Quotes from The Winner's Kiss

“You don't need to be gifted with a blade. You are your own best weapon.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“Will you come with me?"
"Ah, Kestrel, that's something you never need to ask.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“Arin pulled her onto his lap. He held her shaking form, tucked his face into the crook of her cold neck as she sobbed against him. He murmured that he loved her more than he could say. He promised that he would always choose her first.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“He changed us both." She seemed to struggle for words. "I think of you, all that you lost, who you were, what you were forced to be, and might have been, and I—I have become this, this person, unable to—"

She shut her mouth.

"Kestrel," he said softly, "I love this person.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“Arin. I've wanted to do this for a long time."
Her words silenced him, steadied him.
Antecipation lifted within her like the fragance of a garden under the rain. She sat at the piano, touching the keys. "Ready?"
He smiled. "Play.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“You will be lonely, but you'll become strong.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“She tried to imagine her former self. Enemy. Prisoner. Friend? Daughter. Spy. Prisoner again. “What am I now?”
Sarsine held both of Kestrel’s hands. “What ever you want to be.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“You could offer her a seat,” Arin said.

“Ah, but I have only two chairs in my tent, little Herrani, and we are three. I suppose she could always sit on your lap.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“I told her that I belong to you, and no other.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“If I die, you'll survive. If you die, it will destroy me.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“He didn’t smile. He cupped her face with both hands. An emotion tugged at his expression, a dark awe, the kind saved for a wild storm that rends the sky but doesn’t ravage your existence, doesn’t destroy every thing you love. The one that lets you feel saved.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“She had done everything she could. And he didn't even know.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“He'd believed it. She couldn't believe that he believed it. Sometimes, she hated him for that.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“It was an old Herrani flag, stitched with the royal crest.

Arin said, "But the royal line is gone."

"They're looking for something to call you, Kestrel said, nudging Javelin forward.

"Not this. It's not right."

"Don't worry. They'll find the right words to describe you."

"And you."

"Oh, that's easy."

"It is?" It seemed impossible to name every thing she was to him.

Kestrel's expression was serious, luminous. He loved to see her like this. "They'll say that I'm yours," she told him, "just as you are mine.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“She would never give him her dagger. “I tried so hard to live in your world,” she told him. “Now it’s your turn to live in mine.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“She pressed her face into the pillow. His scent was there. She was stupid to have come, yet didn’t have the strength to leave.
The ghost of him between the sheets. The shadow of her old self curled into the shadow of him.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“It was the horror of someone who'd been dealt a winning hand, had bet her life on the game, and then proceeded (deliberately?) to lose.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“She said, I'm going to miss you when you when I wake up.
Don't wake up, he answered.
But he did.
Kestrel, beside him on the grass, said. "Did I wake you? I didn't mean to."
It took him a velvety moment to understand that this was real. The air was quiet. An insect beat it's clear wings. She brushed hair from his brow. Now he was very awake.
"You were sleeping so sweetly," she said.
"Dreaming" He touched her tender mouth.
"About what?"
"Come closer, and I will tell you."
But he forgot. He kissed her, and became lost in the exquisite sensation of his skin becoming too tight for his body. He murmured other things instead. A secret, a want, a promise. A story, in its own way.
She curled her fingers into the green earth”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“Kestrel thought that maybe she had been wrong, and Risha had been wrong, about forgiveness, that it was neither mud nor stone, but resembled more the drifting white spores. They came loose from the trees when they were ready. Soft to the touch, but made to be let go, so that they could find a place to plant and grow.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“Later, Kestrel wished she had spoken then, that no time had been lost. She wished that she’d had the courage that very moment to tell Arin what she’d finally known to be true: that she loved him with the whole of her heart.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“Kestrel felt a slow, slight throb, a shimmer in the blood. She knew it well.
Her worst trait. Her best trait.
The desire to come out on top, to set her opponent under her thumb.
A streak of pride. Her mind ringed with hungry rows of foxlike teeth.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“Go away, little ghost. Go haunt someone else.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“He hadn’t been blessed by the god of death.
Arin was the god.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“I have a confession,” he said. “Sometimes I offend on purpose. It’s like my smile.”
“That’s not an apology.”
“Princes don’t apologize.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“I told you everything I know", said the messenger. Arin had gone to his childhood suite, feeling anxiety verging on panic at the thought of not finding the man there, of having to track him down, of time lost…but the man had opened the outermost door almost immediately after Arin’s pounding knock.
"I didn’t ask you the right questions,“ Arin said. "I want to start again. You said that the prisoner reached trough the bars of the wagon to give you the moth.”
“Yes”
“And you couldn’t really see her.”
“That’s right.”
“But you said she was Herrani. Why would you say that if you couldn’t see her?”
“Because she spoke in Herrani.”
“Perfectly.”
“Yes.”
“No accent.”
“No.”
“Describe the hand.”
“I’m not sure…”
“Start with the skin. You said it was paler than yours, than mine.”
“Yes, like a house slave’s.”
Which wasn’t very different from a Valorian’s. “Could you see her wrist, her arm?”
“The wrist, yes, now that you mention it. She was in chains. I saw the manacle.”
“Did you see the sleeve of a dress?”
“Maybe. Blue?”
Dread churned inside Arin. “You think or you know?”
“I don’t know. Things happened too fast.”
“Please. This is important.”
“I don’t want to say something I’m not sure is true.”
“All right, all right. Was this her right hand or her left?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you tell me anything about it? Did she wear a seal ring?”
“Not that I saw, but –”
“Yes?"
"She had a birthmark. On the hand, near the thumb. It looked like a little black star.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“The reason you enjoy my company is because I look like how you feel.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“When Roshar saw her ripped, one-legged trousers and Arin at her side as they stood outside the prince’s tent, his eyes glinted with mirth and Kestrel felt quite sure that the prince was going to say it was about time Arin tore her clothes off. Then Roshar might comment coyly on Arin’s inability to reach a full conclusion (Only one trouser leg? she imagined Roshar saying. How lazy of you, Arin), or on the quaint quality of Arin’s modesty (What a little lamb you are). Perhaps he’d offer condolences to Kestrel on the partial death of her trousers. He’d ask whether she’d gotten injured on purpose.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

