Seanan McGuire Quotes

There's nothing wrong with having a few monsters in the shadows. They keep me remembering what it is that I'm walking away from.

Then I stay beside you for as long as we have." He kept stroking my hair. Cats like to be petted. Cait Sidhe like to pet. "October, I meant it when I told you I was not leaving you. I will never leave you while both of us are living. You were not quite this human when I met you, and you were far less human when I finally allowed myself to love you. But the essential core of your being has remained the same no matter what the balance of your blood."
"How is it that you always know the exact right stupid romance novel thing to say?" I asked, leaning up to kiss him.
He smiled against my lips. When I pulled back, he said. "I was a student of Shakespeare before the romance novel was even dreamt. Be glad I do not leave you horrible poetry on your pillow, wrapped securely around the bodies of dead rats.

I wish you'd stop saying that."
"I wish I had a pony." Marcy gave her socks one last adjustment and strode out of the changing room, leaving me alone with Carol.
"You'd probably eat the pony.

Any man who doesn't believe in carrying weapons on a first date is not a man worth knowing.

You'd challenge me and lose. You know it, I know it, but you'd still do it. Sometimes your sense of honor confuses the hell out of me.

I like existing. I'm not ready to unexist just because of stupid causality. I didn't invite stupid causality to my birthday party, so it doesn't get to give me any presents.

I revised my earlier thought about the risks of dancing. I was looking at a sprained ankle, a few pulled muscles, and maybe a homicide charge if Sasha didn't relax before the end of the rehearsal.

It is so often easy, when one has the luxury of being sure a thing will never happen, to be equally sure of one's answers.

Magic doesn't have to be flashy and huge. Sometimes it's the subtle things that are the most effective of all.

There's something remarkably artificial about a certain type of bureaucratic sterility, like even it can't make up its mind whether or not it actually exists.

We went down, and at the bottom there was a door, and on the door there was a sign. Two words. BE SURE. Sure of what? We were twelve, we weren't sure of anything.

Q: There's this talking frog that says he's a prince. What are the repercussions of cooking it for dinner?
A: There are none. Make sure you bread the whole frog evenly.

You know, just once, I'd like my life to be all about spending Sunday afternoon in my pajamas,

A valet pulled up in a sleek-lined sports car painted that particular shade of red peculiar to expensive vehicles and hookers' lipstick.

I would greatly prefer it if you didn't put a bullet into my brain; it would complicate my plans for life, most of which involve not being dead.

Momma's going to commit a murder today," she said conversationally, tucking her bundled clothing up under her arm as she started for the door. "That's right. I'm going to find whoever woke me up, and I'm going to rip out their heart and show it to them before they have a chance to finish dropping dead. Won't that be nice, sweetie? Won't that be nice and bloody?

Nothing lasts forever. That's the tragedy and the miracle of existence - that everything is impermanent. Everything changes. All we can do is make the best of the time we have. And go down shooting, naturally.

The humans aren't stupid, no matter what the purebloods say; they're just blind, and sometimes, that's worse. They put their fear in stories and songs, where they won't forget it. "Up the airy mountains and down the rushy glen, I dare not go a-hunting for fear of little men." We've given them plenty of reasons to fear us. Even if they've almost forgotten - even if they only remember that we were beautiful and not why they were afraid - the fear was there before anything else. There were reasons for the burning times; there's a reason the fairy tales survive. And there's a reason the human world doesn't want to see the old days come again.

Where do they come from?" In those days, her every word was gospel truth, and I would have asked anything to keep her talking to me.
"Tears. The first time Oberon left Maeve for her pretty sister, she didn't understand, and she nearly died of sorrow.

What was the point of hide-and-seek if you weren't allowed to dig pit traps or attack your opponents from behind? That

Have to go see the official housing, but I should be able to sneak out after sunset. Meet you back at our usual spot?" "Ah, yes; I'd missed this phase in our relationship. The intrigue. The subterfuge. The frequent need for tetanus shots." Dominic

Jan built herself an ivory tower to keep the wolves out; she never dreamed they were already inside.

That's the nice thing about insanity: evil people kill you, but crazy ones try to make you understand.

She was ordinary. She was remarkable. Of such commonplace contradictions are weapons made.

The mythology warped and twisted back along itself until Buffy Summers, the girl who once railed against the unfairness of being Chosen, looked at a squadron of girls who were just like she'd been and took away their right to Choose.

You think cold pizza is a breakfast food," I said. "Only if you put Captain Crunch on it," she replied. There was a moment of silence as all of us considered this.

I've never met anyone who was considered fully grown by their original society before they found their first door.

