Shadow and Bone Quotes

“I told him the story of the day I'd been mending pottery with one of the maids in the kitchen at Keramzin, waiting for him to return from one of the hunting trips that had taken him from home more and more frequently. I'd been fifteen, standing at the counter, vainly trying to glue together the jagged pieces of a blue cup. When I saw him crossing the fields, I ran to the doorway and waved. He caught sight of me and broke into a jog.
I had crossed the yard to him slowly, watching him draw closer, baffled by the way my heart was skittering around in my chest. Then he'd picked me up and swung me in a circle, and I'd clung to him, breathing in his sweet, familiar smell, shocked by how much I'd missed him. Dimly, I'd been aware that I still had a shard of that blue cup in my hand, that it was digging into my palm, but I didn't want to let go.
When he finally set me down and ambled off into the kitchen to find his lunch, I had stood there, my palm dripping in blood, my head still spinning, knowing that everything had changed.
Ana Kuya had scolded me for getting blood on the clean kitchen floor. She'd bandaged my hand and told me it would heal. But I knew it would just go on hurting.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“People, particularly big men carrying big rifles, don't expect lip from a scrawny thing like me. They always look a bit dazed when they get it.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Then the memory of the Darkling's kiss blew through me and rattled my concentration, scattering my thoughts like leaves and making my heart swoop and dive like a bird borne aloft by uncertain currents.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Too much champagne?”
“Maybe.”
“Silly girl,” she said, looping her arm through mine. “There’s no such thing as too much champagne. Though your head will try to tell you otherwise tomorrow.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Fight me as long as you're able.
You will find I have far more practice with eternity”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I didn't think he was in love with me and I had no idea what I felt for him, but he wanted me, and maybe that was enough.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“What is she to you anyway?"

"Here's my answer captain. She's the thing that made this all okay-the threadbare coats and the old boots and the guns that jams when you most need them to fire, the loneliness of knowing that you don't matter, that you will never matter, the fact that you're just another body, another uniform to be sent into the fold or the frost, another good boy who knows his place, who does his job, who doesn't ask questions, who will lie down and die and be forgotten. What is she? She's everything, you dumb son of a bitch.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I hope you don’t expect fairness from me, Alina. It isn’t one of my specialties.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Dear Mal, I haven't heard from you, so I assume you've met and married a volcra and that you're living comfortably on the Shadow Fold, where you have neither light nor paper to write. Or, possibly, your new bride ate both your hands.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings, and even Darklings. Do you know what that thing is?”
I shook my head, inching away from him.
“Faith,” he breathed, his black eyes wild. “Faith.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I’m not what you think I am,” I whispered desperately.
The Darkling stepped closer to me and said, his voice so low that only I could hear, “I doubt you have any idea what you are.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Get moving. We need to find that stag so I don’t have to chop your head off.”
“I never said you had to chop my head off,” I grumbled, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and stumbling after him.
“Run you through with a sword, then? Firing squad?”
“I was thinking something quieter, like maybe a nice poison.”
“All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how.”
I stuck my tongue out at his back, but I was glad to see him so energized, and I suppose it was a good thing that he could joke about it all. At least, I hoped he was joking.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“The tears that had been threatening to overflow finally did, coursing down my cheeks. I wanted to run after him, to take back what I'd said, to beg him to stay, but I'd spent my life running after Mal. Instead, I stood in silence and let him go.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“If I told you that I’m trying to save the world, would you believe me?”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“How did you fare with the Queen?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I said honestly. "Everything she said was perfectly nice, but the whole time she was looking at me as if I were something her dog spit up.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“So I'd made my choice. I'd pushed my power down and held it there each day, with all my energy and will, without ever realizing it. I'd used up every bit of myself to keep that secret.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“A decoy,” said the Darkling, coming up beside me. “We’ll take the southern trails. It’s what we should have done in the first place.”
“So you do make mistakes,” I said without thinking.
He paused in the act of pulling on his gloves, and I pressed my lips together nervously. “I didn’t mean—”
“Of course I make mistakes,” he said. His mouth curved into a half smile. “Just not often.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Alina,” he said. “You and I are going to change the world.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Just… be careful.’
I stared at her, baffled. 'Of what?’
'Of powerful men.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I’d learned to avoid mirrors. They never seemed to show me what I wanted to see.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“He has served countless kings, faked countless deaths, bided his time, waiting for you.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I thought the love I'd had for him belonged to the past, to the foolish, lonely girl I never wanted to be again. I'd tried to bury that girl and the love she'd felt, just as I'd tried to bury my power. But I wouldn't make that mistake again.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“She's an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that's turned."
"And so skinny!" the cook replied. "Never finishes her supper."
Crouched beside the girl, the boy turned to her and whispered, "Why don't you eat?"
"Because everything she cooks tastes like mud."
"Tastes fine to me."
"You'll eat anything."
They bent their ears back to the crack in the cupboard doors.
A moment later the boy whispered, "I don't think you're ugly."
"Shhhh!" the girl hissed. But hidden by the deep shadows of the cupboard, she smiled.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Mercy." He said the word as if he were tasting something unfamiliar. "I could be merciful.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“The first time I'd entered the Fold, I'd feared the darkness and my own death. Now, darkness was nothing to me, and I knew that soon death would seem like a gift. I'd always known I would have to return to the Unsea, but as I looked back, I realized that some part of me had anticipated it.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“It’s a great honor,” said Fedyor. “To save a life. You saved many.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I'm not like you, Mal. I never really fit in the way that you did. I never belonged anywhere."
"You belonged with me," he said quietly.
"No, Mal. Not really. Not for a long time.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I roll my eyes. "Well, if I plan on doing anything exciting I promise to give fair warning so just...take a nap or something.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I've risked my life for you. I've walked half the length of Ravka for you, and I'd do it again and again and again just to be with you, just to starve with you and freeze with you and hear you complain about hard cheese every day. So don't tell me we don't belong together.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone