Inspiration comes from everywhere. From life, observing people, etc. From movies and books you love. From research.

— Holly Black

In the dream, Tana's mother loved her more than anyone or anything. More than death.

— Holly Black

In those stories, one is often asked to do something unimaginably terrible to the creature. Cut off it's head, say. A test. Not a test of love. A test of trust. Trust lifts the spell.

— Holly Black

I really love folklore. I had read a lot of faerie folklore that informed the books I wrote. Furthermore, I also really love vampire folklore; my eighth grade research paper was on [it]. [With this project, ] it was really helpful to think about the way you can use language. When you're writing about faeries, you can't call anyone "fey"; there are certain words that become forbidden because they're actualized in what faeries do. When you write about vampires, you could think the same way about things like the word "red" or "hunger"--it's interesting to think of the ways that the words have double meanings, or different meanings that shifted.

— Holly Black

I really love the idea of the poetically mad - the character that is imbued with the romantic madness. Like River from 'Firefly' or Drill from 'Buffy.' Someone dangerously unhinged, where you're really not sure if they're going to be reliable minute-to-minute.

— Holly Black

I survive at the edge of friends circles.

— Holly Black

I think there are a lot of really positive aspects to social media for novelists. Even though our work is pretty solitary, through Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and Instagram and blogging in general, we're better able to connect directly with readers.

— Holly Black

I thought of how proud he was when he took the marks-cutting the skin of his throat in a long slash and then packing it with ashes until keloid scars rose up. He called it his second smile.

— Holly Black

I thought you were her knight, but you have become only her woodsman--taking little girls into the forest to cut out their hearts.

— Holly Black

It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food, and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up.

— Holly Black