The Midnight Star Quotes

“You cannot harden your heart to the future just because of your past. You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“I’m going to follow her, of course,” Magiano says. “As the night sky turns. When she appears on the other side of the world, I will be there, and when she returns here, so will I.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“None of us are saints. We can all do better.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“You are so full of light,” I say after a moment. “You align with joy, and I with fear and fury. If you could see into my thoughts, you would surely turn away. So why would you stay with me, even if return to Kenettra and resume our lives?”

“You paint me as a saint,” he murmurs. “But I aligned with greed solely to prevent that.”

Even now, he can make my lips twitch with a smile. “I’m serious, Magiano.”

“As am I. None of us are saints. I have seen your darkness, yes, and know your struggle. I won’t deny it.” He touches my chin with one hand. At this gesture, the whispers seem to settle, pushed away where I can’t hear them. “But you are also passionate and ambitious and loyal. You are a thousand things, mi Adelinetta, not just one. Do not reduce yourself to that.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen.

These are only rumors, of course, and make little more than a story to tell around the fire. But it is told. And thus they live on.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“I saw her, once.

“She passed through our village, through fields littered with dead soldiers after her forces overwhelmed the nation of Dumor. Her other Elites followed and then rows of white-robed Inquisitors, wielding the white-and-silver banners of the White Wolf. Where they went, the sky dimmed and the ground cracked—the clouds gathered behind the army as if a creature alive, black and churning in fury. As if the goddess of Death herself had come.

“She paused to look down at one of our dying soldiers. He trembled on the ground, but his eyes stayed on her. He spat something at her. She only stared back at him. I don’t know what he saw in her expression, but his muscles tightened, his legs pushing against the dirt as he tried in vain to get away from her. Then the man started to scream. It is a sound I shall never forget as long as I live. She nodded to her Rainmaker, and he descended from his horse to plunge a sword through the dying soldier. Her face did not change at all. She simply rode on.

“I never saw her again. But even now, as an old man, I remember her as clearly as if she were standing before me. She was ice personified. There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen.”

—A witness’s account of Queen Adelina’s siege on the nation of Dumor

The Village of Pon-de-Terre

28 Marzien, 1402”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Everyone knows that to openly show any disrespect for Magiano means instant death at my hands.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“We were never meant to exist, Adelina," he says. "And we will never exist again. But we cannot take the entire world with us." He meets my gaze. "No matter how it has wronged us.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Every bone in my body yearns to keep this boy safe, always.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“The first time Raffaele ever saw Adelina, it was a stormy-wracked night that changed her life and, indeed, the world. He recalls looking down from the window in his Dalia lodging to see a girl with silver-bright hair, conjuring an illusion of darkness such that he had never seen. He remembers the day she first came to his chambers in Estenzia, when Enzo was still alive and she was still innocent, and the way she looked up at him with her uncertain, damaged gaze. He remembers her test, and what he said to Enzo that night. How long ago that had been. How he had judged her wrongly.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“If I’ve learned anything from my past and my present, it’s the power of fear. You can give your subjects all the generosity in the world, and still they will demand more. But those who are afraid don’t fight back. I know this well enough.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“The day will come when we strike you down,” she’s saying. “Mark my words. We will haunt your nightmares.”

I clench my fists and fling an illusion of pain across her body. “I am the nightmare.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“I laugh at him, and behind us, several Inquisitors stir in surprise at the sound. Only Magiano can coax joy out of me so easily.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“As you can see, I keep my word,” I call to the rest of the crowd. “Do not take advantage of my generosity, and I will not take advantage of your weakness.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Trusting me is a dangerous game, mi Adelinetta.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“What if you are wrong? What if the gods sent you, and indeed the rest of us, not because we were never meant to be, but because we were always meant to be?”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“I never saw her again. But even now, as an old man, I remember her as clearly as if she were standing before me. She was ice personified. There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen.”
—A witness’s account of Queen Adelina’s siege on the nation of Dumor

The Village of Pon-de-Terre

28 Marzien, 1402”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Like fear and fury. It is energy from another realm, threads from beneath the sur­face, an immortal place never meant to be disturbed. Raffaele trembles.

Something is poisoning the world.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“She is my sister, always, even in death, even beyond.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“The tale is told by royalty and vagabonds alike, nobles and peasants, hunters and farmers, the old and the young. The tale comes from ever corner of the world, but no matter where it is told, it is always the same story,

A boy on horseback, wandering at night, in the woods or on the plains or along the shores. The sound of a lute drifts in the evening air. Over head are the stars of a clear sky, a sheet of light so bright that he reaches up, trying to touch them. He stops and descends from his horse. Then he waits. He waits until exactly midnight, when the newest constellation in the sky blinks into existence.

If you are very quiet and do not look away, you may see the brightest star in the constellation glow steadily brighter. It brightens until it overwhelms every other star in the sky, brightens until it seems to touch the ground, and then the glow is gone, and it its place is a girl.

Her hair and lashes are painted a shifting silver, and a scar crosses one side of her face. She is dressed in Sealand silks and a necklace of sapphire. Some say that, once upon a time, she had a prince, a father, a society of friends. Other say that she was once a wicked queen, a worker of illusions, a girl who brought darkness across the lands. Still others say that she once had a sister, and that she loved her dearly. Perhaps all of these are true.

She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen.

These are only rumors, of course, and make little more than a story to tell around the fire. But it is told. And thus they live on.
--"The Midnight Star", a folktale”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“And then, as if he understands me better than anyone in the world, he whispers, "It will make this night a little less dark.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Yes—at the cost of a third of your army. What will happen when you try to seize what remains of Tamoura? When the Beldish strike at you again? Queen Maeve is watching you, I’m sure.” He takes a deep breath. “Adelina, you’re Queen of the Sealands now. You’ve annexed Domacca and northern Tamoura in the Sunlands. At some point, your goal should be not to conquer more territories but to keep order in the territories you do have. And you won’t achieve that by ordering your Inquisitors to drag unmarked civilians out into the streets and brand them with a hot iron.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Without her, I am less afraid of dying. Without her, the world is that much darker.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“No, that is not my life without power. My life without power will be one of walking through a crowd without darkness tugging at my heart. It will be seeing Violetta in the living world, smiling again. It will be riding on the back of a horse with Magiano as we crest another mountain, searching for adventure. It will be a life without these whispers in my head. It will be life without my father's ghost.

It will be a life.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Every bone in my body yearns to keep this boy safe, always. "Magiano...," I start to say. "I don't want to leave this world having never been with you.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Raffaele says you are lost forever. That you are beyond help. I think he's wrong, but sheds tears for you and shakes his head. I'm trying to convince him." Her whispers turn urgent. "I think I'll try again tomorrow."

I reach up and angrily wipe my tears away. "I don't understand you," I whisper back. "Why do you have to keep trying?"

Violetta's lips tremble with effort. "You cannot harden your heart to the future just because of your past. You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others." Her gray eyes slide downward, away from my face, until her gaze rests on the lantern burning low near the tent flap. "It is hard. I know you are trying.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“There are four places where the spirits still wander," he replies, quoting some ancient tome. "The snow-covered Dark of Night, the forgotten paradise of Sobri Elan, the Glass Pillars of Dumon, and the human mind, that eternally mysterious realm where ghosts shall forever walk.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“His voice seems to linger in the air, though, words I haven't heard from him in years... and somewhere, deep in my chest, stirs the presence of a girl buried long ago.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“After a lifetime of darkness, I want to leave behind something that is made of light”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Amazing, isn’t it, how quickly life finds a place for itself when there’s no one to keep it out?”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star