Jem Quotes

I grew up singing professionally since I was 7 years old and so to get to play a character who's living out their Rock star dreams as JEM was pretty much epic. ~ Samantha Newark

But Cal," Jem protested, "you don't look even near as old as Atticus."
"Colored folks don't show their ages so fast," she said. ~ Harper Lee

A sort of good-bye without saying good-bye," he said. "It is a reference to a passage in the Bible. 'And Mizpah, for he said, the Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another. ~ Cassandra Clare

I shall see you on Blackfriars Bridge, Tessa. ~ Cassandra Clare

If you do not help me," Tessa said to Jem, "I swear, I will change into you, and I will lift him myself. And then everyone here will see what you look like in a dress." She fixed him with a look. "Do you understand? ~ Cassandra Clare

He pulled the Carstairs family ring from his finger and held it out to Will. "Take it."
Will let his eyes drift down toward it, and then up to Jem's face. A dozen awful things he could say, or do, went through his mind. One did not slough off a persona so quickly, he had found. He had pretended to be cruel for so many years that the pretense was still what he reached for first, as a man might absently turn his carriage toward the home he had lived in for all his life, despite the fact that he had recently moved. "You wish to marry me now?" he said, at last. ~ Cassandra Clare

Jem?" he said. 'It is you, James?'
'Who else?' Jem's voice. ~ Cassandra Clare

Right. But do you think I could face my children otherwise? You know what's going to happen as well as I do, Jack, and I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb's usual disease. Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand... I just hope that Jem and Scout come to me for their answers instead of listening to the town. I hope they trust me enough... Jean Louise?" My scalp jumped. I stuck my head around the corner. "Sir?" "Go to bed. ~ Harper Lee

Jem has always seen only the best in people. ~ Cassandra Clare

She had been half willing to sponge out what she had seen and heard, creep back to New York, and make him a memory. A memory of the three of them, Atticus, Jem, and her, when things were uncomplicated and people did not lie. ~ Harper Lee

A broad smile spread across Will's face. "Then we have no choice but to give our blessing too. Cordelia Carstairs," he said, "the Carstairs and the Herondales will be bonded even more closely now. If James could have chosen his wife from all the women in all the worlds that are or ever were, I would wish for no other."
Tessa laughed. "Will! You cannot compliment our new daughter only on the chance of her last name!"
Will was grinning like a boy. "Wait until I tell Jem - ~ Cassandra Clare

I believe in good and evil," said Jem. "And I believe the soul is eternal. But I don't believe in the fiery pit, the pitchforks, or endless torment. I do not believe you can threaten people into goodness."
Tessa looked at will. "What about you? What do you believe?
"Pulvis et umbra sumus," said Will, not looking at her as he spoke. "I believe we are dust and shadows. What else is there? ~ Cassandra Clare

If she lives, she shall be my wedded wife. If she dies
mother, I can't speak of what I shall feel if she dies. His voice was choked in his throat. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

If this thing's hushed up it'll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I've tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I'm a total failure as a parent, but I'm all they've got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.. if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn't meet his eye, and the day I can't do that I'll know I've lost him. I don't want to lose him and Scout, because they're all I've got. ~ Harper Lee

It ain't time to worry yet. I'll let you know when. ~ Harper Lee

He went to the table and picked up a football magazine, opened it, thumbed through it, and was thumbing through it again when he said: "Scout, if there's ever anything that happens to you or something - you know - something you might not want to tell Atticus about - " "Huh?" "You know, if you get in trouble at school or anything - you just let me know. I'll take care of you." Jem sauntered from the livingroom, leaving Jean Louise wide-eyed and wondering if she were fully awake. ~ Harper Lee

Will suspected Jem was in fact cleverer than he was himself - but he lacked Will's tendency to assume the absolute worst about people and proceed from there. ~ Cassandra Clare

Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.' Jem ~ Harper Lee

Brother Zachariah had no reason to support the Lightwoods, but everyone deserved a second chance if they wanted that chance enough.
And one of Robert Lightwood's ancestors had been a woman called Cecily Herondale. ~ Cassandra Clare

Well, your father and I decided it was time I came to stay with you for a while." "For a while" in Maycomb meant anything from three days to thirty years. Jem and I exchanged glances. "Jem's ~ Harper Lee

I don't know what to do," Will said. "Mortmain has taken Tessa, and I believe now I know where she might be. There is a part of me that wants nothing more than to go after her. But I cannot leave Jem. I swore an oath. And what if he wakes in the night and finds I am not here?" He looked as lost as a child. "He will think I left him willingly, not caring that he was dying. He will not know. And yet if he could speak, would he not tell me to go after Tessa? Is that not what he would want?" Will dropped his face into his hands. "I cannot say, and it is tearing me in half. ~ Cassandra Clare

Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the tree house; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill. ~ Harper Lee

Most human subjugates are young," said Will. "Vampires like to acquire their subjugates when they're youthful - prettier to look at, and less chance of diseased blood. And they'll live a bit longer, though not much." He looked pleased with himself. "Most of the rest of the Enclave wouldn't be able to pass convincingly as a handsome young human subjugate - "
"Because the rest of us all are hideous, are we?" Jem inquired, looking amused. ~ Cassandra Clare

Tessa was only half way down the corridor when they caught up to her -Will and Jem, walking on either side of her. "you didn't really think we weren't going to come along, did you?" Will asked, raising his hand and letting his witchlight fare up between his fingers, lighting the corridor to daylight brightness. Charlotte, hurrying along ahead of them, turned and frowned, but said nothing.
"I know you can't leave anything well alone," Tessa replied, looking straight ahead. "But I though better of Jem."
"Where Will goes, I go," Jem said good-naturedly. "And besides, I'm as curious as he is. ~ Cassandra Clare

I came to see that I could not bring someone home when they were already there. ~ Cassandra Clare

She knew she could not be Jem for Will. No one could. But slowly the hollow places in his heart were filling in. ~ Cassandra Clare

I would have given it up
all of it up
to be married to you for a day. A day that would never have come. You are a reminder
a reminder of everything I am losting. The Life I will not have. ~ Cassandra Clare

Jem, she's old and ill. You can't hold her responsible for what she says and does. ~ Harper Lee

What's a Hot Steam?" asked Dill. "Haven't you ever walked along a lonesome road at night and passed by a hot place?" Jem asked Dill. "A Hot Steam's somebody who can't get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads an' if you walk through him, when you die you'll be one too, an' you'll go around at night suckin' people's breath - " "How can you keep from passing through one?" "You can't," said Jem. "Sometimes they stretch all the way across the road, but if you hafta go through one you say, 'Angel-bright, life-in-death; get off the road, don't suck my breath.' That keeps 'em from wrapping around you - ~ Harper Lee

This was a voice that drew out memories stretched thin by years of recollection, like paper unfolded and refolded too many times. A voice that brought back, like a wave, the memory of another time on this bridge, a night so long ago, everything black and silver and the river rushing away under her feet ... ~ Cassandra Clare

A lady?' Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. 'After all those things she said about you, a lady?'
'She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe ... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her- I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew. ~ Harper Lee

Oh, I wish we had the old days back again," exclaimed Jem. "I'd love to be a soldier - a great, triumphant general. I'd give EVERYTHING to see a big battle." Well, ~ L.M. Montgomery

A great sadness welled up in Magnus at the sight of him. It was human to age and die, and Jem stood outside that humanity now, outside the light that burned so brightly and so briefly. It was cold outside that light and fire. No one had greater cause to know that cold than Magnus did. ~ Cassandra Clare

I forget sometimes I need to eat and drink now. ~ Cassandra Clare

With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable. ~ Harper Lee

Do not think I do not know that Cecily wants you to return home with her. And do not think I do not know that you remain for Jem's sake."
"And yours," he said before he could stop himself. ~ Cassandra Clare

Why did you take so much trouble with me today? I know how you hate to move out of that house." "Because you're my child. You and Jem were the children I never had. You two gave me something long ago, and I'm trying to pay my debts. You two helped me a - " "How, sir? ~ Harper Lee

Yes, she doesn't really look like either of us, does she? Perhaps she's a girl who's fallen madly in love with me and persists in following me wherever I go."
"My talent is shape-shifting, Will, not acting," said Tessa, and at that Jem laughed out loud. ~ Cassandra Clare

" But we are starting again, Jem. If I hadn't met you, it probably would have been dope and pills and smoking crack and shooting up junk. Prison. Hospitalization. That's how it would have been for me, but you saved me from that. It's going to be different for us now." ~ Rachel Ward

Atticus killed several birds with one stone when he read to his children, and would probably have caused a child psychologist considerable dismay: he read to Jem and Jean Louise whatever he happened to be reading, and the children grew up possessed of an obscure erudition. They cut their back teeth on military history, Bills to Be Enacted into Laws, True Detective Mysteries, The Code of Alabama, the Bible, and Palgrave's Golden Treasury. ~ Harper Lee

I am not going to live, and I can choose to be as much for her as I can be, to burn as brightly for her as I wish, and for a shorter time, than to burden her with someone only half-alive for a longer time. It is my choice, William, and you cannot make it for me. ~ Cassandra Clare

Wherever we are, we are as one ~ Cassandra Clare

So, are you going to tell me what I did to piss you off that year? Because I'm coming up totally blank."
I turn on him. "Seriously? You're coming up blank?"
"Why don't you help me out here?"
I just stare at him uncomprehendingly.
"C'mon, Jemma," he taunts. "Use your words."
I rise, my hands curled into fists by my sides. "Oh, I'll use my words all right, douchebucket. Remember the eighth-grade dance? Is that ringing any bells for you?"
He scratches his head, looking thoughtful for a moment. And then…"You mean the graduation dance? If I remember correctly, you didn't even show up."
"Is that what you think? That I didn't show up?" I almost want to laugh at the absurdity of it--Ryder trying to act like the injured party, as if I'd stood him up.
"You got a better explanation?" he asks.
"I shouldn't have to explain it to you. Jerk," I add under my breath. And then, "I'm going for a walk."
He rises, towering over me now. "So you're just going to storm off? Really, Jem?"
"Yes," I say, nodding furiously. "That's exactly what I'm going to do. How clever of you to figure it out."
I can feel Ryder's eyes boring a hole in my back as I flounce down the stairs and hurry down the drive with as much dignity as I can muster. ~ Kristi Cook

I can offer you my life, but it is a short life; I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many more beats it shall sustain ~ Cassandra Clare

If you have one foot in the past and the other in the future, you piss on the present. ~ Jem Lester

People in their right minds never take pride in their talents. ~ Harper Lee

Jem shook his head. "You bit de Quincey" he said. "You fool. He's a VAMPIRE"
"I had no choice" said Will " He was choking me"
"I know" Jem said. " But really Will, AGAIN? ~ Cassandra Clare

He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to Tessa's hair. Behind his lids he did not see darkness, but the light of a London morning and Will there, smiling at him. A new soul made of you and Tessa, Will said. I can hardly wait to meet such a paragon. "Do you see him, too?" Tessa whispered. "I see him," Jem said, and he held her even more tightly against him, the new life they had created together between them. ~ Cassandra Clare

I would rather insult you than lose you, he said, and before any of them could make a move to stop him, he cast both items into the fire. ~ Cassandra Clare

It's about Will. About Will, and me."
"He loves you," Jem said. "I know he loves you. We spoke of it before he left here." Though the coldness had not returned to his voice, he sounded suddenly almost unnaturally calm.
Tessa was shocked. "I didn't know you had ever talked of it with each other. Will did not say."
"Nor did you ever tell me of his feelings, though you knew for months. We all have our secrets that we keep because we do not want to hurt the people who love us." There was a sort of warning in his voice, or was she imagining it? ~ Cassandra Clare

Will began to straighten up, to turn away from the bed. And as he did, he felt something wrap tightly around his wrist. He glanced down and saw Jem's hand braceleting his own. For a moment he was too shocked to do anything but stare.
"I am not dead yet, Will," Jem said in a soft voice, thin but as strong as wire. "What did Magnus mean by asking you if I knew you were in love with Tessa? ~ Cassandra Clare

I promise to charm the dickens out of him,' said Will, sitting up and readjusting his crushed hat. 'I shall charm him with such force that when I am done, he will be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.'
'The man's eighty-nine', muttered Jem. 'He may well have the problem anyway. ~ Cassandra Clare

Will: 'Singing the praises of our fair city? We treat you well here, don't we, James? I doubt I'd have that kind of luck in Shanghai. What do you call us there again?'
Jem: 'Yang guizi ... foreign devils. ~ Cassandra Clare

I thought I would walk with you a little way, my parabatai. ~ Cassandra Clare

Though Will was saying earlier," Tessa added, "that heroes all come to bad ends, and he could not imagine why anyone would want to be one, anyway."
"Ah." Jem's hand squeezed hers briefly, and then let it go. "Well, Will is looking at it from the hero's viewpoint, isn't he? But as for the rest of us, it's an easy answer."
"Is it?"
"Of course." His voice was almost a whisper now. "Heroes endure because we need them. Not for their own sakes. If Will ... ~ Cassandra Clare

There must always be a first," said Jem. "It is not easy to be first, and it is not always rewarding, but it is important. ~ Cassandra Clare

She remembered what Jem, the ex-Silent Brother who'd helped preside over her parabatai ceremony, had said about what Julian was to her, that there was an expression for it in his native Chinese, zhi yin.
"The one who understands your music."
Emma couldn't play a note on any instrument , but Julian understood her music. ~ Cassandra Clare

