters.”
“I need a hero. I'm holding out for a hero, in fact, until the morning light. And she's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon - because I have been kidnapped by evil faeries - and she's gotta be larger than life”
“The Academy days were half physical activity. It was like half the day was gym. Stabby, stabby gym.”
“I have just come from the East End,” he said. “Something about the stories disturbed me, for more than the obvious reasons. I went there to have a look about for myself. And what happened last night proves my theory. There have been many murders recently—all of women, women who . . .”
“Prostitutes,” Tessa said.
“Quite,” Gabriel said.
“Tessa has such an extensive vocabulary,” Will said. “It is one of the most attractive things about her. Shame about yours, Gabriel.”
“Will, listen to me.” Gabriel allowed himself a long sigh.
“Spoon!” James said, running at his uncle Gabriel and jabbing him in the thigh. Gabriel mussed the boy’s hair affectionately.
“You’re such a good boy,” he said. “I often wonder how you could possibly be Will’s.”
“Spoon,” James said, leaning against his uncle’s leg lovingly.
“No, Jamie,” Will urged. “Your honorable father has been impugned. Attack, attack!”
“Simon opened the door and was not surprised to find Jace standing outside of it.
“Here,” Simon said, handing him the letter.
“Took you long enough,” Jace said.
“Now we’re even,” said Simon. “Go party in the Herondale house with your weird family.”
“I plan to,” said Jace, and smiled a sudden, strangely endearing smile. He had a chipped tooth. The smile made him seem like he was Simon’s age, and maybe they were friends after all. “Good night, Wiggles.”
“Wiggles?”
“Yes, Wiggles. Your nickname? It’s what you always made us call you. I almost forgot your name was Simon, I’m so used to calling you Wiggles.”
“Wiggles? What does that . . . even mean?”
“You would never explain,” Jace said with a shrug. “It was the big mystery about you. As I said, good night, Wiggles. I’ll take care of this.”
He held up the letter and used it to make a salute.
Simon shut the door. He knew most people on the hall had probably done everything they could to make sure they heard that exchange. He knew that in the morning he would be called Wiggles and there was nothing he would ever be able to do about it.
But it was a small price to pay to get a letter to Isabelle.”
“I love you unconditionally,' his mom had said, once or twice, when he was younger. 'That's how parents love. I love you no matter what.' People said thing like that, without thinking of potential nightmare scenarios or horrific conditions, the whole changing and love slipping away. None of them ever dreamed love would be tested, and fail.”
“But I know your blood doesn't define you. What defines you is the choices you make. If I've learned anything this year, it's that. And I also know that loving someone--even when it's scary, even when there are consequences--is never the wrong thing to do. Loving someone is the opposite of hurting her.”
“He waved good-bye to all these people he barely knew, and somehow loved anyway, and he hoped they could not tell how relived he was to be going.”
“He pulled off the shirt....which read "LET'S FIGHT!" and below in tiny letters "OUR ENEMY OFF WITH CUNNING ARGUMENTS.”
“Simon picked a dagger completely at random, then sat at his desk waggling it about.
Jon nodded to it. “Nice.”
“Yeah,” Simon said, nodding back and gesturing with it. “That’s what I thought. Nice. Very stabby.”
He stabbed the dagger into the desk, where it got stuck and Simon had to pry it out of the wood.”
“Though I realize that you are both a little annoyed with me, and this might not be the time to shower myself with praise," Jace said slowly, "honesty compels me to tell you: Yes. Yes, I do think I am hilarious. 'There goes Jace Herondale,' people say. 'Cutting wit, and also totally cut. It's a burden Simon could never understand.”
“Good night, Wiggles.” “Wiggles?” “Yes, Wiggles. Your nickname? It’s what you always made us call you. I almost forgot your name was Simon, I’m so used to calling you Wiggles.” “Wiggles? What does that . . . even mean?” “You would never explain,” Jace said with a shrug. “It was the big mystery about you. As I said, good night, Wiggles. I’ll take care of this.”
“Izzy -I don't know why you'd wait for me, but if you do, I promise to make myself worth that wait. Or I'll try. I can promise I am going to try.”
“Why should we isolate people who are brave enough to try to become like us--who want to help people? Why should we treat them as if they're less than us, until they prove their worthiness or die? I won't do it.”
“When he let go of Clary, he turned and hugged Jace. Clary watched, tears running down her face.
“Oof,” said Jace, sounding extremely startled, but he patted Simon quickly on the back.
Simon supposed they usually fist-bumped or something. He did not know the warrior way of being bros: Eric was a big hugger. He decided it would probably be good for Jace, and ruffled his hair a little for emphasis before stepping away.”
“Every student, no matter how inexperienced or advanced, wa expected to report to the training field at sunrise for a grueling hour of calisthenics. 'Divided we stand,' Simon thought, his stubborn biceps refusing to bulge. 'United we do push-ups.”
“We are all our past have made us. The accumulation of thousands of daily choices. We can change ourselves, but never erase what we've been. Forgetting those choices doesn't unmake them.”
“They shared a small moment of bizarre, companionable silence -they boy who'd forgotten everything about his history, and the boy who'd never known it.”
“But the suspension of disbelief could only go so far.”
“There is no pain - just travel.
On her knees, she stays still as a supplicant ready for communion. It is very quiet. All of a sudden there is no hurry. There will be time for everything. For the breezes that blow and for the rainwater drying in the gutters, for Maury to find a place of safety in the world, for Malcolm to come back from the dead and ask her about birds and jets. For the big things too, things like beauty and vengeance and honor and righteousness and the grace of God and the slow spilling of the earth from day to night and back to day again.
It is spread out before her, compressed into one single moment. She will be able to see it all -- if she can keep her sleepy eyes open.
It's like a dream where she is. Like a dream where you find yourself underwater and you are panicked for a moment until you realize you no longer need to breathe, and you can stay under the surface forever.
She feels her body falling sideways to the ground. It happens slow - and she expects a crash that never comes because her mind is jumping and it doesn't know which way is up anymore, like the moon above her and the fish below her and her in between floating, like on the surface of the river, floating between sea and sky, the world all skin, all meniscus, and she a part of it too.
Moses Todd told her if you lean over the rail at Niagara Falls it takes your breath away, like turning yourself inside out -- and Lee the hunter told her that one time people used to stuff themselves in barrels and ride over the edge.
And she is there too, floating out over the edge of the falls, the roar of the water so deafening it's like hearing nothing at all, like pillows in your ears, and the water exactly the temperature of your skin, like you are falling and the water is falling, and the water is just more of you, like everything is just more of you, just different configurations of the things that make you up.
She is there, and she's sailing out and down over the falls, down and down, and it takes a long time because the falls are one of God's great mysteries and so high they are higher than any building, and so she is held there, spinning in the air, her eyes closed because she's spinning on the inside too, down and down.
She wonders if she will ever hit the bottom, wonders will the splash ever come.
Maybe not - because God is a slick god, and he knows things about infinities. Infinities are warm places that never end. And they aren't about good and evil, they're just peaceful-like and calm, and they're where all travelers go eventually, and they are round everywhere you look because you can't have any edges in infinities.
And also they make forever seem like an okay thing.”
“And it´s so different for a lot of people I´ve known. One partner doesn´t love the other enough to stop drinking, or gambling, or running around with other women. One is the giver and one is the taker. The giver wishes the taker would stop”
“... I have always thought of Christmas-time... as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
“ആരാണ് എന്നെ വരിഞ്ഞുകെട്ടി കയത്തിലിട്ടത് എന്ന ചോദ്യത്തിന് 'ശത്രു' എന്നുമാത്രം പറഞ്ഞപ്പോൾ അയാൾ ഉപദേശിച്ചു
'ശത്രുവിനോടു ദയ കാട്ടരുത്. ദയയിൽ നിന്ന് കൂടുതൽ കരുത്ത് നേടിയ ശത്രു വീണ്ടും നേരിടുമ്പോൾ അജയ്യനാവും. അതാണ് ഞങ്ങളുടെ നിയമം. മൃഗത്തെ വിട്ടുകളയാം. മനുഷ്യന് രണ്ടാമതൊരവസരം കൊടുക്കരുത്”
“Wild is an interesting word. We imagine wild to be untamed and out of control but, of course, nature isn't like that; nature is controlled, ordered, extremely disciplined by all its elements.”
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