Quotes from The Scorpio Races

“I say, 'I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick.'
Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, 'It's late for that, Puck.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“There are moments that you'll remember for the rest of your life and there are moments that you think you'll remember for the rest of your life, and it's not often they turn out to be the same moment.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“He is slow, and the sea sings to us both, but he returns to me.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“I hear laughter and someone asks if I need help, not in a nice way. I snarl, 'What I need is for your mother to have thought a little harder nine months before your birthday.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“It's easy to convince men to love you, Puck. All you have to do is be a mountain they have to climb or a poem they don't understand.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“That's a poor match, Sean Kendrick," says a voice at my elbow. It's the other sister from Fathom & Sons, and she follows my gaze to Puck. "Neither of you are a housewife."
I don't look away from Puck. "I think you assume too much, Dory Maud."
"You leave nothing to assumption," Dory Maud says. "You swallow her with your eyes. I'm surprised there's any of her left for the rest of us to see.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“In the middle of all this, as Sean slips out of his jacket, he looks over his shoulder at me and he smiles at me, just a glancing, faint thing before he turns back to Tommy. I'm quite happy for that smile, because Dad told me once you should be grateful for the gifts that are the rarest.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“You two are a strange pair. You are a pair, aren't you?"

"We're in training.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“Does anyone ask you why you stay, Sean Kendrick?"
"They do."
"And why do you?"
"The sky and the sand and the sea and Corr.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“Sean reaches between us and slides a thin bracelet of red ribbons over my free hand. Lifting my arm, he presses his lips against the inside of my wrist. I'm utterly still; I feel my pulse tap several times against his lips, and then he releases my hand.
"For luck," he says. He takes Dove's lead from me.
"Sean," I say, and he turns. I take his chin and kiss his lips, hard. I'm reminded, all of a sudden, of that first day on the beach, when I pulled his head from the water.
"For luck," I say to his startled face.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“Do you know how to wrap a leg?'
'I was born wrapping legs,' I say stiffly, because I'm insulted.
'Must've been a challenging delivery,' Sean notes.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“Tell me what to wish for." Tell me what to ask the sea for."
"To be happy. Happiness."
"I don't think such a thing is had on Thisby. And if it is, I don't know how you would keep it."
"You whisper to it. What it needs to hear. Isn't that what you said?"
"That's what I said. What do I need to hear?"
"That tomorrow we'll rule the Scorpio Races as king and queen of Skarmouth and I'll save the house and you'll have your stallion. Dove will eat golden oats for the rest of her days and you will terrorize the races each year and people will come from every island in the world to find out how it is you get horses to listen to you. The piebald will carry Mutt Malvern into the sea and Gabriel will decide to stay on the island. I will have a farm and you will bring me bread for dinner."
"That's what I needed to hear.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“Shhhhhh, shhhhhh, says the sea, but I don't believe her.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“Boys,' she says, 'just aren't very good at being afraid.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“And I told you before, I'll sell you any of the thoroughbreds.”
“I didn't make any of those thoroughbreds. I didn't make them what they are.”
“You made all of them what they are.”
I don't look at him. “None of them made me who I am.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“As the sun shines low and red across the water, I wade into the ocean. The water is still high and brown and murky with the memory of the storm, so if there’s something below it, I won’t know it. But that’s part of this, the not knowing. The surrender to the possibilities beneath the surface. It wasn’t the ocean that killed my father, in the end. The water is so cold that my feet go numb almost at once. I stretch my arms out to either side of me and close my eyes. I listen to the sound of water hitting water. The raucous cries of the terns and the guillemots in the rocks of the shore, the piercing, hoarse questions of the gulls above me. I smell seaweed and fish and the dusky scent of the nesting birds onshore. Salt coats my lips, crusts my eyelashes. I feel the cold press against my body. The sand shifts and sucks out from under my feet in the tide. I’m perfectly still. The sun is red behind my eyelids. The ocean will not shift me and the cold will not take me.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“They're saying that you and Sean Kendrick were burning up the cliffs." Tommy spins me again and grins at me. "And when I say you and Sean Kendrick, I mean you and Sean Kendrick. And by burning, I mean burning.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“I didn't say I would start a yard."

"You didn't have to. I'll come back next year and you'll have a nest of horses outside your window and Puck Connolly in your bed and I'll buy from you instead of Malvern. That's your future for you.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“I think every now and then about Sean’s thumb pressed against my wrist and daydream about him touching me again. But mostly I think about the way he looks at me – with respect – and I think that’s probably worth more than anything.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“I stare at him. "You can't risk not winning. Not because of me."
Sean doesn't lift his eyes from the counter. "We make our move when you make yours. You on the inside, me on the outside. Corr can come from the middle of the pack; he's done it before. It's one side you won't have to worry about."
I say, "I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick."
Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, "It's late for that, Puck.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“It's for personal reasons," I say stiffly, which is what my mother had always told me to say about things that had to do with fighting with your brothers, getting any sort of illness that had intestinal ramifications, starting your period, and money.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“Neatness makes me feel like I have to be on my best behavior. Clutter is my natural habitat.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“Could others hold him?"

His face remains the same. "There are no others. You're the only one."

I swallow. "I can hold him.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“I think of Sean folded low over the red stallion, riding bareback at the top of the cliffs. Of the easy way they had with each other when I met him to look at the uisce mare. I think, even, of the way Sean looked when he stood on the bloody festival rock and said his name, and then Corr's, like it was just one fact after the other. Of the way he said "the sky and the sand and the sea and Corr" to me. And I feel a bite of unfairness, because in everything but name, it seems to me that Sean Kendrick already owns Corr.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“I didn't know," I start truthfully, "that it was the hard way when I started on it.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

“Tell me what it's like. The race."

"What it's like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. It's the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. It's speed, if you're lucky. It's life and it's death or it's both, and there's nothing like it.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races

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