Leigh Bardugo Quotes

“’I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.’”

“Knowledge isn’t a sign of divine favor. Prosperity is.”

“’I’m a businessman,’ he’d told her. ‘No more, no less.’”

“She’d shown him in a thousand ways that she was honorable and strong and generous and very human, maybe even more vividly human than anyone he’d ever known.”

“I’m pragmatic. If I were cruel, I’d give him a eulogy instead of a conversation.”

“You’ve cheated death too many times.Greed may do your bidding, but death serves no man.”

“And yet amid the clamor of suspicion, she could hear the soft chiming of another bell, the sound of ‘What if?’ What if she let herself be comforted, gave up the pretense of being beyond the things she’d lost?”

“People point guns at each other all the time in Ketterdam. It’s basically a handshake.”

“Don’t start doing that.” “What?” “Agreeing with me. Sure path to destruction.”

“Nothing like being shot at a few times to make you a fast learner.”

“Sometimes the trick to getting the best of a situation was just to wait.”

“They fear as I once feared you,” he said. “As you once feared me. We are all someone’s monster, Nina.”

“You’re not weak because you can’t read. You’re weak because you’re afraid of people seeing your weakness. You’re letting shame decide who you are.”

“If you still believe in fairness, then you’ve led a very lucky life.”

“There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.”

“The really bad monsters never look like monsters.”

“That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.”

“The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.”

“I have been made to protect you. Only in death will I be kept from this oath. It was the vow of the druskelle to Fjerda. And now it was Matthias’ promise to her.”

“He needed to tell her…what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn’t pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her. That without meaning to, he’d begun to lean on her, to look for her, to need her near. He needed to thank her for his new hat.”

“And that was what destroyed you in the end: the longing for something you could never have.”

“If you don’t care about money, Nina dear, call it by its other names.” “Kruge? Scrub? Kaz’s one true love?” “Freedom, security, retribution.”

“Fear is how they control you. There’s so much in the world you don’t have to be afraid of, if you would only open your eyes.”

“The easiest way to steal a man’s wallet is to tell him you’re going to steal his watch.”

“Stop treating your wound like it’s something you imagined. If you see the wound is real, then you can heal it.”

“Fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.”

“You could love something and still see its flaws.”

“And if she was, then Grisha weren’t inherently evil. They were like anyone else—full of the potential to do great good, and also great harm. To ignore that would make Matthias the monster.”

“She wouldn’t wish love on anyone. It was the guest you welcomed and then couldn’t be rid of.”

“Meeting you was a disaster. But I am grateful every day for that disaster.”

“If it were a trick, I’d promise you safety. I’d offer you happiness. I don’t know if that exists in the Barrel, but you’ll find none of it with me.” For some reason, those words had comforted her. Better terrible truths than kind lies.”

“Do you have a different name for killing when you wear a uniform to do it?”

“Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you’ll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won’t matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.”

“The water hears and understands. The ice does not forgive.”

“If any of you survive, make sure I have an open casket. The world deserves a few more moments with this face.”

“He looked at Kaz Brekker, a boy whose only cause was himself. Still, he was a survivor, and his own kind of soldier.”

“We can endure all kinds of pain. It’s shame that eats men whole.”

″ ‘Speak’, she begged silently. ‘Give me a reason to stay’. For all his selfishness and cruelty, Kaz was still the boy who had saved her. She wanted to believe he was worth saving, too.”

“Suffering is like anything else. Live with it long enough, you learn to like the taste.”

“Better terrible truths than kind lies.”

“l pressed my forehead to Mal’s and heard him whisper, “I’ll meet you in the meadow.”

“I’ve spent my life searching for a way to make things right. You’re the first glimmer of hope I’ve had in a long time.”

“It was time to let go. That day on the Shadow Fold, Mal had saved my life, and I had saved his. Maybe that was meant to be the end of us.”

″‘And you hate that,’ I said with a sudden flash of comprehension. He sighed and leaned against me, brushing my hair back from my neck. ‘Maybe I do,’ he murmured, his lips grazing my ear, my throat, my collarbone.”

“I wanted to believe that Mal and I would always be friends, but I had to face the fact that we were on different paths”

“The moment his lips met mine, the connection between us opened and I felt his power flood through me. I could feel how much he wanted me—but behind that desire, I could feel something else, something that felt like anger. ”

“After a moment, I realized I was just gawking at myself in the mirror and had to smile. For a girl who hated looking at herself, I was at risk of becoming vain”

“Zoya was awful, but she was also right. I didn’t belong in this beautiful world, and if I didn’t find a way to use my power, I never would”

“I hope you don’t expect fairness from me, Alina. It isn’t one of my specialties.”

″‘There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings, and even Darklings. Do you know what that thing is?‘.... ‘Faith,’ he breathed, his black eyes wild. “Faith’”

“Your power serves you because that is its purpose, because it cannot help but serve you”.

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

“A thousand girls would sell their own mothers to be in your shoes, and yet here you are, miserable and sulking like a child. So tell me, girl. What is your sad little heart pining for?”

“He didn’t laugh as easily as he once had. But when he did, some of that grim coolness lifted from him and he seemed a bit more like the Mal I used to know. It gave me hope that he might not be lost forever.”

“He could have run, could have wept, could have clung to the sides of the skiff until the darkness took him, but he did none of those things. He stood unflinching before the gathering dark. ”

“I drew back, startled. “You don’t want to be doing this.” “This is the only thing I want to be doing,” he growled, and I could hear the bitterness and desire all tangled up in his voice. ”

“Alina, if I tell you that I still believe we can find the stag, would you think I’m mad?” “Why would you care what I think?” He looked genuinely baffled. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I do.” And then he kissed me.

“This was the truth behind the handsome face and the miraculous powers, the truth that was the dead and empty space between the stars, a wasteland peopled by frightened monsters. ”

“Once it is done, there can be no other. Like calls to like, and the bond is made.”

“The stag had been showing me my strength--not just the price of mercy but the power it bestowed. And mercy was something the Darkling would never understand. I had spared the stag’s life. The power of that life belonged to me as surely as it belonged to the man who had taken it.”