Seanan Mcguire Quotes

Ever cater a banquet for royalty? . . . Well, don't. It's awful. Just awful. -- Madden ~ Seanan McGuire

Wasn't that the trick, though? Life was one long series of efforts to reach the golden mean, where everything was the way that it was supposed to be. ~ Seanan McGuire

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

There is kindness in the world, if we know how to look for it. If we never start denying it the door. ~ Seanan McGuire

The greatest joy is the joy of discovery. Followed closely by the joy of a discovery that doesn't kill you. - Enid Healy ~ Seanan McGuire

Let's go commit some senseless acts of science. ~ Seanan McGuire

Hello?" I peered into the shadows.
Two green circles flashed in the dark. I yelped, jumping backward and pressing myself against the wall.
"And may I wish a very good morning to you, too, October." The voice was amused, underscored by a chuckle like thick cream. "What happened? Did the prettiest little princess miss her carriage home? ~ Seanan McGuire

This, you see, is the danger of children: they are ambushes, each and every one of them. A person may look at someone else's child and see only the surface, the shiny shoes or the perfect curls. They do not see the tears and the tantrums, the late nights, the sleepless hours, the worry. They do not even really see the love, not really. It can be easy, when looking at children from the outside, the believe that they are things, dolls designed and programmed by their parents to behave in one manner, following one set of rules. It can be easy, when standing on the lofty shores of adulthood, not to remember that every adult was once a child, with ideas and ambitions of their own.

It can be easy, in the end, to forget that children are people, and that people will do what people will do, the consequences be damned. ~ Seanan McGuire

Boring' is not a virtue.
-May ~ Seanan McGuire

Hope means you keep holding on to things that won't ever be so again. ~ Seanan McGuire

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. ~ Seanan McGuire

She said she'd been in relationships with way bigger problems than one of us being a transitory manifestation of impending doom. Like this one girl who liked her computer more than she liked her girlfriend, and another one who smoked. ~ Seanan McGuire

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. ~ Seanan McGuire

Use when you're piping the virus into the rats, ~ Seanan McGuire

Kids. "We'll be in the break room if you need us," said Sloane, with uncharacteristic gentleness. Still holding my brother up, she turned and led him away, first out of the bullpen and finally out of view. I stayed frozen where I was, feeling colder than any time since I had eaten the apple, and wondered what the hell we were going to do next. Demi, of all people, broke ~ Seanan McGuire

The van doors were closed and - as I learned to my dismay when I tried to wrench them open - locked. I slapped my pocket and swore. "Sloane, I don't have my keys!" I shouted. "Do you?" "Like you people let me drive? Fuck, no, I don't have keys to the van." She bent, picking up a large rock from the curb. "On the other hand, I don't really need them, do I?" "Sloane - " My protest died when I heard Jeff scream inside the van. It was a shrill, agonized sound, and it hurt my heart in ways I hadn't known were possible. "Throw the fucking rock, Sloane!" The words had barely left my lips before Sloane's rock was smashing through the driver's side window ~ Seanan McGuire

I kissed her like she was my Annabel Lee, and in some ways, in some places in my heart, I think that I'm kissing her still. ~ Seanan McGuire

Katherine ignored her. Not maliciously: Katherine frequently didn't hear her name the first time it was called, preferring to keep her nose in her book and continue whatever adventure she had decided was more interesting than the actual world around her. ~ Seanan McGuire

Sometimes ripping away the bandages was what allowed the soul to finally heal. ~ Seanan McGuire

Watching 'Doctor Who' in the United States meant I was always behind the times - PBS didn't get new episodes until two years after they ran, and I was aware of the show's cancellation before the characters themselves knew, at least in my corner of the world. ~ Seanan McGuire

Oh, her? She had raised a hand against us, and willingly entered our circle. We ate her. ~ Seanan McGuire

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. ~ Seanan McGuire

Anyone who thinks cryptozoology is the study of the impossible has never really taken a very good look at the so-called "natural world." Once you get past the megamouth sharks, naked mole rats, and spotted hyenas, then the basilisks, dragons, and cuckoos just don't seem that unreasonable. Unpleasant, yes, but unreasonable? Not really. ~ Seanan McGuire

She was a story, not an epilogue. And if she chose to narrate her own life one word at a time as she descended the stairs to meet her newest arrival, that wasn't hurting anyone. ~ Seanan McGuire

I'd never seen the King of Cats fight before. He was suddenly everywhere, made of nothing but fangs and claws and fury, snarling like a chainsaw trying to sing opera. Our witless assassin never stood a chance. ~ Seanan McGuire

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 ~ Seanan McGuire

Everything was going to be perfect. ~ Seanan McGuire

Your family, your real family, will always welcome you home with open arms. Anyone who says you can lose their love isn't really family, no matter what blood says. ~ Seanan McGuire

You died here," I said quietly.

"October -"

"I wasn't here, and the girl I'm supposed to be finding was, and you died ." I looked up at him, glaring through the tears in my eyes. I left my fingers balanced on the floor, letting his blood sing its song of pain and longing. Longing to live; refusal to let go of the world. Maybe that's what differentiates the Kings and Queens of Cats from the rest of Faerie. They have a cat's stubbornness and the power to back it up. So when death says, "Go," they just refuse.

My heart hurt. My heart hurt so badly, and I was still trying to recover from Connor, and oh, Titania, I couldn't do this again. The thought startled me. I froze where I was, still glaring.

Tybalt sighed. "I know." he hesitated before adding, "This is not the time, and this is not the place, and my nephew needs us. But I ask you to consider this. I got better. I will always get better." He hesitated again - possibly the first time I'd ever seen him pause more than once after he'd decided he was going to say something.

Finally, he said, "Some of us, October, will not leave you. ~ Seanan McGuire

Sometimes, when it seems like the pain is never going to end, I wish I'd gotten a different suite of magical talents from my mother. Like the power to avoid situations that end with me willingly jamming my arm into a door made entirely from animate, apparently angry rose briars. ~ Seanan McGuire

What could I possibly do that would be so awful?"
"Everything. Every moment of the day. Since the day you were born. ~ Seanan McGuire

The first thing that matters: I am a child of the eighties. I grew up in a neon wonderland of talking horses, compassionate bears, hair that didn't move in a stiff wind, and the constant threat of nuclear war. ~ Seanan McGuire

(Australia. The only continent designed with a difficulty rating of "ha ha fuck you no.") ~ Seanan McGuire

I'm going to kill you." "You look fine." "I'm quite serious. I'm going to murder you. I'm going to murder you to death. And then, after I've finished doing that, I'm going to kill you again, just to be sure you got the point." "Shelby, honestly, you look fine. ~ Seanan McGuire

Don't let anyone tell you, ever, that this is a zero-sum game. Your genius does not threaten me. It delights and inspires me. ~ Seanan McGuire

It was easier than I expected, maybe because I was too angry and too afraid to really pay attention to what I was doing. Things are always easy when you refuse to let yourself remember how dangerous they are. ~ Seanan McGuire

Hello carnivore,' said the mouse priest. He turned and bowed to Uncle Mike and Dominic. 'Hail to the High Priest of Goddammit Eat Something Already, and to the God of Hard Choices in Dark Places.' Ryan blinked. 'What?' 'It's a mouse thing, just roll with it, you'll be happier that way,' I advised. ~ Seanan McGuire

Brenna Kelly, meet Alice Price-Healy. Grandma, meet Breanna. No one is shooting, stabbing or immolating anyone in this hotel room."
"Please," added Dominic. "I have to sleep here."
"HAIL!" Rejoiced the mice. "HAIL THE LACK OF STABBING, SHOOTING AND FLAME! ~ Seanan McGuire

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? ~ Seanan McGuire

That's the beauty of the future. We get to change it. ~ Seanan McGuire

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. ~ Seanan McGuire

Yes, that's a brilliant idea. Choose the career path most likely to lead to an early, painful death, and you're sure to find job satisfaction. ~ Seanan McGuire

It was possible she'd been too focused on her need for another cocktail to realize we were witnessing one of the portents of the apocalypse. "The Luidaeg is singing Disney songs. ~ Seanan McGuire

I do so love how all magic comes with its share of dire warnings and unclear requirements," sighed Tybalt. "It's like being on the stage, only there's no director, and the understudies have all died of typhus. ~ Seanan McGuire

People aren't so good at being good to one another. We try hard enough, but something essential was left out in the making of us, some hard little patch of stone in the fertile soil that's supposed to be our hearts. We get hung up on the bad, and we focus on it until it grows, and the whole crop is lost. I ~ Seanan McGuire

What's the point of holding on if I can't save the ones that I can't afford to lose? ~ Seanan McGuire

He was wearing brown leather trousers, a darker brown leather vest, and a silk shirt that matched my dress. The sleeves were almost piratical in style, and the collar was unlaced. His boots were the same shade as his vest, a few shades lighter than his hair.
"Uh," I said again, before managing. "Weren't you wearing that the last time you came to Court?"
"She always dresses me in some variation of this attire," said Tybalt. "I can't tell whether she likes the look of it, or whether she's trying to make a point. This would have been a stagehand's garb, once upon a time, and nothing suited for a King."
"Uh," I said for a third time.
Seeing my distress, Tybalt smirked, leaned in, and murmured in my ear, "I have a disturbing assortment of leather trousers, thanks to her. I'd be happy to show you, if you like. ~ Seanan McGuire

I grew up in an apartment that would have made a trailer look really decadent and nice. Pretty much the only dependable thing I had was books. ~ Seanan McGuire

Faerie: where it's only a little weird to realize that my boyfriend is older than the internal combustion engine. ~ Seanan McGuire

It wasn't fair to play games with the hearts of people who loved me. And they did love me
I had to admit that, or nothing would ever make sense again. ~ Seanan McGuire

You can't skip to the end of the story just because you're tired of being in the middle. You'd never survive. ~ Seanan McGuire

Tybalt put a hand on my back, resting it in the space between my shoulder blades. "Are you all right?"
"Not on this or any other planet." I straightened, up looking around. We were under the old bridge spanning the creek that cut through the middle of campus. I sighed. "See, if I'd just realized where we'd come out, I could have thrown up in the water. Less mess."
"Yes, but won't you think about the frogs? I'm sure they receive enough unwanted vomit from the student body. ~ Seanan McGuire

We came here because no place would take us after our momma died. They all said go away, come back when you're older, when you know better, when you've learned. Only no one wants to teach how to be older or to know better - not even Devin. They just teach us how to be broken. ~ Seanan McGuire

Shut up and eat your donuts," I said, and turned to Demi, who was looking at me with a blankly questioning expression. "Sloane is full of shit. She's not allergic to the word 'please,' which is good for her, since if she were, we would all stand in a circle around her making polite requests until she went into anaphylactic shock. She just enjoys being horrible to the rest of us, and we let her, because we honestly can't think of a way to make her stop. ~ Seanan McGuire

How many weapons are you carrying? I'm beginning to think you have an entire armory in your bag." "Don't start with the flattery. How ~ Seanan McGuire

There weren't any fairy tales in the streets around me. If there was ever a
Cinderella, her glass slippers shattered under her weight and she limped home bleeding from the ball. ~ Seanan McGuire

I watch him go, and wonder if being good isn't its own punishment as much as it's supposed to be its own reward. ~ Seanan McGuire

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

Clichés are relatives of the fairy tale, and tropes aren't bad; they go with the territory. ~ Seanan McGuire

Jeff sighed. "Henry. You know as well as I do that any one of us could do a great deal of damage if we set our minds to it. Demi is the human equivalent of a nuclear bomb. I could cripple the power grid for this entire coast. You could - " "Rally the squirrels of the world to my defense," I finished sourly. ~ Seanan McGuire

Valerie didn't have those problems. Valerie was just another dancer, and anything she needed to hide would be mundane and understandable. Sometimes I envied Valerie, even though I knew that her life was simple only because she didn't actually exist. Maybe that was always the secret to a simple life. Reality was the complicating factor. ~ Seanan McGuire

I didn't look back. Sometimes, not looking back is the only mercy the world has left to show. ~ Seanan McGuire

Destiny, noun: 1. The inevitable or irresistible course of events. 2. The inescapable future. 3. See also screwed. ~ Seanan McGuire

She was a woman with something to protect. That made her more dangerous than they could ever have suspected. ~ Seanan McGuire

Most of the neighbors hated us in an offhand sort of manner, since we had twice the space they did, plus a parking area and a small yard - all things virtually unheard of in modern-day San Francisco. I was sure they'd change their minds if they knew how much I'd bled to earn that house. Or maybe not. Reserved parking is hard to come by in this city. ~ Seanan McGuire

The books were in no particular order, and Lundy found the process of sorting them remarkably soothing, involving, as it did, a strange sort of scavenger hunt through the entire shack. Books had been used to prop up tables and level out shelves; they were piled on surfaces where books had no business being and tucked under the edge of the thin mattress of the Archivist's bed. In the case of books that had become load-bearing, Lundy used her school ruler to carefully note their heights and went searching for rocks or pieces of scrap wood that would do the job as well, if not better. In the case of books left too near to water or exposed to the air, she rolled her eyes and whisked them away to literary safety. ~ Seanan McGuire

A proper lady should be able to smile pretty, wear sequins like she means it, and kick a man's ass nine ways from Sunday while wearing stiletto heels. If she can't do that much, she's not trying hard enough. ~ Seanan McGuire

Heaven forbid you do anything -cliché-, Mr. English-Professor-in-Training," says Dodger. "You might find a single cliché is a gateway drug to tweed jackets and khaki slacks, and the next thing you know, you're teaching Kerouac and making eyes at that cute undergrad in the front row who makes you think about fucking all of Middle America in one triumphant go. ~ Seanan McGuire

This is how it should end. They won't remember the way I died, but they'll remember how I lived, forever. I was the monster under your bed, wasn't I? I'll be the monster waiting for your children. ~ Seanan McGuire

Parents don't always like to admit that things have changed. They want the world to be exactly the way it was before their children went away on these life-changing adventures, and when the world doesn't oblige, they try to force it into the boxes they build for us. ~ Seanan McGuire

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. ~ Seanan McGuire

Time is a concept invented by men who didn't want everything to keep happening at once. Time is irrelevant. ~ Seanan McGuire

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. ~ Seanan McGuire

All right, clearly the two of you" - Jack gestured to Nancy as she stripped off her gloves - "were meant to be together. If you can't find your doors, you should get married and breed the next generation of creepy world-traveling children."
Christopher's cheeks turned red. Nancy's didn't. It was a pleasant change. ~ Seanan McGuire

Repetition is sometimes the best way to deal with the Luideag: just keep saying the same thing over and over until she gets fed up and gives you what you want. All preschoolers have an instinctive grasp of this concept, but most don't practice it on immortal water demons. That's probably why there are so few disembowelments in your average preschool. ~ Seanan McGuire

No walking! No standing, no bending, no moving, no accessing the Shadow Roads, nothing. You don't swim for an hour after eating, you don't swan around like an idiot for an hour after narrowly avoiding death.'
'Toby does,' said Quentin.
'Toby is genetically predisposed to swan around like an idiot,' Jin shot back. 'Now sit. ~ Seanan McGuire

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. ~ Seanan McGuire

Logic and loss aren't always great friends. Sometimes we mourn for the things that hurt us. Sometimes, that's okay. ~ Seanan McGuire

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. ~ Seanan McGuire

In the way of bookish children, she carried her books into trees and along the banks of chuckling creeks, weaving her way along their slippery shores with the sort of grace that belongs only to bibliophiles protecting their treasures. ~ Seanan McGuire

Remember that most people, human or cryptid, don't like what they don't understand. They're not wired for that kind of compassion. Feel sorry for them, unless they form an angry mob and march on your house. When that happens, release the hounds. - Evelyn Baker ~ Seanan McGuire

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. ~ Seanan McGuire

There's no such thing as fighting dirty. There's fighting like you want to live, and fighting like you want to die. If you've got anything to live for - anything at all - I suggest you try the first way. The people you love will thank you for it. - Alice Healy ~ Seanan McGuire

This has never been about good and evil. This is about power. Who has it, who doesn't. Who knows how to use it. ~ Seanan McGuire

She wanted to be a perfect little princess. All she did was turn herself into a flawed reflection of an ideal she could never achieve. ~ Seanan McGuire

It was like they had all learned to be a little kinder, or at least a little more careful about what they based their judgements on. ~ Seanan McGuire

Toby, please stop punching Etienne in the head. It's not helping. ~ Seanan McGuire

Poison doesn't break Oberon's law unless somebody dies. There are circles where putting your enemies to sleep for a thousand years is perfectly normal. ~ Seanan McGuire

There's nothing more stubborn than youth, with the possible exception of old age. ~ Seanan McGuire

Death doesn't bother me but murder makes me edgy, and my lack of weaponry suddenly felt like a potentially fatal mistake. If we got back to the hotel alive, I wasn't coming back here again without my knife and the baseball bat. And maybe a tank, if I could find one fast enough. ~ Seanan McGuire

(Grandma Alice always said being in the field should be treated like going to war: eat when you can, sleep when you can, never put your gun down, and never get drunker than the people around you. Grandma Alice was more than a little bit paranoid. Sadly for me, she was also more than a little bit right.) ~ Seanan McGuire

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

This is terrible," said Sumi brightly. "I mean, we knew it was going to be terrible when we followed a mad scientist and her dead girlfriend to a horrifying murder world, but this is bonus terrible. This is the awful sprinkles on the sundae of doom. ~ Seanan McGuire

It's customary for the field team to take a break after a confirmed memetic incursion into baseline reality - in layman's terms, we're supposed to get some time off after we stop a fairy tale from rewriting a major metropolitan area into an evil, R-rated version of Disney World. New and improved! Now with extra incest and murder! ~ Seanan McGuire

The part of me that actually cares about being a decent person promptly punched my inner researcher in the jaw and stuffed her in a closet at the back of my head, to be retrieved later. ~ Seanan McGuire

Nudity. "Hello," she said. "Have you heard the good word of Wadjet, Protector of Egypt and great snake of the Milky Way? ~ Seanan McGuire

I only looked when I was sure he couldn't see me. Some games are too dangerous to play. ~ Seanan McGuire

For is it not said That Girl Knows No Fear, and Dammit, Fran, She's Going To Get Herself Et, and This Is From Your Side Of The Family, Jonathan, No One In My Family Has Ever Hugged A Basilisk Before? ~ Seanan McGuire

Everything has a cost, October; remember that. It may be a long time before the bill comes due, but everything has a cost.
Luidaeg ~ Seanan McGuire

Verity didn't mind bogeymen - they were pretty nice, mostly, if you didn't let them talk you into doing anything you weren't supposed to do - but ~ Seanan McGuire