Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races
23 quotes
"I stare at him. "You can't risk not winning. Not because of me." Sean doesn't lift his eyes from the counter. "We make our move when you make yours. You on the inside, me on the outside. Corr can come from the middle of the pack; he's done it before. It's one side you won't have to worry about." I say, "I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick." Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, "It's late for that, Puck."
"The walls of the arch are covered with blood-red jellies that wink and glisten at me by the light of the moon. My father told me they were completely harmless. I don't believe him. Nothing is completely harmless."
"Boys", she says, "just aren't very good at being afraid."
"They're saying that you and Sean Kendrick were burning up the cliffs." Tommy spins me again and grins at me. "And when I say you and Sean Kendrick, I mean you and Sean Kendrick. And by burning, I mean burning."
"It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die."
"He keeps getting older while I'm not paying attention."
"What can't you bear?''This island,' Gabe says. He breathes a long pause between every word he says. 'That house you and Finn are in. People talking. The fish - goddamn fish. I'll smell like them for the rest of my life. The horses. Everything. I can't do it any more.'. . . It feels like he's confessed that he's dying of a disease I've never heard of, with symptoms I can't see."
"The truth is, I feel myself being fascinated and repelled by her: She's both a mirror of myself and a door to part of this island that I'm not."
"Eaton looks to the man next to him, who licks his lips before saying, “There are rules on paper and rules too big for paper.”It takes me a moment to realize what this means, which is that there really is no rule against it, but they’re not going to let me ride anyway. This is like when Gabe and I would play games when we were younger — as soon as I got close to winning, he would change the rules on me.And just like back then, the unfairness of it makes my chest burn."
"I don't trust the ocean, either; it would kill me as soon as not. It doesn't mean I'm afraid of it."
"It's easy to convince men to love you, Puck. All you have to do is be a mountain they have to climb or a poem they don't understand. Something that makes them feel strong or clever. It's why they love the ocean."
"Somewhere close bye, a man is moaning; he's been trampled or thrown or bitten. He sounds resentful or surprised. Did no one tell him that pain lives in this sand, dug in and watered with our blood?"
"It's only because I've lived with brothers that I realize, after a moment, that he's not looking outside but rather inside, wrestling with something inside himself. And there's nothing for it but to wait."
"I seem at once cursed to say precisely what I'm thinking to him and unable to tell what he thinks about it."
"In the sea, Corr’s clumsiness will disappear, his weight cradled by the saltwater. I don’t want to say good-bye. I blink to clear my vision and reach up. I pull off his halter. The ocean is his love and now, finally, he’ll have it. I back out of the surf. There’s a thin, long wail. Corr takes a labored step away from the November sea. And another. He is slow, and the sea sings to us both, but he returns to me."
"The truth is, until you know any different, the island is enough.Actually, I know different. And it's still enough."
"Annie looks dreamy, but she always does because she can’t see farther than three feet away. Elizabeth looks vaguely angry, but she always does because she can see farther than three feet away."
"I wonder how long it will take for me to feel as adult inside as I look outside."
"I whisper like the sea in the horse's ear."
"My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar."
"I slowly wipe my bloody hand a crossed my jacket and draw my switch blade from my pocket. I show it to him. Mutt regards it with contempt. "How is it you're thinking you'll stop e with that wee thing?" The blade snaps out audibly. Mutt would not be the largest thing to die on the slender point of it. "I don't think I'll stop you," I say. "I think that you will cut my horse and then when you come out of that stall, I will use this to cut your heart out and hand it to you."
"The tourists always seem to want something. On Thisby, it's less about wanting, and more about being." I wonder after I say it if he'll think I sound like have no drive or ambition."
"It's a strange thing, to be talked about instead of talked to."