“The funny thing about armor is that it doesn't just keep other people out. It keeps us in. We build it up around us, not realizing that we're trapping ourselves.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“It’s okay to not be okay,” she says. “When you’ve been through things—whatever those things are—and you don’t allow yourself to not be okay, then you only make it worse. Our problems will tear us apart if we try to ignore them. They demand attention because they need it.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“You can't be two people. You end up being neither.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Having something and losing it, it's so much crueler than never having had it.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Caring about someone is scary, Mac. I know. Especially when you’ve lost people. It’s easy to think it’s not worth it. It’s easy to think life will hurt less if you don’t. But it’s not life unless you care about it.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“I am not afraid of nightmares, because mine came true and I lived through them.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“He leans in, resting his weathered hand on the bed. "Treat all the bad things like dreams, Kenzie. That way, no matter how scary or dark they get, you just have to survive until you wake up.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“And when he presses his lips into the curve of my throat, I can feel his tears on my skin.
“You are an idiot,” I say, even as I guide his face and mouth to mine. I kiss him, not gently, but desperately. Desperately, because he’s worth it—because life is terrifying and short and I don’t know what will happen. All I know is that here and now, I am still alive, and I want to be with Wesley Ayers. Here and now I want to feel his arms wrapped around me. I want to feel his lips on mine. I want to feel his life tangling with mine. Here and now is all we have, and I want to make it worth whatever happens next.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Da used to say that lies were easy, but trust was hard. Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it's lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Doubt is like a current you have to swim against, one that saps your strength.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“WESLEY AYERS is the stranger in the halls of the Coronado. He is the Keeper in the garden who shares my secret. He is the boy who reads me books. He is the one who teaches me how to touch.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Everything that rises will fall. Empires, societies, governments. None of them lasts forever. Why? Because even though they are the products of change, they become resistant to change. The longer a society survives, the more it clings to its power, and the more it resists progress. The more it resists progress- resists change- the more its ciizens demand it. In response, the society tighten its grip, desperate to maintain control. It's afraid of losing its hold.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“I have to wonder if he has masks he wears, too. Maybe we all do.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell...”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Smiling is the worst thing you can do if you want the world to think you're okay when you're not. Some people can't help it - it's like a tic, a tell - and others do it on purpose, thinking people will buy whatever they're selling if it comes with a flash of teeth. But the truth is, smiling only makes a lie harder to pass off. It's like a giant crack in the front of a mask.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“People are made up of so many small details. Some—like the smell of cookies baking—we can recreate. Or at least try.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“The shared secret of our second lives hangs between us, not like a weight, but like a lifeline.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“The worse thing you can do in a fight is stop moving. When someone attacks, they create force, movement, momentum, but you'll be okay as long as you can see and feel the direction of that force and travel with it.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“The world isn’t that black-and-white, is it? It doesn’t all boil down to with or against. Some of us just want to stay alive.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Da thought of people as books to be read, but I've always thought of them more as formulas- full of variables, but always the sum of their parts.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“He used to tell me there were no bad dreams. Just dreams. That when we call them good or bad, we give importance to them. I know that doesn't make it better, Mac. I know it's easy to talk like that when you're awake. But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“There have been times when I've wavered. When I thought maybe I wanted to be normal. But the thing is, what we do, it's in our blood. It's who we are. Normal wouldn't fit us, even if we wanted to wear it.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Wesley's touch lingers on my skin. His music echoes through my head. I remind myself as I scrub my skin that we are both liars and con artists. That we will always have secrets, some that bind us and some that cut between us, slicing us into pieces.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Lies are easy, but trust is hard. Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it's lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back. And doubt, Da warned, is like a current you have to swim against, one that saps your strength.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Wes hits the table. "You broke into a crime scene without me?"
"Be glad, Wes, or we would have both been caught."
"We're a team, Mac. You don't go committing crimes without your partner in crime. Besides, if I'd been with you, we probably wouldn't have been caught. I could have stood at the door and made wild bird sounds or something when the cops came back. And if we did get caught, or mugshots would look fabulous.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it's lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“I never liked bad weather. Not until I met you.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
“Stare too long at anything and you start to wonder. And where does wondering get you? Nowhere good.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Unbound
Victoria Schwab
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“But when you flee someone, no matter how far you roam, that person will follow you as doggedly as the stars.”
― Marisha Pessl, quote from Night Film
“Alas, great is my sorrow. Your name is Ah Chen, and when you were born I was not truly pleased. I am a farmer, and a farmer needs strong sons to help with his work, but before a year had passed you had stolen my heart. You grew more teeth, and you grew daily in wisdom, and you said 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' and your pronunciation was perfect. When you were three you would knock at the door and then you would run back and ask, 'Who is it?' When you were four your uncle came to visit and you played the host. Lifting your cup, you said, 'Ching!' and we roared with laughter and you blushed and covered your face with your hands, but I know that you thought yourself very clever. Now they tell me that I must try to forget you, but it is hard to forget you.
"You carried a toy basket. You sat at a low stool to eat porridge. You repeated the Great Learning and bowed to Buddha. You played at guessing games, and romped around the house. You were very brave, and when you fell and cut your knee you did not cry because you did not think it was right. When you picked up fruit or rice, you always looked at people's faces to see if it was all right before putting it in your mouth, and you were careful not to tear your clothes.
"Ah Chen, do you remember how worried we were when the flood broke our dikes and the sickness killed our pigs? Then the Duke of Ch'in raised our taxes and I was sent to plead with him, and I made him believe that we could not pay out taxes. Peasants who cannot pay taxes are useless to dukes, so he sent his soldiers to destroy our village, and thus it was the foolishness of your father that led to your death. Now you have gone to Hell to be judged, and I know that you must be very frightened, but you must try not to cry or make loud noises because it is not like being at home with your own people.
"Ah Chen, do you remember Auntie Yang, the midwife? She was also killed, and she was very fond of you. She had no little girls of her own, so it is alright for you to try and find her, and to offer her your hand and ask her to take care of you. When you come before the Yama Kings, you should clasp your hands together and plead to them: 'I am young and I am innocent. I was born in a poor family, and I was content with scanty meals. I was never wilfully careless of my shoes and my clothing, and I never wasted a grain of rice. If evil spirits bully me, may thou protect me.' You should put it just that way, and I am sure that the Yama Kings will protect you.
"Ah Chen, I have soup for you and I will burn paper money for you to use, and the priest is writing down this prayer that I will send to you. If you hear my prayer, will you come to see me in your dreams? If fate so wills that you must yet lead an earthly life, I pray that you will come again to your mother's womb. Meanwhile I will cry, 'Ah Chen, your father is here!' I can but weep for you, and call your name.”
― Barry Hughart, quote from Bridge of Birds
“I came to see that knowing what love isn't might be just as valuable, though infinitely less satisfying, as knowing what it is.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue
“Rome was mud and smoky skies; the rank smell of the Tiber and the exotically spiced cooking fires of a hundred different nationalities. Rome was white marble and gilding and heady perfumes; the blare of trumpets and the shrieking of market-women and the eternal, sub-aural hum of more people, speaking more languages than Gaius had ever imagined existed, crammed together on seven hills whose contours had long ago disappeared beneath this encrustation if humanity. Rome was the pulsing heart of the world.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, quote from The Forest House
“Garion,' she said very calmly, 'the universe knew your name before that moon up there was spun out of the emptiness. Whole constellations have been waiting for you since the beginning of time.'
I didn't want them to, Aunt Pol.'
There are those of us who aren't given that option, Garion. There are things that gave to be done and certain people who have to do them. It's as simple as that.'
He smiled rather sadly at her flawless face and gently touched the snowy white lock at her brow. Then, for the last time in his life, he asked the question that had been on his lips since he was a tiny boy. 'Why me, Aunt Pol? Why me?'
Can you possibly think of anyone else you'd trust to deal with these matters, Garion?'
He had not really been prepared for that question. It came at him in stark simplicity. Now at last he fully understood. 'No,' he sighed, 'I suppose not. Somehow it seems a little unfair, though. I wasn't even consulted.'
Neither was I, Garion,' she answered. 'But we didn't have to be consulted, did we? The knowledge of what we have to do is born into us.”
― David Eddings, quote from Sorceress of Darshiva
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