Quotes from This Savage Song

Victoria Schwab ·  464 pages

Rating: (33.3K votes)


“I mean, most people want to escape. Get out of their heads. Out of their lives. Stories are the easiest way to do that.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“The beautiful thing about books was that anyone could open them.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“It was a cruel trick of the universe, thought August, that he only felt human after doing something monstrous.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“Monsters, monsters, big and small,
"They're gonna come and eat you all.
Corsai, Corsai, tooth and claw,
Shadow and bone will eat you raw.
Malchai, Malchai, sharp and sly,
Smile and bite and drink you dry.
Sunai, Sunai, eyes like coal,
Sing you a song and steal your soul.
Monsters, monsters, big and small,
They're gonna come and eat you all!”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“You wanted to feel alive, right? It doesn't matter if you're monster or human. Living hurts.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song



“He wasn't made of flesh and bone, or starlight.
He was made of darkness.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“She cracked a smile. "So what's your poison?"
He sighed dramatically, and let the truth tumble off his tongue. "Life."
"Ah," she said ruefully. "That'll kill you.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“We are the darkest acts made light.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“Nobody gets to stay the same.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“He could be the monster if it kept others human.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song



“Why did everyone have to ruin the quiet by asking questions? The truth was a disastrous thing.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“People are users. It’s a universal truth. Use them, or they’ll use you.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“I read somewhere," said Kate, "that people are made of stardust."

He dragged his eyes from the sky. "Really?"

"Maybe that's what you're made of. Just like us."

And despite everything, August smiled.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“But the teacher had been right about one thing: violence breeds.
Someone pulls a trigger, sets off a bomb, drives a bus full of tourists off a bridge, and what's left in the wake isn't just she'll casings, wreckage, bodies. There's something else. Something bad. An aftermath. A recoil. A reaction to all that anger and pain and death.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
In with gunfire and out with smoke.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song



“It hurts,” he whispered.
“What does?” asked Kate.
“Being. Not being. Giving in. Holding out. No matter what I do, it hurts.” Kate tipped her head back against the tub. “That’s life, August,” she said. “You wanted to feel alive, right? It doesn’t matter if you’re monster or human. Living hurts.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“Sing you a song and steal your soul.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“Even if surviving wasn't simple, or easy, or fair.
Even if he could never be human.
He wanted the chance to matter.
He wanted to live.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“I'd rather be able to see the truth than live a lie.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“It was a cycle of whimpers and bangs, gruesome beginnings and bloody ends.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song



“Whatever he was made of — stardust or ash or life or death — would be gone.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
In with gunfire and out with smoke.
And August wasn’t ready to die.
Even if surviving wasn’t simple, or easy, or fair.
Even if he could never be human.
He wanted the chance to matter.
He wanted to live.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights,” she said, shimmying along the edge.
“Not heights,” he murmured. “Just falling.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“Why are there so many shadows in the world, Kate? Shouldn’t there be just as much light?”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“There are no monsters in the dark.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“Listen to me,” he said, pulling off his coat. “You need to stay awake.”
She almost laughed, a shallow chuckle cut short by pain.
He tore the lining from the Colton jacket. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re a really shitty monster, August Flynn.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song



“He shrugged, and for a second they stood there, sizing each other up, the moment stretching, the gaze growing uncomfortable until his gray eyes finally broke free, escaping to the ground. Kate smiled, victorious. She gestured to the patch of pavement, the border of grass. “What brings you to my office?”

He looked around, confused, as if he’d actually intruded. Then he looked up and said, “The view.”

Kate flashed a crooked grin. “Oh really?”

His face went red. “I didn’t mean you,” he said quickly. “I was talking about the trees.”

“Wow,” she said dryly. “Thanks. How am I supposed to compete with pine and oak?”

“I don’t know,” said Freddie, cocking his head. Stray dog again. “They’re pretty great.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“I am Sunai,” he said. “I am holy fire. And if I have to burn the world to cleanse it, so help me, I will.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“The witching hour, people used to call it, that dark time when restless spirits reached for freedom.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


“There would be a time to call the music. Time to summon the souls.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from This Savage Song


About the author

Victoria Schwab
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Popular quotes

“Znate Manderse, ja gotovo verujem da smo svi mi aveti. Ne kreće se u nama samo ono što smo nasledili od oca i majke. To su i svi mogući i stari i mrtvi nazori, svakakva stara i mrtva verovanja itd. To ne živi u nama, ali nam leži u krvi i ne možemo ga se osloboditi. Kad god uzmem novine u ruke i čitam ih, čini mi se kao da se aveti šunjaju između redova. Mora da svuda na zemlji žive aveti. Mora da ih im toliko mnogo, koliko i peska u moru. I zato se svi mi tako bedno plašimo svetla, svi redom.

Aveti”
― Henrik Ibsen, quote from Ghosts


“I felt tears coming and for some reason, buried my head in Iain’s chest. It was firm and muscled and he smelt so wonderful.
I realised what I was doing and pulled away, but a big string of snot hung between my nose and his shirt pocket.”
― Robert Bryndza, quote from The Not So Secret Emails Of Coco Pinchard


“For a moment, I felt a pang of envy. I remembered those few drifting years after college, taking off alone with a backpack to explore the world. I thought I was playing a dare with life then, challenging my limits, but I was scared most of the time and wept for no clear reason in dingy hostel rooms across Europe and Central America. But the years had worked their magic, and that scared girl I had been in that remote place in time had dissolved into infinite invisible threads, so thin and delicate that I could almost touch her and then lose her the next minute. Now, almost two decades later, it felt as though she had reappeared, still uncertain, still afraid. Katie”
― Suki Kim, quote from Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite


“The more she studied, the harder it became to speak or know anything with certainty.”
― Chris Kraus, quote from I Love Dick


“If I know Mom,' she said, 'she'd have refused any surgery anyhow.'

'It's true,' Amanda said. 'Her advance directive basically asked us to put her out on an ice floe if she developed so much as a hangnail.”
― Anne Tyler, quote from A Spool of Blue Thread


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