Change sucks. No one's going to argue about that. Change is hard and painful and sometimes we wind up losing things we wanted to keep forever.

A lady is never truly embarrassed. And if she is, a lady is never gauche enough to leave survivors.

Because the air had smelled so sweet, and the sky had been black velvet, spangled with points of diamond light that didn't flicker at all, only burned constant and cold. Because the grass had been wet with dew, and the trees had been heavy with fruit. Because she had wanted to know what was at the end of the long path between the trees, and because she hadn't wanted to turn back before she understood everything. Because for the first time in forever, she'd felt like she was going home, and that feeling had been enough to move her feet, slowly at first, and then faster, and faster, until she had been running through the clean night air, and nothing else mattered, or would ever matter again.

I've always thought of joggers as being sort of like Blind Michael and his crew: deserving of respect, but slightly psychotic. Who in their right minds would want to get out of bed and run around in their underwear before noon?

Don't underestimate him just because he's a fool,

He sounded less sad than simply resigned. This was the way he had always expected the world to go; snatching joy out of his hands for the sheer sake of doing it, and not because he, personally, had done anything to earn the loss.

I turned, hiking my coat up around my chin. Anyone who looked closely would be able to see that something wasn't right, but the alley was dark and narrow, and frankly, the sort of person you meet in dark alleyways at dawn is looking for things besides pointed ears.​

Roller coasters are like math you can ride.

Did I ever tell you what came between your mother's heart and mine?"
"I don't think this is the time
"
"Your friend would disagree," she said, almost playfully, her attention darting to Tybalt. Focusing in me again, she said, "He all but burns with what he doesn't say to you, and my time is mine to spend.

She's more of a 'standing really still and hoping nothing eats her' sort of girl.

I really don't think you should put your hand inside the manticore, dear. You don't know where it's been. - Enid Healy

True power wasn't convincing a cowardly lot to be afraid of something that people were already afraid of; it was giving them a complex that made them run screaming when a fluffy kitten came bounding into the room.

Did you find anything?"
"Nothing of interest. People fleeing. Poorly trained guards unable to believe an attack would occur within a royal knowe, thus proving that they possess an insufficient grasp of historical fact.

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Some questions are okay. You can't have people without questions. People are too curious for that, they'd get all gummed up and stop working right if you didn't let them have questions once in a while. But there's a big difference between asking for things and only asking. 'Do you think there will be grapes sometime this week' isn't the same as 'can I have some of those grapes.' Do you understand?

I looked to Demi. "Save him," I said, half command, half plea. She nodded. "I will," she said, and started playing again. This

Protecting the human race should really come with a per diem, I swear.

You dead, or I need to hit you again? You know what, fuck it. I'm just going to hit you again.

She was Katherine, she was the teacher's pet, and when she grew up, she was going to be a librarian, because she couldn't imagine knowing there was a job that was all about books and not wanting to do it.

Hey!" I turned, crossing my arms and glaring. "I was talking to him!"
Tybalt eyed me with amusement, which just made me glare harder. "No, you were inciting him to stab you with a toothpick. Again, the difference is small, but I think it matters.

You had years of medical knowledge behind you, scores of experts beside you, and still you chose to run like dumb animals, useless and panicked, to infect the world that you were so sure existed to obey you.

It's just so beautiful," said Lyra, miming wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "Our little Valerie's learning how to play nicely with the other children." "I will kill you all in your sleep," I said. Lyra was still laughing when the town car arrived.

My name is October Christine Daye; I live in a city by the sea where the fog paints the early morning, parking is more precious than gold, and Kelpies wait for the unwary on street corners. Neither of the worlds I live in is quite mine, but no one can take them away from me. I did what had to be done, and I think I may finally be starting to understand what's important. It's all about finding the way home, wherever that is. I plan on finding out.
I have time.

Sometimes I wonder if it's because you spent so long lost that you must insist on bringing every lost thing home.

If I were to make a list of shit that is so clearly a terrible idea that I shouldn't have to explain to people why I'm not going to do it, walking into the hedge maze behind a mansion full of dead bodies would have been right up there. Not top 5 maybe, but high enough that I wouldn't have expected people to make me do it.

We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women.

Expectations are dangerous things. They've probably killed more people than any creature or cryptid you care to name.

He was still so very young. Faeries - true faeries, not their changeling throwaways - live forever, and when you have an eternity of adulthood ahead of you, you linger over childhood. You tend it and keep it close to your heart, because once it ends, it's over. Quentin was barely fifteen. He'd never seen the Great Hunt that came down every twenty-one years, or been present for the crowning of a King or Queen of Cats, or announced his maturity before the throne of High King Aethlin. He was a child, and he should have had decades left to play; a century of games and joy and edging cautiously toward adulthood.
But he didn't. I could see his childhood dying in his eyes as he looked at me, silently begging me to answer for him.

Asexual" and "aromantic" were different things. She liked holding hands and trading kisses. She'd had several boyfriends in elementary school, just like most of the other girls, and she had always found those practice relationships completely satisfying. It wasn't until puberty had come along and changed the rules that she'd started pulling away in confusion and disinterest.

When children see a story left unfinished, they tend not to ask what happened to leave it in that state: They rush, instead, to finish it.

I was blessed with suck in the form of the traditional Snow White coloring: skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as coal. In the cartoons and the storybooks, they make it look almost cute. Of course, when artists and animators design a Snow White, they essentially give their incarnation of my story a spray tan and some neutral lip liner. A true seven-oh-nine was nowhere near as marketable as those animated darlings. We're too pale, and our lips are too red, and we look like something out of a horror movie that didn't have the decency to stay on the screen.

Let's go commit some senseless acts of science.

Sloane slipped into the room the way a knife slips into a wound: silently, and with the potential to do a lot of damage to anything that happened to get in her way.

I have a talent for complicating situations, I said.

It was like Rhys had ordered the whole thing from Castles R Us, and then never bothered to swing by the local Bed, Battlements, and Beyond for the accessories he'd need to make it believable.

I wouldn't," said the Luidaeg. "Love is love. It's rarer in Faerie than it used to be - rarer than it should be, if you ask me. If you can find it, you should cling to it, and never let anything interfere. Besides, he has a nice ass." Her lips quirked in a weirdly mischievous smile. "I mean, damn. Some people shouldn't be allowed to wear leather pants. He's one of them. He's a clear and present danger when he puts those things on. Or takes them off.

When I was getting ready for the release of 'Deadline,' when it was coming out soon, I decided that the appropriate way to get people excited about the book would be to write a novella in 30 pieces and publish a piece on my blog every day for a month ... during a convention, a week-and-a-half-long trip to New York, and a doll traders' expo.

Now, if you will excuse me, a dead woman is trying to convince me to drink something that comes in layers.

Do you know how long I've been telling myself you hated me? Or how hard it's been to keep believing it? You'd do things, these amazing, insane things, like stealing me back from Blind Michael or breaking me out of jail, and I'd say, 'Oh, he just wants to pay his debts,' or, 'Oh, who knows what a cat is thinking?'" My voice broke a little on the last word. Dammit.

Tybalt's eyes widened, hope kindling in their depths. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying - oak and ash, Tybalt, I'm saying I'm in love with you, I've been in love with you for a while, and the only way I was dealing with it was by not dealing with it, ever." I shook my head. "I knew I'd never have you, so I told myself I didn't want you, and if you don't really want me, if you want some idea of me, or just want to chase and not catch, I'll understand, but this has been a hard week, Tybalt, this has been such a hard week. I've been waiting for you to come here, because I need you to tell me. Okay? Just tell me what you want."

"Oh, October. Toby. My Toby." He pulled one hand from mine, reaching up to tuck my hair behind my ear. His fingers were shaking. That was what I focused on, more than anything else. His fingers were shaking. "Do you think I'm cruel enough to do that to you?"

I sniffled. "No," I admitted.

"Thank Oberon," he said, and pulled me close, and kissed me.

I do a lot of urban fantasy, which is modern-day cities, but you've got magic, you've got fairies running around, or cryptozoological creatures running around, and I'm pulling very heavily on my background as a folklore major and having done some animation work and all of that, and I'm pulling from the modern fairy tale narrative.

I have a swizzle stick shaped like a little monkey," announced Rose. "Let's help the dead man with his problem.

If you didn't think I knew what I know, why are you telling me what you think I didn't know but might have come here looking to find out?" Shelby paused. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure even I understand what I just said.

She considers pit traps and high explosives the appropriate solution to almost every problem.

Sometimes you need to take peoples' minds of their problems if you want those problems to resolve themselves," said Marcia. "Focusing on things can make them worse."
"Not all problems go away if you ignore them. Most don't."
"No, but not all problems can be fixed. Sometimes you have to wait until the situation changes.

Have we reached the point where my intervention will not get me shouted at for being a meddling tomcat who doesn't respect the boundaries of others?" Tybalt stepped out of the shadows behind the Candela, tightening his hand around her throat. "I ask to be polite, you realize. There's no way I'm walking away.

It made sense the same way everything in Faerie does: sideways and upside down, like looking in an underwater mirror.

The Luidaeg sighed and put her arms around me, pulling me close. "Come here," she said. "I need to hold someone, and you need to be held. It's a fair trade. Just for a little while, and then we can go on being what we are." I thought about objecting, but dismissed the idea and nestled against her, enjoying the feeling of security given by knowing someone bigger and stronger than I was would stop anything from hurting me. That's all childhood is, after all: strong arms to hold back the dark, a story to keep the shadows dancing, and a candle to mark the long journey into day. A song to keep the flights of angels at bay. How many miles to Babylon? Sorry. I don't care.

When in doubt, play dead. Well, unless you might be dealing with a ghoul, or a basilisk, or something else that likes its meat a little ripe. Actually, when in doubt, just start shooting. - Alice Healy

Love doesn't care what you want. Love doesn't care if it's convenient. Love pursues its own agenda, and there's no bullet in the world that can take it down. More's the pity.

I visit her grave as often as I can. I leave bouquets of rosemary and rue, and I tell her that I'm sorry, and I promise her that next time I'll do better. Next time someone makes me a hero, I'll save them.

Some people live where they work. Others just visit.​

You're not tall, but you walk like you are.

Every inch of ground on this planet is a palimpsest, scraped clean and overwritten a million times, leaving behind just as many ghosts.

Actually, yes, I would say something like 'there may be bears here.' Bears are not a pleasant surprise for most people.

Because they're the wrong colors, right? Somebody else's rainbow.

My dear October, we are bound by an enchanted rose made from the hair of a Duchess, and my blood is covering your hand. You can learn anything you wish to know about me merely by licking you fingers." Tybalt laughed a little. "Yes, you may ask me a question.

(Technically, that meant the roof wasn't accessible, since most people don't view "climbing straight up the side of the building" as an option. Most people are silly.)

Sumi was just explaining how you're the most boring cardboard parody of a girl ever to walk this world or any other, and we should all feel sorry for you," said one of the strangers, adjusting her glasses as she turned to look at Nancy. "That makes you sound like my kind of person. Please, sit, and relieve some of the tedium of our table.

There are a lot of issues with the three-tens," I said. "First off, a lot of the time, the poor kids who wind up cast as 'princes' get thrown out of second-story windows and permanently maimed. There have been reports of Rapunzels who sunk so deep into their stories that they actually could cure blindness with their tears, but we haven't had one of those in years, and it's not company policy to let unmonitored memetic incursions progress to that level.

You're nobody's doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you.

These are friendly people," I said, bending to begin work on his ankles. "Remind me to hit them a lot if I get the chance.

Telepaths have ethics?' Dominic's eyes narrowed, tone and posture united to convey disbelief.
'My mother and I do, said Sarah, letting her head settle against the back of the chair. 'We mostly got them from Babylon 5, but they still work.

My brother went for guns, more guns, bigger guns, and, also, guns.

The bedroom was as opulently decorated as the front room, with a bed large enough to hold six, and a wardrobe that should by all rights have contained a doorway to Narnia, or at least the deeper lands of Faerie.

Love you can spend like currency isn't really love.

[...]when the world remembers what it is to have mercy on the longing and the lost.

Nobody promised me a happy ending. They didn't even promise me a happy existence.

So please, can we go and tell her to stop? I need to exist. It's important.

It's not hard to marginalize people when they've already done it to themselves.

Not fair," Quentin said. "She's the one insulting us, and she gets to walk away?" "Dramatic exits are the last refuge of the infantile personality," I said. "Now drink your soda and help me think of nasty names to call her next time she shows up.

Homecomer, hitcher, phantom rider,
White lady wants what's been denied her,
Gather-grim knows what you fear the most,
But best keep away from the crossroads ghost.

Talk to the poltergeist, talk to the haunt,
Talk to the routewitch if it's what you want.
Reaper's in the parlor, seizer's in a host,
But you'd best keep away from the crossroads ghost.

- common clapping rhyme among the ever-lasters of the twilight

If you offered me the chance to do it all over, knowing what I know now, after the things I've seen ... I'd shoot you in the head. That ain't the kind of thing you ask a lady. - Frances Brown

Humans have always preferred to live their lives​ by daylight. I used to think it was because human beings have crappy night vision, and it wasn't until I got older and more cynical that I realized it was because they have less to be afraid of during the day.

Why did you put spaghetti sauce into your cousin's drink?"
"Because I like it that way," said Sarah, taking the glass. "You have your chemical stimulants and I have mine, monkey.