“She'd betrayed her country because she'd believed it was the right thing to do. Yet would she have done this, if not for Arin?
He knew none of it. Had never asked for it. Kestrel had made her own choices. It was unfair to blame him.
But she wanted to.”
― Marie Rutkoski, quote from The Winner's Kiss

About the author

Popular quotes

“A man will believe anything that does not cost him anything,” said”
― Gary Jennings, quote from The Journeyer

“Puzzles forced me to look at something from several angles before I moved on, to look again, and again, and possibly again because each piece—no matter how small or seemingly insignificant—was critical to the whole.”
― Charles Martin, quote from When Crickets Cry

“I get caught up in outcomes. I convince myself they're truths. No one will notice how wrong you are if everything you do ends up right. The rest becomes incidental. So incidental that, after a while, you forget. Maybe you are perfect. Good. It must be true. Who can argue with results? You're not so wrong after all. So you buy into it and you go crazy maintaining it. Except it creeps up on you sometimes, that you're not right. Imperfect. Bad. So you snap your fingers and it goes away.
Until something you can't ignore happens and you see it all over yourself.
And there's only one thing left to do.”
― Courtney Summers, quote from Cracked Up to Be

“Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attibutable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from A History of Western Philosophy

“Calf-deep in the soothing water I indulge myself in the wishful vision. I am not unaware of what such daydreams signify, dreams of becoming an unthinking savage, of taking the cold road back to the capital, of groping my way out to the ruins in the desert, of returning to the confinement of my cell, of seeking out the barbarians and offering myself to them to use as they wish. Without exception they are dreams of ends: dreams not of how to live but of how to die. And everyone, I know, in that walled town sinking now into darkness (I hear the two thin trumpet calls that announce the closing of the gates) is similarly preoccupied. What has made it impossible for us to live in time like fish in the water, like birds in air, like children? It is the fault of Empire! Empire has created the time of history. Empire has located its existence not in the smooth recurrent spinning time of the cycle of the seasons but in the jagged time of rise and fall, of beginning and end, of catastrophe. Empire dooms itself to live in history and plot against history. One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation. A mad vision yet a virulent one: I, wading in the ooze, am no less infected with it than the faithful Colonel Joll as he tracks the enemies of Empire through the boundless desert, sword unsheathed to cut down barbarian after barbarian until at last he finds and slays the one whose destiny it should be (or if not his then his son's or unborn grandson's) to climb the bronze gateway to the Summer Palace and topple the globe surmounted by the tiger rampant that symbolizes eternal domination, while his comrades below cheer and fire their muskets in the air.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Waiting for the Barbarians

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.