Quotes from White Cat

“Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Once someone's hurt you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you from wanting them.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“We are, largely, who we remember ourselves to be. That's why habits are so hard to break. If we know ourselves to be liars, we expect not to tell the truth. If we think of ourselves as honest, we try harder.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“She says that what you did was a cry for help."

"It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“I can't trust the people I care about not to hurt me. And I'm not sure I can trust myself not to hurt them, either.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“He's the kind of liar who totally forgets what he told you the last time, but he believes every single lie with such conviction that sometimes he can convince you of it.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“And if I wanted to kill myself, I wouldn't throw myself off a roof. And if I was going to throw myself off a roof, I would put on some pants before I did it.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Pet the cat dude," says Sam. "She brought you a present. She wants you to tell her how badass she is."


"You are a tiny tiny killing machine." Daneca coos.


"What's she doing?" I ask.


"Purring!" says Daneca. She sounds delighted. "Good kitty. Who's an amazing killing machine? That's right. You are! You are a brutal brutal tiny lion! Yes, you are.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Flattery will get you everywhere," Sam says, "Except, apparently, off a roof.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“You have a real talent for getting your ass kicked.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Marks forget that whenever something's too good to be true, that's because it's a con.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don't even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I'm going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn't involve dying.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“To remind me, pain is the best teacher”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“I need to talk to you. I had a weird dream."
"Let me guess. You got tied up by lady ninjas. With big hooters."
"Uh, no." I take a sip of coffee and wince. It was ridiculously strong.
My grandfather shoves a strip of bacon in his mouth with a grin. "Guess it would have been kind of weird if we'd had the same dream."
I roll my eyes. "Well, you'd better not tell me anything else. Don't ruin the surprise in case I have it tonight.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“I have to spring a cat out of Rumelt Animal Shelter. Think of it as a prison break."

It does the trick. He laughs. "Whose cat?"

"My cat. What do you think? That I break out the cats of strangers?"

"Let me guess, she was framed. She's innocent.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Memory is slippery. It bends to our understanding of the world, twists to accommodate our prejudices. It is unreliable. Witnesses seldom remember the same things. They identify the wrong people. They give us the details of events that never happened. Memory is slippery, but my memories suddenly feel slipperier.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“We have about three hours of homework a night, and our evening study period is only two hours, so if you want to spend the break at half-past-nine not freaking out, you have to cram. I'm not sure that the picture of the wide-eyed zombie girl biting out the brains of senior douchebag James Page is part of Sam's homework, bit if it is, his physics teacher is awesome.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Okay. how about that time when you smoked all that weed that you thought was laced with something? You fell into the tub, but you refused to get out because you were convinced that the back of your head was going to fall off?

"That third story happened to a guy named Jace in my dorm. Me and Sam and another guy in our hall took turns reading "Paradise Lost" through the locked door. I think it made him more paranoid, though."
"That's not true," he says.
"Well, he *seemed* more paranoid to me," I say. "And he still gets a little weired out when any one mentions angels.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“You better get over here with my car,” Grandad says. “Before I call the cops and tell them you stole it.”
“Sorry,” I say contritely. Then the rest of what he said sinks in and I laugh.
“Wait, did you just threaten me with calling the police? Because that I’d like to
see.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Someone could cut through the mess in our house and look at it like one might look at rings on a tree or layers of sediment. They'd find the black-and-white hairs of a dog we had when I was six, the acid-washed jeans my mother once wore, the seven blood-soaked pillowcases from the time I skinned my knee. All our family secrets rest in endless piles.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“We are, largely, who we remember ourselves to be”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“On the way out to the car, Philip turns to me.
“How could you be so stupid?
I shrug, stung in spite of myself.
“I thought I grew out of it.”
Philip pulls out his key fob and presses the remote to unlock his Mercedes. I slide into the passenger side, brushing coffee cups off the seat and onto the floor mat, where crumpled printouts from MapQuest soak up any spilled liquid.
“I hope you mean sleepwalking,” Philip says, “since you obviously didn’t grow out of stupid.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Greg stands up, wiping his mouth. "I saw your mother's trial in the paper, Sharpe. I know you're just like her."

"If I was, I would make you beg to blow me," I sneer.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Like a stage magician, the con artist misdirects suspicion. While everyone’s watching for him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he’s actually sawing a girl in half. You think he’s doing one trick when he’s actually doing another.

You think that I’m dying, but I’m laughing at you.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“Lie until even you believe it - that's the real secret of lying”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

“It’s sweet. All this trouble for a kitty.”
― Holly Black, quote from White Cat

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“Up there we see everything, Oakland to the left, El Cerrito and Richmond to the right, Marin forward, over the Bay, Berkeley below, all red rooftops and trees of cauliflower and columbine, shaped like rockets and explosions, all those people below us, with humbler views; we see the Bay Bridge, clunkety, the Richmond Bridge, straight, low, the Golden Gate, red toothpicks and string, the blue between, the blue above, the gleaming white Land of the Lost/Superman's North Pole Getaway magic crystals that are San Francisco.”
― Dave Eggers, quote from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blixen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
― Clement C. Moore, quote from The Night Before Christmas

“All I want, is for you to love me. Not because of what I can do or what I look like, or because I love you - just because I am.”
― Diana Gabaldon, quote from A Breath of Snow and Ashes

“We lay on the ground and kissed. Perhaps you smile. That we only lay on the ground and kissed. You young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we could not. But remember that you have paid a price: that of a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion. It is not only species of animal that die out. But whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know. But pity yourself for what it did.”
― John Fowles, quote from The Magus

“All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.”
― Thomas Pynchon, quote from Gravity's Rainbow

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