The Monster of Elendhaven Quotes

“Monster was the best, his favorite word. The first half was a kiss, the second a hiss.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Power was sweeter than apples. It was cheaper than water, and sustained the soul twice as well. If Johann was going to be a Thing with a name, then from now on he would be a Thing with power, too.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Unwise to dream of death in a world where someone has the power to make those dreams come true.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Thin ice isn’t a problem for the sea; it’s a problem for the blind idiot who steps out on it. The fool who breaks it gets sucked under; the ice, it mends.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Is this it? Johann wondered. The longer fall I was looking for? To know that I was summoned up from the dark ether to do a monster's deeds for Hallandrette's truest son? And when our work is done, I will carry him to the bottom of the sea, where we both belong. Deep beneath the silt our bones will turn to salt.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Don't you feel it, sometimes? As if the world wants to consume itself.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“You're not afraid," he observed. "Why aren't you afraid?"
"Oh. Oh no." The air whistled through Florian's teeth as his tone danced along the edge of shrill. "I assure you, I am terrified. You're quite a fearsome man. But I am afraid of most everything, so I've found it useful to evaluate risks with a clear head in the moment and do all my screaming after the fact.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“There's nothing to fear from the end of the world. Annihilation is a fire that cleanses what it burns. For a corrupted world, apocalypse is the only hope for redemption.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“You're awful,' Florian hissed out between chuckles. 'You're a vile creature.'

'Herr Leickenbloom, please.' Johann smiled easily. 'Don't underestimate me. I'm more than vile; I'm an honest-to-god monster.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Is that supposed to impress me?” “Don’t pretend that your melodramatic ego isn’t flattered by the idea that I might exist to soothe your broken psyche.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“But words are easily manipulated. History lives on in other ways.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“We move through cycles that grow shorter with earch rotation (...) First is creation; then we prosper; then we preserve. Then, decline. Finally, decay. The last cycle is a corrupted world, so far from the light. When this cycle collapses, the world folds in on itself. An then, we begin again.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“If Johann was going to be a Thing with a name, then from now on he would be a Thing with power, too.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“I am ... a curiosity in a glass jar.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“If … a rejected gift comes back to you … when you most need it, wouldn’t it be blasphemous … to refuse it again?” “I don’t understand,” Johann said, but he did. Not in his head, but somewhere deeper. He understood it in his bones, a stone kept in a lonely boy’s pocket, a toy that cannot be broken. Florian probably waited all these years for Hallandrette to send his sister back to him, but here was Johann. And here was Florian. It had to mean something. To Johann, it meant everything.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Johann liked killing. He appreciated that every part of the killing act was a function of instinc, that any thinking person is only a breath away from an animal, a half creature with no name.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Johann learned what sort of creature he was by accident. One day he slipped on a patch of ice. His ankle turned in the wrong direction and plunged him off a roof like a crow with a clipped wing. The ground swallowed him up, and the crunch of his neck against rock reverberated through every joint in his spine. It shuddered through his limbs and popped out the tips of his fingers and toes, a tiny earthquake that made ruin of his bones. He lay absolutely still for ten minutes, and then he stood up and wrenched his skull back into place. “Well,” he said aloud. “That was fucked up.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Monster, Monster, Monster, Johann said to himself, the first half a kiss, the second a hiss.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Johann grinned. “Right. So what’s the prognosis, sweetheart?”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“(...) magic is not in the brain, miss; it is in the bones.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“We move through cycles that grow shorter with each rotation (...) First is creation; then we prosper; then we preserve. Then, decline. Finally, decay.
The last cycle is a corrupted world, so far from the light. When this cycle collapses, the world folds in on itself. An then, we begin again.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Annihilation is a fire that cleanses what it burns. For a corrupted world, apocalypse is the only hope for redemption.” Johann studied his master’s cherubic profile. Don’t you feel it, sometimes? As if the world wants to consume itself.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“I want to know everything Grandmother won’t talk about. If you walk into dark places, I want to be with you. If I die”—she took a deep breath—“throw me into the sea, Florian, and I will come back to you.” “Don’t be ridiculous, Flora. You won’t die.” Florian wrapped his arms around his sister and buried his nose in her sweet-smelling hair. “I plan for us both to live forever.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“A shadow in Elendhaven's gutter. A name said in a certain tone of voice. That's what makes a thing real. Skin that glows like the part of an insect under the exoskeleton. Hands that do terrible things, work that needs to be done. A hallway that you cannot take another step forward in.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“You can learn a lot about someone's inner life if allowed to examine them the way their shadow does – close enough to breathe down their neck, but unnoticed, unremarked upon, invisible.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Magic is the energy we create by living and dying. It flows through us on its journey to somewhere else.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“You never knew when the man sitting next to you on the train was an honest-to-god monster.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Oh, yes, there was mischief to be done. Whistling to himself, John put his hands in his pockets and disappearted into the crowd.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“Was this an effect of his aberrant nature? A siren song that rose up from his pheromones and unlocked the secret desires of humans who spent too long in his shadow?”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“He understood it in his bones, a stone kept in a lonely boy's pocket, a toy that cannot be broken. Florian probably waited all these years for Hallandrette to send his sister back to him, but here was Johann. And here was Florian. It had to mean something. To Johann, it meant everything.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven