Nicholas Maxwell Quotes

“When you're growing up, you don't ask whether your family's good, do you? Especially if you don't know anything else. They're just your family.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“He'd never felt so passionately all-caps about another person as Pearl seemed to feel about Esther, and certainly no one had ever felt that way about him. He expected to be sad about this realisation and instead found that he was mostly curious. Maybe if he really did manage to get free of the Library once and for all, if he began to lead a life on his own terms, all-caps was a feeling he himself might someday find.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“And because this was his life and he had more or less accepted that it was the only one he would ever have, he'd decided to take pride in what he could of it.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“But when you were the one and only, it meant you were alone.

Nicholas had been alone all his life.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“...being in danger is its own kind of lock and key. There's a freedom in safety, Nicholas. Remember that.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“What was the point of fighting if there was nothing, no one, to fight for?”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Mystery creates intrigue, which creates desire, which creates commodity.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Like most children, Nicholas had loved myths and fairy tales, but unlike most children he'd never seen himself in the plucky heroes and heroines who spat jewels from blessed mouths or spun wheat into gold or stumbled across magic beans, magic lamps, magic geese. His place was outside the stories, where someone, he imagined, was writing all the spells that made the magic possible. So he'd based many of his early, experimental books on the tales he enjoyed: an enchantment for a harp that made all who heard it weep; a spell to steal a person's voice and hide it in a seashell.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Curiouser and curiouser,' said Nicholas.

'Creepier and creepier,' corrected Collins.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Nothing could be worse than being stared at by his own eye.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Secrets are bad news, Nicholas. In the end, they're only make you feel worse.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Nicholas was still afraid; desperately so.

But the only thing more terrifying than the thought of leaving the Library was the thought of staying.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Not used to visiting the houses of commoners, awe we, Prince Nicholas?'

'I'm not a prince,' said Nicholas. 'Technically, I'm a very minor baron.'

'Excuse me, your majesty.'

'The correct honorific is my lord.'

'No,' said Esther. 'Not even as a joke.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Not used to visiting the houses of commoners, are we, Prince Nicholas?'

'I'm not a prince,' said Nicholas. 'Technically, I'm a very minor baron.'

'Excuse me, your majesty.'

'The correct honorific is my lord.'

'No,' said Esther. 'Not even as a joke.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Hey, Nicholas?' Collins said in the mirror.

'Hey, Collins?'

'It's fucking creepy when you smile to yourself like that.'

Nicholas smiled wider.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“If this is the book I think it is... I'm relatively certain it's human.'

A hot, sour feeling rose in the back of Esther's throat. 'What do you mean, human?'

'I mean the thread looks like it could be a combination of hair and sinew. The glue is likely rendered collagen.' He pinched the cover between thumb and forefinger. 'The leather's probably human skin.'

'Okay,' Collins said, 'great, well, if you need me, I'll be outside screaming.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Are they organised?' Nicholas called to her. 'What's your system?'

'Right now they're grouped by how many estimated uses they have left,' Joanna said, glancing away from Collins. 'I reorganise them a lot, though, just for fun.'

She was aware, too late, how extremely un-fun this made her sound, but Collins saw her face and said, 'Don't worry, Nicholas is no fun, either.'

'Well, I haven't been given much of a chance, have I?' Nicholas said, carefully putting the book back in place. 'For all we know, I might be absolutely amazing at karaoke.'

'Karaoke's fun people who suck at dancing.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“So you love him because he loves you,' said Nicholas, disappointed at the lack of romance in this reply.

'That doesn't sound like a good reason to love someone?”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Stepping through the mirror was like no physical experience he'd ever had. It was like swimming if the water was made of treacle and also of outer space, sweet and airless and tugging and infinite, and dark in a way that wasn't a binary to light but rather a different state entirely, complete unto itself. The body of the darkness was sound, which was sensation: countless wings brushing against one another, countless blades of golden grass moving in an endless wind, every distant highway ever heard.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Maybe he should apologise for the version of himself that would've accepted the loss of her life and filled a pen with her blood. But how exactly did one apologise for theoretical monstrosity? He wasn't very good at apologising for things he had done.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe