"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."

— THE PRISONER'S THRONE BY HOLLY BLACK

"Why does anyone want anyone else? We do not love because people deserve it, nor would I want to be loved because I was the most deserving of some list of candidates. I want to be loved for my worst self as well as my best. I want to be forgiven my flaws."

— THE PRISONER'S THRONE BY HOLLY BLACK

"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."

— THE PRISONER'S THRONE BY HOLLY BLACK

"He loves that she knows he's not peaceful. Loves that she doesn't think him kind. He doesn't know how, but from the first she seemed to recognize something in him that no one else does - that inner kernel of hardness, of coldness."

— THE PRISONER'S THRONE BY HOLLY BLACK

"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."

— THE PRISONER'S THRONE BY HOLLY BLACK