The Prisoners Throne Quotes

“Who can love someone who is empty inside? Someone who steals love instead of earning it?”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Love,' Cardan goes on. 'That force that compels us to be sometimes better and often worse. That power by which we can all be bound. That which we ought to fear and yet most desire...”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Do you want-?' he starts, but she is already pushing up her dress.

'I want,' she says. 'That's my problem. I want and I want and I want.'

'What do you want?' he asks, voice soft.

'Everything. Charm me. Rip me open. Ruin me. Go too far.'

He shudders at her words, shaking his head against them.

She goes on, whispering against his skin. 'You cannot understand. I am a chasm that will never be full. I am hunger. I am need. I cannot be sated. IF you try, I will swallow you up. I will take all of you and want more. I will use you. I will drain you until you are nothing more than a husk.'

'Use me, then,' he whispers, mouth on her throat.

Then her lips are against his, and there is no more talking for a long time.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You can't help what you are. You can't help being charming. But look into too many hearts, and you may lose your way back to your own.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Have you no feelings to drown?'

Wren looks down. 'No,' she says. 'Nothing I have would I ever want to give away.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“...it can be dangerous to become everything a person wants. The embodiment of all their desires. And more dangerous for you to twist yourself into shapes others chose for you.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I hate being unwell,' he says.

'You're not sick,' Jude tells him. 'You are recovering from being stabbed- or rather, throwing yourself on a knife.'

'You would have done the same for me,' he says airily.

'I would not,' Jude snaps.

'Liar,' Cardan says fondly.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Your HIghness,' Tiernan hisses at Oak. HIs sword is drawn and his jaw set. 'Get below.'

'And how will that help, exactly?' Oak demands. 'Will waiting to drown make the experience better?”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Killing is my thing,' he tells her. 'You should get your own thing.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Felicitations on the murder of your mother.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I thought love was a fascination, or a desire to be around someone, or wanting to make them happy. I believed it just happened, like a slap to the face, and left the way the sting from such a blow fades. That's why it was easy for me to believe it could be false or manipulated or influenced by magic.

'Until I met you, I didn't understand to feel loved, one has to feel known. And that, outside of my family, I had never really loved because I hadn't bothered to know the other person. But I know you. And you have to come back to me, Wren, because no one gets us but us. You know why you're not a monster, but I might be. I know why throwing me in your dungeon meant there was still something between us. We are messes and we are messed up and I don't want to go through this world without the one person I can't hide from and who can't hide from me.

'Come back,' he says again, tears burning the back of his throat. 'You want and you want and you want, remember? Well, wake up and take what you want.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“What if I am too much? If I need too much?' she asks, her voice very low.

He takes a deep breath, his smile gone. 'I'm not good. I'm not kind. Maybe I am not even safe. But whatever you want from me, I will give you.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“He hates that he can fold himself up so tightly in his own skin that there's nothing real about him on the outside.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Not now, imp. We have many dull adult things to do.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“After all, how can anyone love him when no one really knows him?”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You should probably stop staring at her like you never saw a naked girl with wings before.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“It has become such an automatic reaction to pain, for him to mask it with a grin. Oak, laughing all the time. Pretending nothing hurts. A false face hiding a false heart.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You fall in love with the ease of someone slipping into a bath,' she tells him. 'And I imagine you extricate yourself with somewhat more drama, but no less ease.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I want you,' the price hears Tiernan say. Oak feels some chagrin at overhearing that, but he is also surprised at the starkness of the admission. It sounds almost like an accusation.

'And what are you going to do about it?' Hyacinthe asks.

Tiernan snorts. 'Pine, I suppose.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I want you,' the prince hears Tiernan say. Oak feels some chagrin at overhearing that, but he is also surprised at the starkness of the admission. It sounds almost like an accusation.

'And what are you going to do about it?' Hyacinthe asks.

Tiernan snorts. 'Pine, I suppose.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You could have kept me here, in Elfhame, but you let your sister send me away.' Wren turns her gaze to the flower, speaking to it instead of him. 'You gave me the first safe place- the only safe place I had after I was stolen from my unfamily- and then you took it from me.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“It seems quite the trick to tell the friendly snakes from the other ones.'

'Ah,' Oak says. 'They're all friendly snakes until they bite you.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I'm not sure I trust anyone anymore. Not even myself.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Stabbity stab, knife wife,' says Fala, with feeling. 'Traitor's blood is hot, but it still spills.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You're not my enemy,' he says. 'You were never my enemy.'

'Yet you're standing there with a bare blade,' Wren reminds him.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I am not your enemy, but if you can't help me, the next time we meet, I might be.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I know what it is to want something so much that you would rather have the shadow of it than nothing, even if that means you will never have the real thing. And love is not that.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You can't just keep throwing yourself at things as though you don't matter.'

'She matters more,' he says.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Come back to me.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I know what you think' Oak says. 'That you're not whom I should want.'

She ducks her head, a faint flush on her cheeks.

'It's true you inspire no safe daydream of love,' he tells her.

'A nightmare, then?' she asks with a small, self-depreciating laugh.

'The kind of love that comes when two people see each other clearly,' he says, walking to her. 'Even if they're scared to believe that's possible. I adore you. I want to play games with you. I want to tell you all the truths I have to give. And if you really think you're a monster, then let's be monsters together.'

Wren stares at him. 'And if I send you away even after this speech? If I don't want you?'

He hesitates. 'Then I'll go,' he says. 'And adore you from afar. And compose ballads about you or something.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne