Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

"How easy it was to lose everything you had always thought you'd have forever."

"Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he'd learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed."

"What would you do if you saw something nobody else could see?”The tape gun fell out of Luke’s hand, and hit the tiled hearth. He knelt to pick it up, not looking at her. “You mean if I were the only witness to a crime, that sort of thing?”“No. I mean, if there were other people around, but you were the only one who could see something. As if it were invisible to everyone but you.”He hesitated, still kneeling, the dented tape gun gripped in his hand.“I know it sounds crazy,” Clary ventured nervously, “but…”He turned around. His eyes, very blue behind the glasses, rested on her with a look of firm affection. “Clary, you’re an artist, like your mother. That means you see the world in ways that other people don’t. It’s your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn’t make you crazy—just different. There’s nothing wrong with being different."

"My one true love remains my self... I dump myself occasionally to keep it interesting"

"It's entirely possible that there are memories you have buried or repressed, memories formed when you were too young to have a conscious recollection of them, that Brother Jeremiah can reach. It could help us a great deal."

"To love is to destroy and to be loved is to be the one destroyed"

"What do you want"Just coffee. Black - like my soul."

"To be beautiful you had to be willowy and tall. When you were as short as Clary was, just over five feet, you were cute. Not pretty or beautiful, but cute."

"You can see where it was, years ago. Like an old woman who was once beautiful, but time has taken her beauty away."

"It's not my fault, that I'm flat chested and a midget!"

"She saw Luke, standing atop a pile of bones. Jace with white feathered wings sprouting out of his back, Isabelle sitting naked with her whip curled around her like a net of gold rings, Simon with crosses burned into the palms of his hands. Angels, falling and burning. Falling out of the sky."

"I'm not unhappy," he said. "Only people with no purpose are unhappy. I've got a purpose."

"How can you tell? That I like books, I mean. The look on your face when you walked in, somehow I doubted you were that impressed by me."

"Once there was a boy,” said Jace. Clary interrupted immediately. “A Shadowhunter boy?”“Of course.” For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. “When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors – killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky.“The falcon didn’t like the boy, and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father.“He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it – instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. Hee fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen.“He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like likght. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he neary shouted with delight Sometimes the bird would hope to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud.“Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’“Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed."

"Keep up," said an irritable voice in her ear. It was Jace, who had dropped back to walk beside her. "I don't want to have to keep looking behind me to make sure nothing's happened to you."So don't bother."Last time I left you alone, a demon attacked you," he pointed out. "Well, I'd certainly hate to interrupt your pleasant night stroll with my sudden death."He blinked. "There is a fine line between sarcasm and outright hostility, and you seem to have crossed it."

"Who cares if you have a girlfriend, anyway"I care" Simon said gloomily. "Pretty soon the only people left without a girlfriend will be me and Wendell the school janitor. And he smells like windex."

"The dark prince sat astride his black steed, his sable cape flowing behind him. A golden circlet bound his blond locks, his handsome face was cold with the rage of battle, and..."And his arm looked like an eggplant," Clary muttered to herself in exasperation."

"Simon!" Clary shouted, and seized his arm. "What" Simon looked alarmed."I'm not really sleeping with your mom, you know. I was just trying to get your attention. Not that your mom isn't a very attractive woman, for her age."

"Wait a second," Clary said."I never understand why people say that," Luke said, to no one in particular. "I wasn't going anywhere."

"aren't you, uh... reproducing"sure, we love reproducing it's one of our favorite things."