Cassandra Clare quotes:

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  • In my own work, I don't have favorite characters, but I have characters that I relate to the most. And I relate the most to Simon from 'The Mortal Instruments,' and also Tessa from 'The Infernal Devices.' They're more sort of bookish and shy characters.

  • In other people's books, I tend to love the really daredevil-y characters. I love Finnick from 'The Hunger Games.' And I think, probably, my favorite character of all time is Sherlock Holmes.

  • There's a stigma that guys hate romance and hate love, but that's not true. Look at 'Iron Man.' There's a whole through-line plot about his relationship with Pepper, and everybody loves it.

  • Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and define characters.

  • I am in the U.K. for inspiration because I'm doing a follow on series to 'The Infernal Devices,' called 'The Last Hours.' It's a re-telling of 'Great Expectations' with 'Shadowhunters'... because why not! It's set in 1903, so I'm doing a lot of locational research.

  • Perfect heroines, like perfect heroes, aren't relatable, and if you can't put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, not only will they not inspire you, but the book will be pretty boring.

  • When I started 'City of Bones,' I knew exactly what was going to happen in 'City of Glass.' When I first started the six-book series, I thought of it as a three-book series.

  • I think as women we've always been very used to growing up reading and identifying with male protagonists, especially in fantasy. There's a saying in publishing that girls will read about boys, but boys will only read about boys, and it's important to give women strong heroines.

  • City of Fallen Angels' ended on a cliffhanger. That was equally loved and hated by my readership.

  • I get a lot of inspiration from research in mythology and folklore. I find that, you know, stories people told each other thousands of years ago are still relevant now.

  • I had just moved to New York in September 2001, and immediately 9/11 happened, and of course it completely changed the city and everybody who lived there.

  • I tend to write in coffee shops and restaurants with friends of mine because if I'm at home, I get distracted by the television or the cats or my husband, or... you know - all of those things that make it easy to procrastinate.

  • I firmly believe that you can't get a good movie without risking a bad movie. A good adaptation of your book is worth it because it is such a wonderful experience to see your world translated onto the screen.

  • You don't get it, Clary. You don't understand what it's like to live always at war, to grow up with battle and sacrifice. I guess it's not your fault. It's just how you were brought up-

  • Other crack teams get bat boomerangs and wall-climbing powers; we get Aquatruck.

  • She supposed they were imperfections, those marks, but they didn't feel that way to her; they were a history, cut into his body: the map of a life of endless war.

  • As long as they're making beloved books into movies, people are going to be like, 'That's not my mental image of them.' It takes that moment for it to click and become their mental image.

  • We as artists are actively encouraged - by other authors, your agent, publisher, and society - not to think about money, strategy, how to manage your career, how to create a brand, because we're supposed to focus on the art.

  • Write every day. Don't kill yourself. I think a lot of people think, 'I have to write a chapter a day' and they can't. They fall behind and stop doing it. But if you just write even one hundred words a day, it's not that much. By the end of a month, you'll have three thousand words, which is one chapter.

  • I think that 'City of Heavenly Fire' is definitely a book where all the characters are tested to their limits, and they have to make really significant choices about who they are and who they wanna be.

  • No matter how many books you've written, whenever you sit down to write a new book, you always feel the same challenge - how do you shape this story into a book that people are going to love.

  • I have specific playlists for different books and characters. So, I need to have those with me. It helps me get into the mindset of the book.

  • My grandfather was a movie producer, and so I grew up on movie sets.

  • Go forth and light the lights of war

  • Love could be a last hope and a star to steer by.

  • I've never minded it, he went on. Being lost, that is. I had always thought one could not truly be lost if one knew one's own heart. But I fear I may be lost without knowing yours.

  • Read everything! Don't just read things that are in your comfort zone or things that you think you're already going to like. Experiment; try new stuff and try new genres. If you read a lot of romance, then start reading mystery. If you read a lot of mystery, start reading fantasy.

  • I learned to play the instruments of war, he said, and paint in blood.

  • You shouldn't do that. Not to your child. You should-carry your own burdens.

  • You have no idea what it is, Ty said in a clipped voice. You can't say it's going to be okay. You don't know.

  • But they love each other. Isn't that what love means? That you're supposed to be there for the other person to turn to, no matter what?

  • We're meant to protect each other, but not from everything. Not fromthe truth. That's what it means to love someone but let them be themselves.-Jace Wayland

  • He had to think he was Michael Wayland's son, or the Lightwoods would not have protected him as they did. It was Michael they owed a debt to, not me. It was on Michael's account that they loved him, not mine.""Maybe they loved him on his own account," said Clary.

  • If you wanted to rip my clothes off, you should have asked." (Jace Wayland)

  • Since I've met you, everything I've done has been in part because of you. I can't untie myself from you, Clary- not my heart or my blood or my mind or any other part of me. And I don't want to."~Jace Wayland

  • The next time you're planning to injure yourself to get my attention, just remeber that a little sweet talk works wonders." - City of Bones (said by Jace Wayland)

  • My name is Jace," he said"Not boy. Jace Wayland.""You have no right to the name of Wayland," she said"You are Jonathan Morgenstern. To claim the name of Wayland makes you a liar. Just like your father.""Actually," said Jace, "I prefer to think that I'm a liar in a way that is uniquely my own.

  • There was no Jace Wayland more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him.

  • Sometimes when she looks at him that way he finds himself almost blushing; a feeling so strange he almost doesn't recognize it. Jace Wayland doesn't blush.

  • -Amar es destruir y ser amado es ser destruido- (Jace Wayland)

  • Sometimes carrying the burden of an upsetting truth, and hiding it, is actually a gift you give to someone else. You bear that burden, so they don't have to, in a situation where telling them will change nothing.

  • My name is Sabastian. I had a father, but he is dead. I had a mother, but she is dead to me. I have a brother, and I will Bind him to me. I have a sister, and I will teach her to love me. My name is Sabastain, and I am going to burn down the world

  • Through many waters borne, brother, I am come to thy sad grave, that I may give these last gifts to the dead. Forever and ever, brother, hail. Forever and ever, farewell.

  • I think," Jace said, "that you don't want to tell your secrets, so you decided to break up with Alec because..

  • I think you'll find that one would be self-defeating." Jace said lightly shoving his feet into his bootsWe are bound, he and I. Cut him and I bleed."

  • That you freed a possible criminal by trading away your brother to a warlock who looks like a gay sonic the Hedgehog and dresses like the childcatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

  • It's a coffee cup."She could hear the irritation in her own voiceI know it's a coffee cup.""I can't wait till you draw something really complicated, like the Brooklyn Bridge or a lobster. You'll probably send me a singing telegram."

  • My darling, you are indisposed! You must remain abed for the next eight months. Little Buford - ""I am NOT naming our child Buford..."

  • What are all these?" Clary asked."Vials of holy water, blessed knives, steel and silver blades," Jace said, piling the weapons on the floor beside him, "electrum wire - not much use at the moment but it's always good to have spares - silver bullets, charms of protetion, crucifixes, stars of David-""Jesus," said Clary"I doubt he'd fit.""Jace." Clary was appalled."

  • My mom says you only need three people you can rely on to achieve self-actualization.

  • Gold to airy thinness beat.

  • Hey," said Jace. who was sitting on an overturned speaker, looking at his cellphone, "do you want to see a photo of Alec and Magnus in Berlin?" "Not really," said Simon. "Magnus is wearing lederhosen." "And yet, still no.

  • Dear Alec and Magnus, I known we're not really close, but Isabelle just came by to drop off a pleated orange velvet tux that she claims I will be wearing to your wedding. Is this true, and if so, why orange? -Simon

  • Hey guys! Wish you were here, except not really. We're having fun. Check it out-the pyramids! -Alec and Magnus

  • Dear Alec and Magnus, How are you? Everything's just fine here. Thanks for you postcard with the picture of the Taj Mahal. It looks nice. Disregard my last few postcards. I see I overdid it. To make it up to you, I'm going to redecorate Magnus's loft for free. -Izzy

  • We're not dating," Alec said again. "Oh?" Magnus said. "So you're just that friendly with everybody, is that it?

  • Alec looked at her and shook his head. "How do you manage never to get mud on your clothes?" Isabelle shrugged philosophically. "I'm pure at heart. It repels the dirt.

  • Magnus sighed. "Alexander, I've been alive for hundreds of years. I've been with men, been with women - with faeries and warlocks and vampires, and even a djinn or two." He looked sideways at Maryse, who looked mildly horrified. "Too much information?

  • Dear Alec & Magnus, It's Izzy. Got your card. Glad you're having fun. Nothing's happening here-Clary's mom is marrying some werewolf. I think you guys should get married too. I'm thinking about planing it. I love planing parties. -Isabelle

  • Does she still love you?" "I don't think so," Magnus said dryly. "She wasn't very pleasant the last time I saw her. Of course, that could be because I've got an eighteen year-old boyfriend with a stamina rune and she doesn't." Alec sputtered. "As the person being objectified, I ... object to that description of me.

  • I hope you told him you were bitten by a gay spider.

  • Sweet pea?'" Alec said. "I was just trying it out." Alec shook his head. "No." Magnus shrugged. "I'll keep at it.

  • You tried to drink the East River,"Magnus said, and Alec saw, as if for the first time, that Magnus's clothes were soaking wet too, sticking to his body like a dark second skin.

  • But Magnus, he thought. You never told me. Never warned me it would be like this, that I would wake up one day and realize that I was going somewhere you couldn't follow. That we are essentially not the same. There's no "till death do us apart" for those who never die.

  • Still I pictured having you for fifty, sixty more years. I thought I might be ready then to let you go. But it's you, and I realize now that I won't be anymore ready to lose you then than I am right now. Which is not at all.

  • Alec keeps sending me annoying photos. Lots of captions like Wish you were here, except not really.

  • You don't believe me?" Jace asked. "Fine. Go ahead. Kiss me right now." Alec stared at him in horror. "Exactly. Despite my staggering good lucks, you actually don't like me that way.

  • And who are all these people? There weren't this many when I fell asleep." Alfie shrugged, indicating that the universe was mysterious and nothing would ever be fully understood.

  • They all have always loved you, Will Herondale, for you cannot hide what is good about yourself, however hard you try.

  • L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle. "It means that love is the most powerful force in the world. That love can do anything.

  • (Sebastian) "See, there you go. You're always looking at me like that." "Like what?" "Like I burn down animal shelters for fun and light my cigarettes with orphans.

  • Rule number one of anime," Simon said. He sat propped up against a pile of pillows at the foot of his bed, a bag of potato chips in one hand and the TV remote in the other. He was wearing a black T-shirt that said I BLOGGED YOUR MOM and a pair of jeans that were ripped in one knee. "Never screw with a blind monk.

  • Don't order any of the faerie food," said Jace, looking at her over the top of his menu. "It tends to make humans a little crazy. One minute you're munching a faerie plum, the next minute you're running naked down Madison Avenue with antlers on your head. Not," he added hastily, "that this has ever happened to me.

  • Do you remember what I told you that first time at Taki's? About faerie food?" "I remember you said you ran down Madison Avenue naked with antlers on your head", said Clary, blinking silver drops off her lashes.

  • I should have guessed you were Jace's sister," he said. "You both have the same artistic talent." Clary paused, her foot on the lowest stair. She was taken aback. "Jace can draw?" Nah." When Alec smiled, his eyes lit like blue lamps and Clary could see what Magnus had found so captivating about him. "I was just kidding. He can't draw a straight line.

  • I told you to bring me to Alec! Backstabbing Judas.

  • Jace whistled. "Raphael is really having an exceptionally bad night." -Jace, pg.283-

  • Vampires bore a grudge longer than any technically living creatures, and whenever they were in a bad temper, they expressed themselves through murder.

  • Clary," Jace said again. "You know: short, redheaded, bad temper.

  • Look, I asked you here for a reason. Much as I hate to admit it, vampire, we have something in common. " "Totally awesome hair?" Simon suggested, but his heart wasn't really in it either. Something about the look on Jace's face was making him increasingly uneasy. Simon was caught off guard. "Clary?" "Clary, " Jace said again. "You know: short, redheaded, bad temper.

  • You serve a greater cause. Your life is not yours to throw away (Magnus Bane)

  • I imagine that it will not be easy to persuade Mortmain into a bonnet," Magnus observed. "Though the color would be fetching on him." Henry burst into laughter. "Very droll, Mr. Bane." "Please, call me Magnus." "I shall!

  • Eventually I fell asleep in the Rabies and Lycanthropy section. Woolsey bites on occasion, and I'm concerned.' - Magnus Bane

  • Excuse me, Bane?" said Roderick Morgenstern. "Are you attending?" "I'm so sorry," Magnus said politely. "Somebody incredibly attractive just came into the room, and I ceased to pay attention to a word you were saying.

  • I'm Magnus Bane." he went on in a soothing tone, stretching out his ringed hands. Blue sparks had begun to dance between them like bioluminescence dancing water. "I'm the warlock who's here to cure you. Didn't they tell you I was comming?" "I know who you are, but..." Maia looked dazed. "You look so... so... shiny.

  • Forever does not make loss forgettable, only bearable, Brother Zachariah to Clary Fray

  • Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.

  • Perhaps he's in love with Agatha," she said. "I hope not. I intend to marry Agatha myself. She may be a thousand years old, but she makes an incomparable jam tart. Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.

  • If you're really tired, I could put you to sleep," he said. "Tell you a bedtime story." She looked at him. "Are you serious?" "I'm always serious

  • How many times have I told you, Magnus? Behave professionaly in a professional setting. Which means no being rude to Nephilim, and also no getting attached to Nephilim." "I never get attached to Nephilim!" Magnus protested. Ragnor coughed, and in the midst of the cough said something that sounded like "blerondale." "Well," said Magnus. "Hardly ever.

  • I thought I'd lie on the floor and writhe in pain for a while," he grunted, "It relaxes me." "It does? Oh - you're being sarcastic. That's a good sign probably.

  • In some ways, we've been through something no one else can ever understand but the two of us... And it made me realize. We are always and absolutely better together.

  • Magnus had a list of favored traits in a partner-black hair, blue eyes, honest...

  • Black hair and blue eyes are my favorite combination.

  • What you're blaming yourself for is being who you are. And that's no one's fault and nothing you can change.

  • So John took out of his pocket A knife both long and sharp, And stuck it through his brother's heart, And the blood came pouring down. Says John to William, "Take off thy shirt, And tear it from gore to gore, And wrap it round your bleeding heart, And the blood will pour no more.

  • If I was harsh with you, it was because I cannot bear to see you treat yourself as if you are worth nothing. Whatever part you might act to the contrary, I see you as you really are, my blood brother. Not just better than you pretend to be, but better than most people could hope to be.

  • He cocked his head to the side. "Did he die well?" "He died screaming." Charlotte's bluntness startled Tessa. "What a beautiful thing to hear.

  • Life is a book and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read.

  • That's your truck parked up by the factory isn't it?" Magnus pointed. "It's awfully butch for a bookseller.

  • You really want to know what else it was my mom said about you?" he asked. She shook her head. He didn't seem to notice. "She said you'd break my heart," he told her, and left.

  • Must I go bound while you go free Must I love a manwho doesn't love me Must I be born with so little art As to love a man who'll break my Heart

  • What's the point in wasting a perfectly good brick wall when you have someone to throw against it, that's what I always say.

  • He was the one she was doing all this for, but sometimes she missed him so much it felt like she swallowed broken glass.

  • The boy was standing alone as though the broken glass all around him were a shining sea and he were an island.

  • Hearts are breakable," Isabelle said. "And I think even when you heal, you're never what you were before".

  • Are you implying that shreds of my reputation remain intact?" Will demanded with mock horror. "Clearly I have been doing something wrong. Or not something wrong, as the case may be." He banged on the side of the carriage. "Thomas! We must away at once to the nearest brothel. I seek scandal and low companionship.

  • Did Brother Zachariah just steal our cat?

  • A parabatai. Like he was. And Jace knew, too, what that faded rune meant: a parabatai whose other half was dead. He felt his sympathy leap toward Brother Zachariah, as he imagined himself without Alec, with only that faded rune to remind him where once he had been bonded to someone who knew all the best and worst parts of his soul.

  • There are memories that time can't erase, Clarissa. Ask your friend, Magnus Bane, if you don't believe me. Forever does not make loss forgettable. Only bearable.

  • When I am in the darkness, I want to think of it in the light, with you," he said, and straightened, and turned to walk toward the door. The parchment robes of the Silent Brothers moved around him as he moved, and Tessa watched him, paralyzed, every pulse of her heart beating out the words she could not say: Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye.

  • He played of love and loss and years of silence, words unsaid and vows unspoken, and all the spaces between his heart and theirs; and when he was done, and he'd set the violin back in its box, Will's eyes were closed, but Tessa's were full of tears.

  • The two are now bound inextricably. Should one die, the other will follow. No wepon in this world can wound only one of them

  • Tessa was laying on her side, her brown hair spread over the pillow, watching Will, whose face was bent over the pages, with a look of tenderness in her eyes, a tenderness mirrored in the softness of Will's voice as he read.

  • Dear Alec, As your best friend and parabatai, I am offended not to have been asked to be your best man at the wedding. Et tu, Brutus. -Jace Alec , he really is upset. He hasn't washed his hair in three days. -Clary

  • (Jace) "Is there anything special you want to see? Paris? Budapest? The Leaning Tower of Pisa?" Only if it falls on Sebastian's head, she thought.

  • Maia pulled on a braid. "I ran into Eric of all people. He told me what happened and that you'd backed out of Millenium Lint's gigs for the past two weeks because of it." "Actually, they changed their name," Jordan said. "They're Midnight Burrito now.

  • Years later Magnus would return to London and Camille Belcourt's side, and find it not all that he had dreamed. Years later another desperate Herondale boy with blue, blue eyes would come to his door, shaking with the cold of the rain and his own wretchedness, and this one Magnus would be able to help.

  • Magnus gazed upon Camille. "Some of my fondest memories include lashings of cream and beautiful women.

  • Will nodded slowly, then looked up at tha black sky. "The stars", he said. "I have never seen them so bright. The wind has blown off the fog, I think." Magnus thought of the joy on Will's face as he had stood bleeding in Camille's living room, clutching the demon tooth in his hand. Somehow I don't think it's the stars that have changed.

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