I love book quotes! I’m a quote hoarder. But I didn’t need to look through my hoard of quotes for this post because it’s all about the ones that have stuck in my mind.

These are not necessarily meaningful quotes. They run the gamut from beautiful to emotional to funny to horrifying. You’ll see. They’re just the ones I still think about because they hit hard in the book or were so well-written.

A lot of these aren’t going to make sense or have an impact without context. But maybe they’ll still intrigue someone enough to pick up one of these books! (Ok, I’ll give a bit of context for some, for the people who are curious and don’t mind spoilers.) Or maybe someone’s read some of these and will reminisce with me. And if not, I still had fun thinking about these great books!

Hell Divers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

The average life expectancy for a Hell Diver was fifteen jumps. This was Xavier Rodriguez’s ninety-sixth.

I could never include this one in my “opening lines” posts because it’s two lines, but this might be the most attention-grabbing opening of any book I’ve read.

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Teeth: The First Bite by Chele Cooke

Thomas opened his eyes.

Then he began screaming.

Another one I could never include in my “opening lines” posts because it’s near the beginning but not the opener. Really great though.

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The King of Infinite Space by Lyndsay Faye

I loved you then. I love you now. I love you everywhere, and everywhen, and after what you did this time, I can never be with you again.

How am I ever going to recover from something like that?

This one already sounds heartbreaking without context, but I promise you it’s so much worse in the book.

BIG Spoiler: You’re led to believe (because it’s what the character believes) throughout most of the book that this was a breakup letter. Eventually you find out (when the character realizes it herself) that the character is dead, and it was actually her partner’s eulogy for her.

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Withered + Sere by TJ Klune

The bees screamed.

They are not real bees, just, in case anyone was worried. Also, I don’t even know how to explain this context lol. It really conveyed a feeling though and was the perfect three words for that moment.

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Kings Rising by C.S. Pacat

“That’s right. He is Charls. I am Charls. We are cousins,” said Charls, gamely, “named after our grandfather. Charls.”

I loved these books, but this is the only specific line I remember because it was so funny to me. Charls was great lol.

Might spoil the scene, but nothing big: The MCs were at an inn, I believe, and one was sort of pretending to be Charls as a cover story, but Charls was already there. So when real Charls was called down, he immediately read the room, realized something was up, and just immediately went along with it.

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The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

“You won’t forgive me the boy.”

I feel like this one is different from the others on this list because it’s not memorable in and of itself, exactly. But it was sort of a culmination of a lot of things, and I felt for a lot of characters in that scene, but the resignation and sadness in that one line was so palpable to me.

BIG spoiler: The full quote is, “They haven’t taken me. I’m right here.” // His shoulders dropped, and he bowed his head. “They have. You won’t forgive me the boy.” Dara had either killed or done something that resulted in the death of Ali (or so they thought), and Dara knew how much Nahri cared about Ali. And he’d already felt like he was losing Nahri.

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Bang! Bang! BOOM! Vol. 1 by Melanie Schoen & Del Borovic

“I bet you’re wishing you’d went along with us being strangers.”

“No.”

Really it’s just the “no” part. It’s the perfect encapsulation, in such a Jakub way (he’s a man of few words), of how ride-or-die he is for Chesh. I believe they were being arrested as this was said, so Jakub was saying he would rather be in trouble with Chesh than safe and sound without him.

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Changeling by Amanda Meuwissen

“You’re not even lying.”

This one isn’t even about the main characters in this series, but it has always stuck out to me because it showed so perfectly the love between these two other characters.

Mild spoiler, if even that: The character speaking was all creepy and not quite himself because he was being affected by magic, but even before that he was not quite human and felt like a monster. He asked the woman he loved if she thought he was a monster, and with his current powers, he knew she wasn’t lying when she said no. That quote is him being genuinely surprised she didn’t think he was a monster, even in his current creepy state. And as the reader, it was so sweet.

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Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice

“Armand envies you and spies on you far more than you might think.”

“I hear Armand and I see him and I ignore him,” I said.

I just think this one is so funny. Armand has done awful things to Lestat but still follows him around and is so weird and clearly not as sneaky as he thinks he is, and Lestat just ignores him lol.

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Real Vampires Take No Prisoners by Amy Fecteau

“Haven’t you ever met someone who stuck in your mind? Someone you couldn’t shake loose? Someone who glowed so brightly, you thought you’d never miss the sun again?”

Ending with a swoon-worthy quote. The only context you need is that this one was said by a vampire. (I used the Book 1 cover. Please don’t judge this series by the Book 3 cover if you click any of the links below.)

Amazon // Goodreads // My Review