Rage flared up in Tessa and she considered belting Woolsey with the poker whether he came near her or not. He had moved awfully quickly while fighting Will, though, and she didn't fancy her chances.
"You don't know James Carstairs. Don't speak about him."
"Love him, do you?" Woolsey managed to make it sound unpleasant. "But you love Will, too."
Tessa froze. She had known that Magnus knew of Will's affection for her, but the idea that what she felt for him in return was written across her face was too terrifying to contemplate. ~ Cassandra Clare

Dear Jem,
I finally have time for a real letter! I'm sorry about your ankle. If I invent a time machine, I will go back and trip whoever invented high heels for you. ~ Kate Willis

Dill was in hearty agreement with this plan of action. Dill was becoming something of a trail anyways, following Jem about ... He only grew closer to Jem. (Lee 55) ~ Harper Lee

Atticus had owned an old canvas-top touring car, and once when he was taking Jem, Henry, and Jean Louise swimming, the car rolled over a particularly bad hump in the road and deposited Jem without. ~ Harper Lee

When he was nearly thirty-six, my brother Jem got his heart badly broken when his fourth marriage fell apart, mostly because his wife never could get used to Boo, who lived with them and creeped her out by making little wooden dolls of her and putting them in the hollow tree out front. ~ Silas House

The spoils of vice are a burdensome responsibility. - Will
Yet one you seem strangely able to bear. - Jem ~ Cassandra Clare

Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, enter inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again. ~ Harper Lee

As metal rang on metal, some inner part of Jem, some part that had been lost without his even knowing it was lost, felt the pleasure of fighting together with Will one last time. ~ Cassandra Clare

Tessa craned her head back to look at Will. "You know that feeling," she said, "when you are reading a book, and you know that it is going to be a tragedy; you can feel the cold and darkness coming, see the net drawing tight around the characters who live and breathe on the pages. But you are tied to the story as if being dragged behind a carriage and you cannot let go or turn the course aside." His blue eyes were dark with understanding - of course Will would understand - and she hurried on. "I feel now as if the same is happening, only not to characters on a page but to my own beloved friends and companions. I do not want to sit by while tragedy comes for us. I would turn it aside, only I struggle to discover how that might be done."
"You fear for Jem," Will said.
"Yes," she said. "And I fear for you, too."
"No," Will said, hoarsely. "Don't waste that on me, Tess. ~ Cassandra Clare

I lived a long time," said Jem, "but I lived in a cage of bones and
silence, feeling my heart turn to ashes. ~ Cassandra Clare

I'd say that my musical influences are anywhere from pop-rock electronica, new age and classical. But I think that specifically, bands - I love Jem, I love Sigur Ross, I love David Gray, I love Elliot Smith ... a lot of different people. But I don't find lyrical inspiration from anybody. ~ Emmy Rossum

Tessa, he said. Even when I cannot see, you are so beautiful. ~ Cassandra Clare

Jem raised his hand, and his witchlight flared into life, frightening a group of blackbeetles. They scurried across the floor, causing Will to grimace. "Nice place to live, isn't it? Let's hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two ... "
"Indeed. Perhaps, if we're fortunate, we can still catch syphilis."
"Or demon pox," Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs. It swung open, unlocked as the front door had been. "There's always demon pox."
"Demon pox does not exist."
"Oh ye of little faith," said Will, disappearing into the darkness under the stairs. ~ Cassandra Clare

Tessa poked at her left incisor with her tongue. It was flat again, an ordinary tooth. "I don't understand what makes them come out like that!"
"Hunger," said Jem. "Were you think about blood?"
"No."
"Were you thinking about eating me?" Will inquired.
"No!"
"No one would blame you," said Jem. "He's very annoying. ~ Cassandra Clare

You are Brother Zachariah, and my Jem. You are a Silent Brother. That does not mean you are not dear to me as you always were, and you always will be. Do you think anything could separate us? Is either of us so weak as that? After all, we have seen and all we have done? I spend every day grateful that you exist and are in the world. And as long as you live, we keep Will alive. ~ Cassandra Clare

It is a very strange thing, to be in love. It changes you. ~ Cassandra Clare

Perhaps we could say she's a mad maiden aunt who insists on chaperoning us everywhere." "My aunt or yours?" Jem inquired. "Yes, she doesn't really look like either of us, does she? Perhaps she's a girl who's fallen madly in love with me and persists in following me wherever I go." "My talent is shape-shifting, Will, not acting," said Tessa ~ Cassandra Clare

Will? Will, is that you? ~ Cassandra Clare

Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both fatherless and teacherless. Let to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more - Jem Finch said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there. ~ Harper Lee

I told Jem if he set fire to the Radley house I was going to tell Atticus on him. ~ Harper Lee

You are worth everything, Will. ~ Cassandra Clare

We are all the pieces of what we remember. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss. ~ Cassandra Clare

Jem always said that Will rushed toward the end of a mission rather than proceeding in a measured manner, and that one must look at the next step on the path ahead, rather than the destination in the distance, or one would never reach one's goal. Will closed his eyes for a moment. He knew that Jem was right, but it was hard to remember, when the goal that he sought was the girl that he loved. ~ Cassandra Clare

He staked me out, marked as his property, said I was the only girl he would ever love, then he neglected me. I beat him up twice but it did no good, he only grew closer to Jem. ~ Harper Lee

He pipes - he pipes - and we must follow - Jem and Carl and Jerry and I - round and round the world. Listen - listen - can't you hear his wild music? The girls shivered. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Emma Cordelia Carstairs," he said. He looked both very young and very old at the same time. There was blood at his throat where his faded rune stood out, but it wasn't his. He seemed to be searching her face, though for what, she couldn't tell. "Stay with your parabatai ~ Cassandra Clare

In your eyes I have always found grace. ~ Cassandra Clare

Jessamine flushed. "Ugh! Charlotte, Will's being vexing." "And the sun has come up in the east," said Jem to no one in particular ... "And the sun comes up in the WEST," said Will, who had apparently heard Jem's earlier comment. ~ Cassandra Clare

Sherlock Holmes and Jem Finch would agree. ~ Harper Lee

Jem is my greatest sin. ~ Cassandra Clare

Jem seemed to look through her then, as if he were seeing something beyond her, beyond the corridor, beyond the Institute itself. "Whatever you are physically," he said, "male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy
all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside." He smiled them, seeming to have come back to himself, slightly embarrassed. "That's what I believe. ~ Cassandra Clare

His eyes went soft and silver as she spoke. "Zhe shi jie shang, wo shi zui ai ne de," he whispered.
She understood it. In all the world, you are what I love the most. ~ Cassandra Clare

She hated that will had this effect on her. Hated it. She knew better. She knew what he thought of her. That she was worth nothing. And still a look from him could make her tremble with mingled hatred and longing. It was like poison in her blood, to which Jem was the only antidote. ~ Cassandra Clare

Will looked at his sister. "And you don't care about being a Shadowhunter. How is this: I shall write a letter and give it to you if you promise to deliver it home yourself - and not to return."

Cecily recoiled; she had many memories of shouting matches with Will, of the china dolls she had owned that he had broken by dropping them out an attic window; but there was also kindness in her memories: the brother who had bandaged up a cut knee, or retied her hair ribbons when they came loose. That kindness was absent from the Will who stood before her now. Her mother had used to cry for the first year or two after Will went; she had said, in Welsh, holding Cecily to her, that they - the Shadowhunters - would "take all the love out of him." A cold, unloving people, she had told Cecily, who had forbidden her marriage to her husband. What could he want with them, her Will, her little one?

"I will not go," Cecily said, staring her brother down. "And if you insist that I must, I will - I will - "

The door of the attic slid open and Jem stood silhouetted in the doorway… ~ Cassandra Clare

He touched her as he usually touched his beloved violin, with a soft and urgent grace that left her breathless. ~ Cassandra Clare

Life was an uncertain thing. ~ Cassandra Clare

Will has always been the brighter burning star, the one to catch attention - but Jem is a steady flame, unwavering and honest. He could make you happy. ~ Cassandra Clare

It was books that kept me from taking my own life after I thought I could never love anyone, never be loved by anyone again. ~ Cassandra Claire

There were few people in the world who understood how much Will and Jem had loved each other, did love each other, and how much Will missed him. But Tessa did. ~ Cassandra Clare

Every neight he read aloud to them until his voice cracked.
Atticus killed several birds with one stone when he read to his children, and would pobably have caused a child psychologist considerable dismay: he read to Jem and Jean Louise whatever he happened to be reading, and the children grew up possessed of an obsure eruidition. ~ Harper Lee

Kit's jaw was still set. Jem knew that look. Herondales were always flames, he thought. They loved and suffered as if they would burn away with the sheer force of their own fire. ~ Cassandra Clare

A meeting of the hearts of two Gemini has been known to end with explosive results, Mr Holloway. ~ (Jem) J.A. Belfield

Will pointed a finger accusingly in their direction. "You're ganging up on me. Is this how it's going to be from now on? I'll be the odd man out? Dear God, I'll have to befriend Jessamine."
"Jessamine can't stand you," Jem pointed out.
"Henry, then."
"Henry will set you on fire. ~ Cassandra Clare