Maggie Stiefvater Quotations

Teenagers want to be able to fight for what's right - but finding out what's right is now 90 percent of the battle.

The biggest mistake you can make is assuming that creativity will hit you all at once and the muse will carry you to the end of the book on feather wings while Foster the People plays gently in the background. Storytelling is work. Pleasurable work, usually, but it is work.

I really love nature. I grew up in the country. But one of the things about nature is that it is beautiful but it's also very dangerous.

'Misty of Chincoteague', 'The Black Stallion', the 'Saddle Club' books, I read 'em all. I was horse-crazy.

As teenagers, we all see ourselves as outsiders... and it's very easy to look at other people who are more popular, who have more pocket money, and it makes you feel even more like an outsider, and it does shape who you become as a person.

As you learn who you are, you can better surround yourself with friends who make you a better person, and that sometimes only happens when you disassemble old relationships.

I love inventing interesting people and then pushing them to their absolute limits - and usually those absolute limits involve homicidal faeries, werewolves, or some other paranormal menace.

I would like to say that I was inspired to write 'Shiver' by some overwhelming belief in true love, but here's my true confession: I wrote 'Shiver' because I like to make people cry.

I can tell you that as a writer and as a reader, I regard character as king. Or queen. No matter how riveting the action or interesting the plot twists, if I don't feel like I'm meeting someone who feels real, I'm not going to be compelled to read further.

I'm a dirt road out in the country kind of person, but I remember thinking, I could live in Chicago.

Would we be so enamored with dystopian fiction if we lived in a culture where violent death was a major concern? It wouldn't be escapism.

I adore book-to-film adaptations when they're done well, and I'm more lenient than many readers when it comes to what counts as 'done well.' For me, the most important thing is that the film maintains the spirit of the original book.

I am an introvert. I should get that out there now.

I don't think I could ever give up music. It's what makes me tick. If there was no music, there would be no writing.

When I graduated from college, I went straight to work for a federal contractor, a desk job, and they were great to me, they loved me, I was like their mascot, but I just couldn't stand working in an office. I just hated it. And so one day I went in and said, 'I'm sorry, this is my two-weeks notice, I'm quitting to become an artist.'

In the end, you have to write like you're not afraid of the critics.

In a culture defined by shades of gray, I think the absolute black and white choices in dark young adult novels are incredibly satisfying for readers.

My parents were very permissive when it came to animals. As long as we earned the money to buy them and built whatever structure it was they were going to live in, we could have any kind of pet we wanted. They would have let us have a rhinoceros if we could have afforded it.

When I was a child, I was one of the kids who wore black all the time, and when the kids asked me why I wore black, I said things like, 'I'm mourning the death of modern society.' I mean, I was a riot.

I'm very easily distracted unless I have music on. Listening to music while I brainstorm makes me think of scenes that would fit the mood of the music I'm playing.

I don't cry at books or movies. Ever. So imagine my shock and awe when I read 'The Time Traveler's Wife' for the second time, and I knew the ending, and I started to cry.

I feel like I have so many stories basting in my mind, and they come busting out when they're ready.

I think that whenever a book is not a challenge, I'm telling the wrong story.

Oh, filmmakers, please don't take my soft book and turn it into a horror, or take my horror and make it soft.

The big thing in my family growing up is that everybody had to play a musical instrument. We were like the von Trapps.

This object that we hold in our hands, a book... that tactile pleasure, it's just not going to go away.

One of the things that I really like about young adult fiction is that you can explore the relationships between teens and their parents. I definitely think that teens are a product of their parents. You either end up just like them or you consciously make the decision to be unlike them.

When I was a teen, I thought I would have to choose between my writing or my music or my art, but it turns out it's a difficult juggling game but I can do all of them.

Ideas come from all over, but as I write more and more, I find I'm always hunting for mood: I want to write a novel with a pervasive mood that sticks with you after you close the cover.

I saw myself as an outsider as a teen. I was home-schooled and got my G.E.D. when I was 16; I wasn't interested in high school at all and figured that college might be more entertaining.

Once upon a time, I was very shy and you wouldn't even see me in a room. Then, when I was 16, I made the conscious decision to not be afraid of anything - this was about the time I picked up the bagpipes too - and my life pretty much changed forever.

It's easy to say why I love coming to Chicago for my signings, because I still remember the very first time I came to Chicago, right before 'Shiver' came out. I remember I was so struck by the feel of the city, how wide open it felt, even with these massive buildings all around me. The parks and green spaces are incredible.

you just can't wait to get out of your head, can you?" "if you were in here you might want that too.

I laughed, loud enough that Delia looked up at me. She made motions for me to come over, but I pretended to be looking past her into the food tent. "Hurry. Pretend you're pointing something out so I can pretend not to see her." Luke put a hand on my shoulder and pointed with the other towards the sky. "Look, the moon." "That was the best you could come up with?" I demanded.

My hand aching because grace wasn't underneath it 3!

I wasn’t sure if I was charmed by his reluctance to share a bed with a girl or insulted that, apparently, I wasn’t hot enough for him to charge the mattress like a bull.

Creative" "Dangerously emo.

I was born with these eyes. I was born for this life.

Grace (talking about Sam): At the sight of him, my stomach slid down to my feet, a weird combination of relief, nerves, and anticipation all in one, a feeling that never seemed to go away.

Sam- " After you were bitten, i knew what would happen. I waited for you to change, every night, so i could bring you back and keep you from getting hurt." Grace- " How long did you wait?" Sam- " I haven't stopped.

Isabel had gone silent in a way that shouted the silence to me.

Gift of time in me enclosed the future suddenly exposed

You'll have to go commando." "Is there any other way?

This new world was a vicious, sleek world made of street lights and tight jeans, sharp smiles and fast cars. This was a city, edited. A city, pared down to its bare minimums, beautiful and abusive.

whoopdie-friggin-doo, fooled you!

They bit you. You should've changed, too, you know." "Sometimes I wish I had," I told him. He closed his eyes, miles away on the other side of the bed. "Sometimes I do, too.

Your hair is all funky in the morning.

Peppermint swirled into my nostrils, sharp as glass, then raspberry almost to sweet, like too-ripe fruit. Apple, crisp and pure. Nuts, buttery, warm, earthy

Sam, I really want to buy a red coffee pot, if they exist," Grace said. "I'll find you one

You're getting your weird all over me.

holding tight, denying the fact that eventually we all had to let go.

Many, many readers have written asking me wistfully about the nature of Sam and Grace's relationship, and I can assure you, that sort is absolutely real. Mutual, respectful, enduring love is completely attainable as long as you swear you won't settle for less.

I couldn't think of anything to say. I was idiotically entranced by the way he said "Grace." The tone of it. The way his lips formed the vowels. The timbre of his voice stuck in my head like music.

I want you." Feeling the grip of his hand in mine, the brush of skin on mine, seeing the way he moved in front of me, equal parts human and wolf, and remembering his smell - I ached with wanting to kiss him.

I'll cook the water...

I never knew there were so many different ways to say good-bye.

Now I am the unknown, the unknowable.

His was the disease we couldn’t cure. His was the good-bye that meant the most

Strange what love taught you about your faults.

It was a life I didn’t want to leave behind.It was a life I didn’t want to forget.

here we were again , always saying good-bye

Sailing to an island unknown Failing to find your way home you walk under a sea leagues beneath us

Grace, who haunted my thoughts when I couldn’t dream

I didn't want normal until I didn't have it anymore

You’re my change of skin / my summer-winter-fall / I spring to follow you / this loss is beautiful.

Peeling off my skin / leaving just my eyes behind / You see inside my head / Still know that you are mine.

She draws patterns on my face / These lines make shapes that can’t replace / the version of me that I hold inside / when lying with you, lying with you, lying with you.

Once upon a time I would’ve leaped at the rare opportunity of curling up with Mom on the couch. But now it sort of felt like too little too late. I had someone else waiting for me.

There was something awful about terror trapped behind silence. About latent emotions that couldn't be acted out." "Cole's thoughts on page 248 of Linger.

Don't give me that look. I'm not trying to find out who you are. I don't care who you are. I just want to know why it is you are the way you are.

I considered calling Grace to ask her what I should say to a reticent suicidal werewolf, but I'd left my phone somewhere. Car, maybe.

I'd always liked jogging because it was a place to think.

Sometimes, your eyes see something your brain doesn't. You pick up a nmewspaper and yourhead gives you a phrase that you didn't consciously read yet. You walk into a room and you realize something's out of place before you've bothered to properly look. I felt that happening now." "Sam's thoughts on page 304 of Linger.

Did you know you get one happy day for every one you catch?... One happy day for every falling leaf you catch" -sam

I missed the sound of her shuffling her homework while I listened to music on her bed. I missed the cold of her feet against my legs when she climbed into bed. I missed the shape of her shadow where it fell across the page of my book. I missed the smell of her hair and the sound of her breath and my Rilke on her nightstand and her wet towel thrown over the back of her desk chair. It felt like I should be sated after having a whole day with her, but it just made me miss her more.

when we're married, can we go to the ocean? I've never been

I'm an equation that only she solves, these X's and Y's by other names called. My way of dividing is desperately flawed as I multiply the days without her" - Page 165

Hello, Grace's parents. I'm Grace's boyfriend. Please notice the chaste distance between us. I am very responsible and have never had my tongue in your daughter's mouth.

I watched the edges of the leaves slowly unfold, fluttering in the breeze. "How long did you wait?" It would've been unbearably romantic if he'd had he courage to look into my face and say it, but instead, he dropped his eyes to the ground and scuffed his boot in the leaves- countless possibilities for happy days- on the ground. "I haven't stopped.

I had this feeling that he and I , in this moment, were a car crash, and instead of putting on the brakes, I was hitting the accelerator.

The entire room was so yellow that it looked like the sun had thrown up on the walls and wiped its mouth afterward on the dresser and curtains. ---Cole

Do you feel better?” I asked Sam as he opened the door to the Volkswagen for me. “Yes,” he said. He was still a terrible liar. “Good,” I said. I was still a fantastic one.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Grace Brisbane. There was nothing particularly special about her, except that she was good with numbers, and very good at lying, and she made her home in between the pages of books. She loved all the wolves behind her house, but she love one of them most of all.

But by blood, no wolf am I

All these perfect days, made of glass Put on the shelf where they can cast perfect shadows that stretch and grow on the imperfect days down below. ... perfect shadows that shift and glow... ... perfect shadows that shift and grow..." "Sam singing on page 256 of Linger.

Every third step I ran, my breath exploded out of me all in a rush. One step to suck in another cold lungful. One step to let it excape. One step of not breathing.

Oh my God. What in—” I was going to be killed by two generations of beautiful women. While naked. “Mom,” Isabel snapped, interrupting. “Do you mind not staring? It’s totally perv.

I turned back to my extracurricular study of death and disease. Because no matter what Grace thought, I knew that in Mercy Falls, it's never over

It occurred to me then that I was the opposite of my father. Because I was very, very good at destroying things.

Are you alone?" So that's what this call was about. For some reason, the question made my throat tighten. "No," I said, "Elvis is here. Would you like to talk to him?

I touched my lips to hers again, and this time, it was a very different sort of kiss. It was six years’ worth of kissing, her lips coming to life under mine, tasting of orange and of desire. Her fingers ran through my sideburns and into my hair before linking around my neck, alive and cool on my warm skin. I was wild and tame and pulled into shreds and crushed into being all at once. For once in my human life, my mind didn’t wander to compose a song lyric or store the moment for later reflection. For once in my life, I was here and nowhere else. -Sam

I had risked everything, and I had nothing to show for it but my open hand, lying empty and palm up toward the ceiling.

Sam looked at me, yellow eyes catching and holding me. "I miss being me. I miss you. All the time.

i never pegged you for a fan of the obvious, sam", "i'm not, otherwise, i would've said, 'hey, shouldn't you be in school ?'", "touche

Rilke says: Verweilung, auch am Verstrautesten nicht, ist uns gegeben - We are not allowed to linger, even with what is most intimate.

Life's pain. You just have to get over as much of it as you can. -Isabel Culpeper

It's rude to stare, but the great thing about staring at a sedated person is that they don't know you're doing it.

Thery're both iron, isn't that funny?" "Funny haha or funny strange?" James handed them back to me "Funny 'occult'" "Ah. Funny strange" James looked at me sternly, "Don't start that. I'm supposed to be the humorous one

No, Elenore's something else. You're beautiful. Especially when you look at me with that 'boy he's a condescending asshole' expression....Yea. Beautiful.

She reached down and traced my eyebrows. 'You do have really beautiful eyes.' 'We get to keep them,' I said. Grace started at my voice. 'What?' 'It's the one thing we keep. Our eyes stay the same.' I unclenched my fists. 'I was born with these eyes. I was born for this life.