The Cruel Prince Quotes

The odd thing about ambition is this: You can acquire it like a fever, but it is not so easy to shed. ~ Holly Black

I get why he chose her. I just wish she had chosen me. ~ Holly Black

You think I don't deserve him," I say to Cardan.
He smiles slowly, like the moon slipping beneath the waves of the lake. "Oh no, I think you're perfect for each other. ~ Holly Black

But kissing Locke never felt the way that kissing Cardan does, like taking a dare to run over knives, like an adrenaline strike of lightning, like the moment when you've swum too far out in the sea and there is no going back, only cold black water closing over your head. ~ Holly Black

I love my parents' murderer; I suppose I could love anyone. ~ Holly Black

It's shocking," he says, as though he's giving me some great compliment. "I know humans can lie, but to watch you do it is incredible. Do it again. ~ Holly Black

I am the Queen of Elfhame.
Even though I am the queen in exile, I am still the queen.
And that means Madoc isn't just trying to take Cardon's throne.
He's trying to take mine. ~ Holly Black

Cardan grins at me as though we've been great friends all our lives. I forgot how charming he can be--and how dangerous that is. ~ Holly Black

Cardan looks at me as though he's never seen me before. He looks at me as though no one has ever spoken to him like this. Maybe no one has. ~ Holly Black

Get down here before you're recognized."
"Playing hide-and-seek under the table? Crouching in the dirt? Typical of your kind, but far beneath my dignity."
He laughs unsteadily, like he expects I am going to laugh, too. I don't. I ball up my fist and punch him in the stomach, right where I know it will hurt. He staggers to his knees. The goblet drops to the dirt, making a hollow clanking sound. "Ow!" he shouts, and lets me tug him under the table. ~ Holly Black

Even if we did have to fight to overcome the cruel, we hung on to the beautiful and it was damn worth it. ~ Terri E. Laine

All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest - never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principles of equal partnership. ~ Ann Landers

These humans - they are cruel monsters. Liars. Deceitful. For the first time, I want to hurt them the way they hurt me. This is so unfair. My body feels numb, my energy spent, my mind deceived and angry. ~ Rachel Cohn

That the female of the species was as cruel as, and more implacable than, the male, O had never doubted for a minute. ~ Pauline Reage

How could a homeless kid have a dad who was the god of abundance and wealth? Talk about a cruel joke. ~ Rick Riordan

The world was a merciless place. Hard and cruel. Except when you found someone to trust and love. Life, however fleeting, possessed meaning then. ~ Sophie Jordan

I had no job at the time and was living off the cruel joke I referred to as my savings. ~ David Sedaris

This wasn't romance. This was a hardcore Master out and out driving her to the upper level of madness, where her body was going to come completely to pieces before he was done. Cruel, but she craved his brand of cruelty. ~ Joey W. Hill

Last night Grey and I were caught together and now he insists we marry."
Eve's eyes were huge blue saucers. "Define 'caught.'"
Rose stroked Heathcliff's silky ears. "Naked and in bed-that sort of caught."
Her friend looked positively scandalized-and gleeful. "No! Who caught you?"
"His brother Archer and a servant." She purposefully did not mention anything about Bronte's situation. As much as she trusted Eve, she could not be certain that none of the grooms wouldn't overhear. And since most of the household probably knew about her and Grey by dawn, it didn't seem so important to keep her own council in that regard.
"I have no doubt that your maid is getting every sordid detail-and possibly embellishment-belowstairs as we speak."
Eve frowned. "Do you think Ryeton's servants would be so cruel as to discuss you openly?"
She rolled her eyes. "They would never in a million years do anything to intentionally hurt me or Grey, but there's bound to be talk. It's that affection for both of us that makes their lips loose. I swear one of the footmen grinned at me this morning as I took breakfast."
Her friend chuckled sweetly, laughing even harder as one of the pups came up on its hind legs to lick her chin. "At least you will have dedicated servants, if not indiscreet ones."
Rose had to smile-it was that or burst into sobs. "At least. ~ Kathryn Smith

The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings. ~ Anton Chekhov

Not for her the cruel, delicate luxury of choice, the indolent, cat-and-mouse pastimes of the hearth-rug. No Penelope she; she must hunt in the forest. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Behold a people shall come from the north, and a great nation. They shall hold the bow and the lance; they are cruel and will not show mercy; their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses every one put in array, like a man to the battle. ~ Conn Iggulden

You cruel, hard-hearted gods!" I flung the goblet in his direction. Hermes barely had time to dart out of its way before it hit the wall and shattered to small pieces. "You're all the same! Hsst! Jealous! Vindictive! That's what you are! You allow yourselves to take pleasure with any mortal you wish. Let a goddess do the same. Let a goddess choose a mortal for her lover, and you set off in a fury of revenge against her as if her actions are an affront to you. And all the while, you male gods allow yourselves all kinds of liberties you deny to us females. ~ Tamara Agha-Jaffar

The leopard is a cruel lover. His tenderness breaks the gazelle's heart. ~ Aleksandr Voinov

An animal is not cruel; it lives wholly in the instant leap on its prey, in the present taste of marrow or blood. Cruelty begins with the memory, and the pleasures of the memory are impure; they draw their strength along levels where no sun has reached. ~ Storm Jameson

This girl had been looking on with her hair hanging over her face, only partly hiding a cruel-looking scar; her eyes shone with hatred. Not necessarily hatred of your father or of puppets or the other children, but a hatred of make-believe, which did not heal, but was only useful to the people who didn't need it. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

Creatures shall be seen on the earth who will always be fighting one another, with the greatest losses and frequent deaths on either side. There will be no bounds to their malice; by their strong limbs the vast forests of the world shall be laid low; and when they are filled with food they shall gratify their desires by dealing out death, affliction, labour, terror, and banishment to every living thing; and then from their boundless pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but the excessive weight of their limbs will hold them down. Nothing shall remain on the earth or under the earth or in the waters that shall not be pursued, disturbed, or spoiled, and that which is in one country removed into another. And their bodies shall be made the tomb and the means of transit of all the living bodies they have slain.
O earth, why do you not open and hurl them into the deep fissures of thy vast abysses and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven so cruel and horrible a monster? ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

There is a passion and drive for cruel deeds which only the awe and fear of God can soothe; there is a suffocating selfishness in man which only holiness can ventilate. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

Think of it. We know truth for the cruel instrument it is. Beauty is infinitely preferable to truth. We invent beauty. Faiths, political movements, high ideals, belief in love and fellowship. All of them are lies. We tell those lies, among others, endless others. We improve on history and myth and religion, make each more beautiful, better, easier to believe in. Our lies are not perfect, of course. The truths are too big. But perhaps someday we will find one great lie that all humanity can use. ~ George R R Martin

Thirty years later he could not come to any other conclusion: women were indisputably better than men. They were gentler, more affectionate, more loving and more compassionate, they were rarely violent, selfish, cruel or self-centred. Moreover, they were more rational, more intelligent and more hardworking.
What on earth were men for? Michael wondered as he watched sunlight play across the closed curtains. In earlier times, when bears were more common, perhaps masculinity served a particular function, but for centuries now, men served no useful purpose. For the most part, they assuaged their boredom playing squash, which was a lesser evil; but from time to time they felt the need to change history - which expressed itself in leading a revolution or starting a war somewhere. Aside from the senseless suffering they caused, revolutions and war destroyed the achievements of the past, forcing societies to build again. Without the notion of continuous progress, human evolution took random, irregular and violent turns for which men (with their predilection for risk and danger, their repulsive egotism, their volatile nature and their violent tendencies) were directly to blame. A society of women would be immeasurably superior, tracing a slow, unwavering progression, with no U-turns and no chaotic insecurity, towards a general happiness. ~ Michel Houellebecq

Scillara was not cruel; she was simply not interested and he did not hold this against her. It seemed to him that frankly most people by temperament and character should not be thrust into the role of parents. She was simply uncharacteristic in admitting it. He ~ Ian C. Esslemont

But fate was fickle, and the gods were cruel just as often as they were kind. ~ Kaitlyn Davis

The civilised cultures are the most cruel. It's the same with education - often it breeds sadistic forms of cruelty. ~ Nellie McKay

A journalist marries the news, Seymour. She's capricious, cruel, and jealous. She demands you follow her to wherever on Earth life is cheapest, where she'll stay a day or two, then jet off. You, your safety, your family are nothing, ~ David Mitchell

We have both been given the same wish to survive, We are all, you see, toys of the life-force. It made you numerically stronger, but mentally undeveloped. It made us mentally strong but physically weak: now it has set us at one another, to see what will happen. A cruel sport perhaps, from both our points of view, but a very very old one. Cruelty is as old as life itself. There is some improvement: humour and compassion are the most important of human inventions; but they are not very firmly established yet, though promising well. But the life-force is a lot stronger than they are; and it won't be denied its blood-sports. ~ John Wyndham

But the cruel quirk in the situation is that conditions on the other side of the line are so hopeless that 500 are now returning out of the 1000 who escaped daily. There is no place for them in Germany.....Nothing reveals the present state of affairs more clearly than the fact that people who risk their lives to get out of Soviet territory take the greater risk of going back when they see what awaits them outside. ~ Anne O'Hare McCormick

The dramatic sufferings of adults and all the cruel fantasies of those of my own age, who seemed abandoned to their own impulses in the midst of so many catastrophes, appeared to inscribe themselves on the walls around me. ~ Antoni Tapies

Sooner or later I will be faced with the fact that the world is helpless to meet my needs. And at that point, I will be left with two conclusions; that life is cruel or God is real. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

When someone is cruel, harsh, mean, to not take their words personally is one thing, but to hear the silent cry within those words is another. This sort of perspective can not only liberate us from crippling self-doubt in the face of criticism, it can also liberate us from automatically becoming blind participants in the interaction patterns that the cruel person has become accustomed to - a favour we do for the other person as much as for ourselves. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

Channary's expression was changing again. The fury was contorting into something cruel and sadistic, hungry and curious. ~ Marissa Meyer

The system of slavery, maintained for over two hundred years at the South, had performed a most perverting, morally desolating, and we might say, demonizing work on the dominant race, which people bred under our free civilization can not at once understand, nor scarcely believe when it is declared unto them. This reluctance to believe unwelcome truths has been the snare of our national life. We have not been willing to believe how hardened, despotic, and cruel the wielders of irresponsible power may become. When ~ John McElroy

I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation. ~ Harriet Ann Jacobs

But insensate Time is nothing if not cruel and heartless. It corrodes then destroys, so that the man you literally and figuratively looked up to with your chubby face, who scooped you up to cross the street and patted you on the head to laughter, will later look through you from a crooked hospital bed then blindly up at you while wearing makeup in a bargain casket. The people who now surround you generating warmth will disappear leaving only an empty chill; the body you own and the brain it houses will malfunction. And sometimes, especially in Boxing, a twenty four year old can become a man overnight. ~ Sergio De La Pava

Was it as Ada suggested, that we can choose our own endings, joy over sorrow? Or does the cruel world just give and take, give and take, while we flounder through the wilderness? ~ Eowyn Ivey

But the state had no jurisdiction over the conscience of the individual and no right, therefore, to fight heresy or lead a holy war. While it could have nothing to do with the spiritual realm, the state must have unqualified and absolute authority in temporal affairs. Even if the state were cruel, tyrannical, and forbade the teaching of God's word, Christians must not resist its power.37 For its part, the true church, the Kingdom of God, must hold aloof from the inherently corrupt and depraved policies of the Kingdom of the World, dealing only with spiritual affairs. Protestants believed that the Roman Church had failed in its true mission because it had dallied with the sinful Kingdom of the World. ~ Karen Armstrong

No ... Andrew,' I step away from him, crossing my arms, 'you can't make me sing in front of people. That's just cruel.'
'To you or the audience?'
He grins.
I stomp on his foot. ~ J.A. Redmerski

Some roads were easier to leave than others. Many walked to seek the future, but found only the past. Others sought the past, to make it new once more, and discovered that the past was nothing like the one they'd imagined. One could walk in search of friends, and find naught but strangers. One could yearn for company but find little but cruel solitude. ~ Steven Erikson

The whole process of life is a process of deterioration in which everything - and this is the most cruel law - continually gets worse. ~ Thomas Bernhard

But madness? That small remnant of altered consciousness, pure or in response to circumstances. Circumstances of life, even those of the body itself and its chemistry. How cruel and stupid to punish this as we do with ostracism and fear, to have forged a network of fear, strong as the locks and bars of a back ward. This is the jail we could all end up in. And we know it. And watch our step. For a lifetime. We behave. A fantastic and entire system of social control, by the threat of example as effective over the general population as detention centers in dictatorships, the image of the madhouse floats through every mind for the course of its lifetime. ~ Kate Millett

Yet hypotaxis (along with reason) has been declining for a century or more. Gone are those heady and incomprehensible sentences of Johnson, Dickens, and Austen, replaced with the cruel, brutalist parataxes of writers whose aim is to agitate and distress. The long sentence is now a ridiculed rarity, usually hidden away in the Terms and Conditions, its commas and colons, clauses and caveats languishing unread and unloved. ~ Mark Forsyth

Good King Wenceslas tastes great; We might as well eat Stephen, When the brains lay round about, Toasted crisp and bleedin'. Brightly shown the moon that night, Though the virus cruel. When a poor man came in sight, He made fine undead fuel. ~ Michael P. Spradlin