“Maybe one day the words will pour out like so many others, easy and smooth and on their own. Right now they take pieces of me with them.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Magda looks at me as if I've gone mad. Or I've grown up. It's kind of the same thing.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“The wind took hold of whatever I felt, and ran away with it.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“I feel connected to you, and I couldn't bear the thought of that being severed. Lost.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Everything seems different at night. Defined. Beyond the window, the world is full of shadows, all pressed together in harsh relief, somehow sharper than they ever were in daylight.
Sounds seem sharper,too, at night. A whistle. A crack. A child's whisper.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“You really are like him, your father."
"I can't tell whether you think that's good or bad."
"What does it matter? It's simply true.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Properly buried."
"Properly kept."
"That is the way with witches."
"And with all things.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“I can see him juggling the words inside his head. Fumbling. I tried to juggle once, with three apples I'd found in the pantry. But I just ended up bruising them all so badly my mother had to make apple bread. The whole time I was trying, I kept getting lost in the movements. I couldn't concentrate on all of them at once.
I wish Cole would give me an apple. And then he looks at me, and there's that same sad, almost smile, like he's decided to pass me one, but he knows I can't juggle either. Like there's no reason for both of us to bruise things any more than needed.
I hold out my hand. "Let me help.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Well," I ask, leaning over him, "do you wish to stay?"
"I do."
"And why is that, Cole?" I say, tipping toward him so that our noses nearly brush.
"Well," he says with a smile, "the weather's quite nice.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Her bare feet land with light thuds like rain on stones.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Fear is a strange thing,” he used to say. “It has the power to make people close their eyes, turn away. Nothing good grows out of fear.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Funny how when we start to tell a secret, we can’t stop. Something falls open in us, and the sheer momentum of letting go pushes us on.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Of every aspect of the moor, the earth and stone and rain and fire, the wind is the strongest one in Near. Here on the outskirts of the village, the wind is always pressing close, making windows groan. It whispers and it howls and it sings. It can bend its voice and cast it into any shape, long and thin enough to slide beneath the door, stout enough to seem a thing of weight and breath and bone. “The wind was here when you were born, when I was born, when our house was built, when the Council was formed, and even when the Near Witch lived,”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Cole steps forward, his fingers reaching around my shoulders, and kisses me.
It is sudden and smooth and soft as air against my lips. The wind whips around us, tugging at the fabric of our clothes, but not pulling us apart.
And then it's gone, the cool pressure against my lips, and my eyes are open and looking into two gray eyes like river rocks.
"/That's/ what you wanted to show me?"
"No," he says, his fingers slipping down my arms as he leads me off the path and out, away from Near. "That was just in case.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“The morning is a stealthy hunter, my father used to say. It sneaks up quiet and quick on the night and overtakes it.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“All Near knows.” “All Near forgets.” “Or tries.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“No, dearie. I don’t need any seeds. And besides, I’m growing moor flowers. Wildflowers.” “I didn’t know you could, in this soil.” “You can’t, of course. That’s the point. Flowers are freethinking things. They grow where they please. I’d like to see you try and tell a moor flower where to grow.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“The wind was here when you were born, when I was born, when our house was built, when the Council was formed, and even when the Near Witch lived,”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“When I was small, the wind sang me lullabies. Lilting, humming, high-pitched things, filling the space around me so that even when all seemed quiet, it wasn’t. This is a wind I have lived with.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“My father taught me how to track, how to read the ground and the trees. He taught me that everything has a language, that if you knew the language, you could make the world talk. The grass and the dirt hold secrets, he’d say. The wind and the water carry stories and warnings.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“The trees all whisper, leaves gossiping. The stones are heavy thinkers, the sullen silent types. He used to make up stories for everything in nature, giving it all voices, lives. If the moor wind ever sings, you mustn’t listen, not with all of your ears. Use only the edges. Listen the way you’d look out the corners of your eyes. The wind is lonely, love, and always looking for company.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“It is as if the moon and the trees have switched places. The sky is plunged into the heavy cloud-lidded darkness that seems to come every night, but in the valley below, the trees—or the places between the trees, it is impossible to tell the source—are fully lit, glowing. The woods are alight like an ember, bluish white and cradled by the rolling hills. It’s like a beacon, I think with a chill. So this is what happens when the world goes black. The forest steals the light from the sky. Cole straightens beside me, taking ragged breaths. I cannot stop staring at the glowing trees. It is strange and magical. Almost lovely. The wind song has become simply a song, clear and articulate, as if made by an instrument instead of the air. It is all a perfect dream.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Being a stranger is not a crime.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“sheets, I keep hearing something—or someone—calling, just loud enough to pierce the walls. The voice is surely something more than wind, curling and twisting itself into highs and lows, like muffled music. I know that if only I could lean closer, words would become clear, distinct. Words that wouldn’t break apart before I can wrap my mind around them.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
Victoria Schwab
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― Gore Vidal, quote from Creation
“Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
“Now you listen to me, Joe. You will not badger or harrass me. You will leave me to think the way I want to think, here. I have to heal any way I can. You will stop asking questions and you will not give me any worry. You will not go after him. You will not terrify me, Joe. I've had enough fear for my whole life. You will not add to my fear. You will not add to my sorrows. You will not be part of this.”
― Louise Erdrich, quote from The Round House
“Well, if pirates are bad,
And vampires are worse,
Then I pray that as long as I be
That though I sing of Vampirates
I never one shall see.
Yea, if pirates are danger
And vampires are death,
I'll extend my prayer for thee-
That thine eyes never see a Vampirate
...and they never lay a hand on thee”
― Justin Somper, quote from Demons of the Ocean
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