Leigh Bardugo Quotes

He has served countless kings, faked countless deaths, bided his time, waiting for you.
Leigh Bardugo
When we get our money, you can burn kruge to keep you warm.""I'm going to pay someone to burn my kruge for me.""Why don't you pay someone else to pay someone to burn your kruge for you? That's what the big players do.
Leigh Bardugo
Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother’s porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums.That’s Mama! Inej had cried.Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. 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.
Leigh Bardugo
He swept the red cloak around Inej's shoulders in a rain of petals and blossoms as she continued to strap on her knives. She looked almost as startled as the flower seller."What?" he asked as he tossed her a Mister Crimson mask that matched his own."Those were my mother's favorite flower.""Good to know Van Eck didn't cure you of sentiment.""Nice to be back, Kaz.""Good to have you back, Wraith.
Leigh Bardugo
He'd broken his leg dropping down from the rooftop. The bone didn't set right, and he'd limped ever after. So he'd found himself a Fabrikator and had his cane made. It became a declaration. There was no part of him that was no broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.
Leigh Bardugo
And feast on the dead, I thought with a shudder. As if he could read my thoughts, he pressed a hand to my shoulder. His fingers were long and white, splaying over my arm like a waxen spider. If the gesture was meant to comfort me, it failed.
Leigh Bardugo
Do you think I could have come to you again and again, if you had been less alone?You called me and I answered
Leigh Bardugo
You're weak because you're afraid of people seeing your weakness. You're letting shame decide who you are.
Leigh Bardugo
It’s good to feel foolish sometimes, Fjerdan.”“You only say that because you have no shame.
Leigh Bardugo
She righted herself, her balance returning. Had she really thought the world didn't change? She was a fool. The world was made of miracles, unexpected earthquakes, storms that came from nowhere and might reshape a continent. The boy beside her. The future before her. Anything was possible.
Leigh Bardugo
That first winter, when it was time for her friends to leave, the girl ventured out into the show to say goodbye, and the stunning raven-haired Squaller handed her another gift. "A blue kefta," said the math teacher, shaking her head. "What would she do with
Leigh Bardugo
I rolled my eyes. "For defending my honor, you dullard."He yanked me beneath a shadowed awning. I had a moment's panic when I thought he'd spotted trouble, but then his arms were around me and his lips were pressed to mine.When he finally drew back, my cheeks were warm and my legs had gone wobbly."Just to be clear," he said, "I'm not really interested in defending your honor.""Understood," I managed, hoping I didn't sound too ridiculously breathless.
Leigh Bardugo
I think... sometimes when we find love we pretend it away, or ignore it, or tell ourselves we are imagining it. Because it's the most painful kind of hope there is. It can be ripped away so easily. By indifference. By death.
Leigh Bardugo
(...)And what did I want? (...)A chance to sleep easy in my bed without fear. (...) There were old wants too, to be loved for who I was, not what I could do, to lie in a meadow with a boy's arms around me and WATCH THE WIND MOVE THE CLOUDS. (...)
Leigh Bardugo
I don't think-""Clearly. Why start now?
Leigh Bardugo
I miss a good cup of tea, dancing, boys- definitely not rain.""We dance," Diana protested.Maeve had just laughed. "You dance differently when you know you won't live forever.
Leigh Bardugo
At that moment, the creature's back breached the waves, its body cutting through the water in a sinuous arch, rainbows sparking off the iridescent scales on its back. Rusalye.
Leigh Bardugo
Why can a Grisha possess but one amplifier? I will answer this question instead: What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.
Leigh Bardugo
and the look they exchanged could have melted miles of northern ice.
Leigh Bardugo
What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary.
Leigh Bardugo
We put on our best clothes and die like heroes.
Leigh Bardugo
The names they gave were false ones, though the vows they made were true.
Leigh Bardugo
A wise warrior learns from her mistakes.
Leigh Bardugo
Kaz had always kept himself at a remove from everyone. They’d wanted camaraderie, friendship, but he had never agreed to play their game, only his own.
Leigh Bardugo
Abruptly, Adrik snarled, 'I'm glad Sergei's dead. I'm just sorry I didn't get to wring his neck myself.''You'd need two hands for that,' said
Leigh Bardugo
i prefer to think of the good times. Like when you held my hair as I was vomiting into a bucket.
Leigh Bardugo
Mal was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I’m not sure who my first kill was. We were hunting the stag when we ran into a Fjerdan patrol on the northern border. I don’t think the fight lasted more than a few minutes, but I killed three men. They were doing a job, same as I was, trying to get through one day to the next, then they were bleeding in the snow. No way to tell who was the first to fall, and I’m not sure it matters. You keep them at a distance. The faces start to blur.”“Really?”“No.
Leigh Bardugo
Survival wasn't nearly as hard as he'd thought once he left decency behind.
Leigh Bardugo
I tilted my head back, breathing deeply. It was a clear, moonless night, and after those long months underground, the sight of all that sky was dizzying. And so many stars—a glittering, tangled mass that seemed close enough to touch. I let their light fall over me like a balm, grateful for the air in my lungs, the night all around me.
Leigh Bardugo
I promise, Matthias. I'll take you home.""Nina," he said, pressing her hand to his heart. "I am already home.
Leigh Bardugo
Sometimes, the only way to get justice is to take it for yourself.
Leigh Bardugo
She rested her head on his shoulder. "You're better than waffles, Matthias Helvar." A small smile curled the Fjerdan's lips. "Let's not say things we don't mean, my love.
Leigh Bardugo
She knew she should say something profound, something beautiful in response. Instead, she spoke the truth. "If we make it out of here alive, I'm going to kiss you unconscious.
Leigh Bardugo
She'd hurt him, but she'd attempted everything in her power to make things right. 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.
Leigh Bardugo
The person she liked best didn't like her enough to want more of her, and she didn't want to pretend that wasn't awful.
Leigh Bardugo
I will tell you a story, one I used to tell to a little boy with dark hair. A silent boy who rarely laughs, who listened more closely than I realized. A boy who had a name and not a title
Leigh Bardugo
David looked at me, then, the regret plain on his face. No matter what I said, we both knew the hard truth. We do our best. We try. And usually, it makes no difference at all
Leigh Bardugo
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. 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.
Leigh Bardugo
They fear as I once feared you,” he said. “As you once feared me. We are all someone’s monster, Nina
Leigh Bardugo
Of course I'm jealous. I thought I was going to get to punch him. That isn't the point.
Leigh Bardugo
Because I am a doll, and a servant. Because I am a pretty thing and a soldier all the same.
Leigh Bardugo
You cannot make this kind of decision," he said. "Go off with someone you barely know. You're seventeen.""And you're the guy who got drunk on eggnog last Christmas and danced to 'Turn The Beat Around' in Aunt Rachel's wig, so stop acting like you're in charge.""We agreed not to mention that ever again," Jason whispered furiously.
Leigh Bardugo
I think the hard work of writing is just how long a book is terrible before it's good.
Leigh Bardugo
I’d learned to avoid mirrors. They never seemed to show me what I wanted to see.
Leigh Bardugo
Despise your heart. I wanted to. I didn't want to grieve anymore, to feel loss or guilt, or worry. I wanted to be hard, calculating. I wanted to be fearless.
Leigh Bardugo
I think we often hold heroines to an absurd standard. Be brave! Be wise! Always know what's in your heart and speak the truth of it! No and no and no. We fight to be brave. We learn to be wise. We struggle to know ourselves and voice what we want.
Leigh Bardugo
When had she stopped being a child? The first time a guy had whistled at her out of a car window when she was walking to school? The moment she started wondering how she looked when she ran, what jiggled or bounced, instead of the pace she was setting? The first time she’d kept from raising her hand because she didn’t want to seem too smart or too eager?
Leigh Bardugo
The ox feels the yoke, but does the bird feel the weight of its wings?
Leigh Bardugo
You don't ask for forgiveness, Kaz. You earn it.
Leigh Bardugo
But when someone does wrong, when we make mistakes, we don’t say we’re sorry. We promise to make amends.”“I will.”“Mati en sheva yelu. This action will have no echo. It means we won’t repeat the same mistakes, that we won’t continue to do harm.
Leigh Bardugo
You see, some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled - not with all the good food or sunshine in the world. That emptiness cannot be banished, and so some days we wake with the feeling of the wind blowing through, and we must simply endure it as the boy did.
Leigh Bardugo
Nina, you taught me to be something better. They could be taught, too.
Leigh Bardugo
I was just a girl again, but this girl didn’t owe her strength to fate or chance or a grand destiny. I’d been born with my power; the rest I’d earned.
Leigh Bardugo
Human courage was different from Amazon bravery. She saw that now. For all the suspicion and derision she'd heard from her mother and her sisters about the mortal world, Diana couldn't help but admire the people with whom she traveled. Their lives were violent, precarious, fragile, but they fought for them anyway, and held to the hope that their brief stay on this earth might count for something. That faith was worth preserving.
Leigh Bardugo
Van Eck raised a brow. "How old are you, girl? Sixteen? Seventeen? Nations rise and fall. Markets are made and unmade. When power shifts, someone always suffers.
Leigh Bardugo
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
Where are you going?" she called after me, her voice mocking. "What's waiting for you out there?" "Nothing!" I shouted at her. "No one!
Leigh Bardugo
Her heart felt too full, a dry creek bed ill-prepared for such rain.
Leigh Bardugo
He looked down at his boots. "That berth belongs to you too. It will always be there when―if you want to come back."Inej could not speak. Her heart felt too full, a dry creek bed ill-prepared for such rain. "I don't know what to say.
Leigh Bardugo
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.
Leigh Bardugo