Seanan McGuire Quotes

The problem with people who say monsters don't really exist is that they're almost never saying it to the monsters." —Alice Healy
Seanan McGuire
There is no fighting in the Library. Anyone who starts a fight or responds to a challenge will be thrown out. You may think you can take me. You're probably right. But none of you can take the Library.
Seanan McGuire
Even when she slept, she tossed and turned and squirmed, like she was secretly a hurricane forced into a girl-body and told to exist as best she could among people who had no idea what it meant to secretly be a weather pattern.
Seanan McGuire
Sure. If she gets mugged, she can just flute them to death.
Seanan McGuire
Clichés are relatives of the fairy tale, and tropes aren’t bad; they go with the territory.
Seanan McGuire
When you’re late in a fairy tale, people wind up dead. And not true-love’s-kiss, glass-coffin-nap-time dead. Really dead, the kind of dead you don’t recover from.
Seanan McGuire
I squared my shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that I was standing in the apartment of the sea witch, wearing a fairy-tale prom gown, waiting for the attack of the mermaids.
Seanan McGuire
Everyone thinks of them in terms of poisoned apples and glass coffins, and forgets that they represent girls who walked into dark forests and remade them into their own reflections.
Seanan McGuire
You are covered in blood," Tybalt said again, stressing the words harder this time. "It makes me tense." There was a thud as the guard hit the floor, and Tybalt returned to my side."Wow. You must be tense a lot."He sighed. "You have no idea.
Seanan McGuire
Just thinking about how long it’s been since I’ve managed to wind up covered in blood,” I said. “It’s like a new trend. A blood-free trend.
Seanan McGuire
It's not hard to marginalize people when they've already done it to themselves.
Seanan McGuire
Wisconsin doesn't look kindly on the weeks that slip in between the death of cold and the birth of warmth; Persephone may have left her husband, but she isn't home yet, and this is one state that'll be damned before it lets anyone forget it.
Seanan McGuire
After months - after years - of chaos and life-threatening situations and people stabbing me for no good reason, we'd somehow managed to find a moment to breathe. That didn't just deserve to be enjoyed. It deserved to be celebrated, held up as proof that the world was a good place and didn't actually need to be destroyed in order for me to have a nap.
Seanan McGuire
I've never liked being looked at like I was a hero. I always wind up letting someone down. Sometimes I get lucky. Sometimes the only person who gets hurt is me.
Seanan McGuire
I just wasn’t sure it was a good idea to approach heroing the way I’d always approached detecting. Can you really shake the world until justice falls out?
Seanan McGuire
I just feel like we’re starting to interfere on a level that’s sort of . . . extreme.” “But that’s what heroes do.
Seanan McGuire
Crazy gets all the knives.
Seanan McGuire
And you shouldn't believe all the press about Ouija boards. They can't be used in an exorcism. Trivial Pursuit can, but that's another story.
Seanan McGuire
When the Root and Branch were young, when the Rose still grew unplucked upon the tree; when all our lands were new and green and we danced without care, then, we were immortal... We left those lands for the world where time dwells, dancing, that we might see the passage of the sun and the growing of the world. Here we may die, and where we can fall, and here King ___ has stopped his dancing.
Seanan McGuire
Call me a sucker for a man who had a great ass who knows how to bake a macaroni casserole and can tolerate six hours of Sesame Street a day.
Seanan McGuire
The moon is the friendliest of the celestial bodies, after all, glowing warm and white and welcoming, like a friend who wants only to know that all of us are safe in our narrow worlds, our narrow yards, our narrow, well-considered lives. The moon worries. We may not know how we know that, but we know it all the same: that the moon watches, and the moon worries, and the moon will always love us, no matter what.
Seanan McGuire
The mythology warped and twisted back along itself until Buffy Summers, the girl who once railed against the unfairness of being Chosen, looked at a squadron of girls who were just like she'd been and took away their right to Choose.
Seanan McGuire
The Argentine tango isn't here to play nicely with the other children. The Argentine tango is here to seduce your women, spill things on your rug, and sneak out your bedroom window in the middle of the night.
Seanan McGuire
Don't let anyone tell you, ever, that this is a zero-sum game. Your genius does not threaten me. It delights and inspires me.
Seanan McGuire
This isn't a place for lies or pretending everything's all right. We know everything is not all right. If it were, you wouldn't be here. Now. Where did you go?
Seanan McGuire
I have a swizzle stick shaped like a little monkey,” announced Rose. “Let’s help the dead man with his problem.
Seanan McGuire
Now, if you will excuse me, a dead woman is trying to convince me to drink something that comes in layers.
Seanan McGuire
Humanity has always had a flair for guilt by association.
Seanan McGuire
In Tybalt's case, it means bloody control of the local Court of Cats. He became their king by right of blood; he's held the position by beating the crap out of anyone who tries to take it away. The Cait Sidhe take a more direct and bloody approach to succession than most of Faerie.
Seanan McGuire
Most cats don't like water, and despite her pretensions of tigerhood, Julie was no different. Yes, tigers have stripes; so do tabbies. If you want to know the difference, try tossing one of each into your swimming pool. Then I would recommend running.
Seanan McGuire
Cats never listen. They’re dependable that way; when Rome burned, the emperor’s cats still expected to be fed on time.
Seanan McGuire
October—You were sleeping so peacefully that I was loath to wake you. Duke Torquill, after demanding to know what I was doing in your apartment, has requested that I inform you of his intent to visit after ‘tending to some business at the Queen’s Court.’ I recommend wearing something clinging, as that may distract him from whatever he wishes to lecture you about this time. Hopefully, it’s your manners.You are truly endearing when you sleep. I attribute this to the exotic nature of seeing you in a state of silence.—Tybalt
Seanan McGuire
I’m a cat. We aren’t required to make sense.
Seanan McGuire
When Rome burned, the emperor's cats still expected to be fed on time.
Seanan McGuire
But you're so easy to sneak up on." He crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall. "You should be honored that I bother, since there's no challenge to it.""Right," I said dryly.Tybalt has never made a secret of his contempt for changelings in general and me in particular. Not even the years I spent missing could change that. If anything, it made things worse, because when I came back, I promptly removed myself from all the places he was accustomed to finding me. Hating me suddenly took effort - an effort he's proved annoying glad to make. On the other hand, it's actually been something of a relief, because it is something I can count on. Dawn comes, the moon rises and Tybalt hates me.
Seanan McGuire
Only an idiot would trust a Kelpie this close to the water. Getting on its back with the scent of the sea in the air would be a fast, painful means of suicide, and I'm not a fan of pain.
Seanan McGuire
Hello?” I peered into the shadows.Two green circles flashed in the dark. I yelped, jumping backward and pressing myself against the wall.“And may I wish a very good morning to you, too, October.” The voice was amused, underscored by a chuckle like thick cream. “What happened? Did the prettiest little princess miss her carriage home?
Seanan McGuire
For is it not said That Girl Knows No Fear, and Dammit, Fran, She's Going To Get Herself Et, and This Is From Your Side Of The Family, Jonathan, No One In My Family Has Ever Hugged A Basilisk Before?
Seanan McGuire
If anyone was going to get themselves murdered to guarantee they would remain the center of attention, it would be him.
Seanan McGuire
Luna had told us not to drop the rose, not to leave the path. But we never dropped the rose - it was on me the whole time - and we didn't leave the path, not really. We just took a shortcut through the shadows and the brush, something idiots have been doing in fairy tales since the beginning of time.
Seanan McGuire
Let's go commit senseless acts of science.
Seanan McGuire
You’ll always come back to warn him, no matter how much danger it could put you in, no matter what it costs you, because he cared for you when you thought you were nothing. You were never nothing. That didn’t matter. Perception is everything in this world
Seanan McGuire
But sometimes the pieces fall together the way they want to, and you can't change the story; all you can do is try to ride it out.
Seanan McGuire
Then he looked back to me, and smiled. It was a terrible expression, filled with edges, and with knives.
Seanan McGuire
The Luidaeg sighed and put her arms around me, pulling me close. "Come here," she said. "I need to hold someone, and you need to be held. It's a fair trade. Just for a little while, and then we can go on being what we are." I thought about objecting, but dismissed the idea and nestled against her, enjoying the feeling of security given by knowing someone bigger and stronger than I was would stop anything from hurting me. That's all childhood is, after all: strong arms to hold back the dark, a story to keep the shadows dancing, and a candle to mark the long journey into day. A song to keep the flights of angels at bay. How many miles to Babylon? Sorry. I don't care.
Seanan McGuire
Doors opened everywhere. Maybe one day, the children of this world who had gone to that world to save themselves would see a door that didn't fit right with the walls around it, something with a doorknob made of a moon, or a knocker that winked. Maybe they could still go home,
Seanan McGuire
For us, places we went were home. We didn't care if they were good or evil or neutral or what. We cared about the fact that for the first time, we didn't have to pretend to be something we weren't. We just got to be. That made all the difference in the world.
Seanan McGuire
There's always time for tea.
Seanan McGuire
I watch him go, and wonder if being good isn't its own punishment as much as it's supposed to be its own reward.
Seanan McGuire
You want to go back, and so you hold on to the habits you learned while you were traveling, because it's better than admitting the journey's over.
Seanan McGuire
I would love a sandwich,' said Tybalt, with enough gravity to make it sound like a formal proclamation. Resolved: that we will have ham and cheese sandwiches.
Seanan McGuire
He said that he was sure you would be amendable to this course of action." April paused, eyes widening, before she said indignantly, "I believe he may have lied to me!
Seanan McGuire
The night-haunts never lie. They could, if they wanted to, but they don’t really see the point. The truth is so much more dangerous than a lie.
Seanan McGuire
If something happened to Gillian, I'd rip the world down to save her, even if she spat in my face when I did. That's what parenthood means.
Seanan McGuire
We hated each other so well and loved each other so badly...
Seanan McGuire
If you wish to find your answers, you’ll need to begin thinking, not merely reacting.-- Lily
Seanan McGuire
I wondered how much time they'd spent practicing entrances like this one, smoothing away their rough edges and rendering them brief but potent expressions of effortless grace. I decided to stop thinking about it, and just be grateful that there was no circumstance, however, unlikely, that could put me in their place.
Seanan McGuire
Some adventures require nothing more than a willing heart and the ability to trip over the cracks in the world.
Seanan McGuire
Faeries are real. Magic is real. My tendency to greet dangerous situations by plunging in headfirst and seeing how long it takes to get myself covered head to toe in blood is also real.
Seanan McGuire
I didn't even feel my face hitting the pond. Everything was darkness, glorious darkness and the final, perfect absence of pain. It was done, all of it, the running and the fighting, and the pain. After everything that I'd gone through, it was finally over, and this time, the water would carry me home.
Seanan McGuire