Victoria Schwab Quotes

What if I mess up?"

"Oh, you will. You'll mess up, you'll make mistakes, you'll break things. Some you'll be able to piece together, and others you'll lose. That's all a given. But there's only one thing you have to do for me."

"What's that?"

"Stay alive long enough to mess up again.

Lying is easy. But it's lonely."
"What do you mean?"
"When you lie to everyone about everything, what's left? What's true?"
"Nothing," I say.
"Exactly.

Wesley's touch lingers on my skin. His music echoes through my head. I remind myself as I scrub my skin that we are both liars and con artists. That we will always have secrets, some that bind us and some that cut between us, slicing us into pieces.

Da used to say that lies were easy, but trust was hard. Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it's lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back.

He leans in, resting his weathered hand on the bed. "Treat all the bad things like dreams, Kenzie. That way, no matter how scary or dark they get, you just have to survive until you wake up.

But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off.

Da used to say that only fools and cowards scorned fear. Fear keeps you alive.

Only fools and cowards scorned fear. Fear keeps you alive.

His gaze settles on the discarded book. He leans, reaching until his fingertips graze Dante's Inferno, still on its bed of folded sheets. "What have we here?" he asks.

"Required reading," I say.

"It's a shame they do that," he says, thumbing through the pages. "Requirement ruins even the best of books.

You really are like him, your father."
"I can't tell whether you think that's good or bad."
"What does it matter? It's simply true.

He wondered about himself (whether he was broken, or special, or better, or worse) and about other people (whether they were really all as stupid as they seemed).

But the things about people, Kell had discovered, is that they didn't really want to know. They thought they did, but knowing only made them miserable.

Da thought of people as books to be read, but I've always thought of them more as formulas- full of variables, but always the sum of their parts.

A confession: I am not a good friend.