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Title: A Conjuring of Light
Authors: V.E. Schwab
Category:supplementals
Number of Highlights: 30
Date: 2026-03-25
Last Highlighted: **
Highlights
“Love and loss,” he said, “are like a ship and the sea. They rise together. The more we love, the more we have to lose. But the only way to avoid loss is to avoid love. And what a sad world that would be.”
Tags:love
“Life isn’t made of choices,” said Holland. “It’s made of trades. Some are good, some are bad, but they all have a cost.”
Tags:choice,negotiation
Magic made everything feel so impermanent, it was easy to forget that some things, once changed, could never be undone. That not everything was either changeable or infinite. Some roads kept going, and others had an end.
Tags:magic
“Do you ever get tired of running, Bard?” She cocked her head. “No.” Alucard’s gaze went to the horizon. “Then you haven’t left enough behind.”
Tags:perspective
A myth without a voice is like a dandelion without a breath of wind. No way to spread the seeds.
Tags:speaking
“Death comes for us all,” said Holland evenly. “I would simply have mine mean something.”
It was cowardice, he knew, but cowardice came so much easier than hope.
Tags:hope
“It doesn’t matter what someone is. Only what they think they are.”
Tags:self
“Life is chaos. Time is order.”
“You got something against killing?” pressed Vortalis. “I’ve taken lives,” answered Holland. “That’s not what I asked.” Holland fell silent. He clenched his fists, focused on the line of pain along his palm. At last, he said, “It’s too easy.” “Killing? Of course it is,” said Vortalis. “Living with it, that’s the hard part.
Tags:death
“The more you want something from someone,” added Lila, “the less they’ll want to part with it. If Maris finds out what we actually need, we’ll lose what power we have to bargain.”
Tags:negotiation
“Are you strong enough to win?” she asked. This wasn’t a tournament magician. Wasn’t even a sliver of magic like Vitari. Osaron had destroyed an entire world. Changed another on a whim. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. Lila flashed a glimmer of a smile, sharp as glass. “Good,” she answered, pushing open the door. “Only fools are certain.”
Tags:problem_solving
Emira was the ice to Maxim’s fire, the cool bath in which to temper his steel. She made him stronger.
Tags:spouse
You wanted him to kill for me, die for me, protect me at all costs. Well, Mother, you got your wish. You simply failed to realize that that kind of love, that bond, it goes both ways. I would kill for him, and I would die for him, and I will protect him however I am able, from Faro and Vesk, from White London, and Black London, and from you.”
Tags:love,relationships
“Listen to me, Holland. Of all the ways to die, only a fool chooses pride.”
“The trick to winning a fight isn’t strength, but strategy.”
“Scars are not shameful,” said Ojka, “not unless you let them be.” The knight straightened. “If you do not wear them, they will wear you.” And with that, she’d walked away.
Myths do not happen all at once. They do not spring forth whole into the world. They form slowly, rolled between the hands of time until their edges smooth, until the saying of the story gives enough weight to the words—to the memories—to keep them rolling on their own.
“Now tell me,” continued the captain, stacking her own hand, “what do you want?” “That’s a broad question.” “And an easy one. If you don’t know the answer, you don’t know yourself.”
Sometimes you had to pretend, everyone knew that. Pretend to be happy. Pretend to be brave. Pretend to be strong. If you pretended long enough, it eventually came true.
Her hands were bandaged, a deep scratch ran along her jaw, and Rhy watched his brother move toward her as naturally as if the world had simply tipped. For Kell, apparently, it had.
Pure magic has no self. It simply is, a force of nature, the blood of our world, the marrow of our bones. We give it shape, but we must never give it soul.
It is an arrogant man that thinks himself a god. And an arrogant god, thought Tieren, looking to the window, that thinks himself a man.
“Kings need not raise their voices to be heard.”
Do you know what makes you weak? You’ve never had to be strong. You’ve certainly never had to fight for your life.
Magic was a river carving its course, picking who to flow through and who to bend around, and for those it bent around, well, there was a reason for that, too. For one thing, they tended to have a better view of the water from the bank.
“Sleep is for the rich and the bored,” she’d said. “I am neither, and I know my limits.”
“Help requires trust,” said Kell. “Hardly,” countered Holland. “Only mutual interest.”
“You see,” continued Jasta, cutting the deck, “a thief plays the game only when they think they’ll win. A pirate plays the game even when they think they’ll lose.”
“On vis och,” he told himself. Dawn to dusk. A phrase that meant two things in his native tongue. A fresh start. A good end.