Will herondale Quotes

Life is a book and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read.

Remember when you tried to convince me to feed a poultry pie to the mallards in the park to see if you could breed a race of cannibal ducks?"
"They ate it too," Will reminisced. "Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.

There's plenty of sense in nonsense sometimes, if you wish to look for it.

Ah, said a voice from the doorway, having your annual ‘everyone thinks Will is a lunatic’ meeting, are you?
It’s biannual, said Jem. And no, this is not that meeting.

It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them.

They’re not hideous, said Tessa.
Will blinked at her. What?
Gideon and Gabriel, said Tessa. They’re really quite good-looking, not hideous at all.
I spoke, said Will, in sepulchral tones, of the pitch-black inner depths of their souls.
Tessa snorted. And what color do you suppose the inner depths of your soul are, Will Herondale?
Mauve, said Will.

Are you implying that shreds of my reputation remain intact?" Will demanded with mock horror. "Clearly I have been doing something wrong. Or not something wrong, as the case may be."
He banged on the side of the carriage. "Thomas! We must away at once to the nearest brothel. I seek scandal and low companionship.

Tess, Tess, Tessa.
Was there ever a more beautiful sound than your name? To speak it aloud makes my heart ring like a bell. Strange to imagine that, isn’t it – a heart ringing – but when you touch me that is what it is like: as if my heart is ringing in my chest and the sound shivers down my veins and splinters my bones with joy.
Why have I written these words in this book? Because of you. You taught me to love this book where I had scorned it. When I read it for the second time, with an open mind and heart, I felt the most complete despair and envy of Sydney Carton. Yes, Sydney, for even if he had no hope that the woman he loved would love him, at least he could tell her of his love. At least he could do something to prove his passion, even if that thing was to die.
I would have chosen death for a chance to tell you the truth, Tessa, if I could have been assured that death would be my own. And that is why I envied Sydney, for he was free.
And now at last I am free, and I can finally tell you, without fear of danger to you, all that I feel in my heart.
You are not the last dream of my soul.
You are the first dream, the only dream I ever was unable to stop myself from dreaming. You are the first dream of my soul, and from that dream I hope will come all other dreams, a lifetime’s worth.
With hope at least,
Will Herondale

Sometimes, when I have to do something I don't want to do, I pretend I'm a character from a book. It's easier to know what they would do.

They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite

Trains are great dirty smoky things," said Will. "You won't like it."
Tessa was unmoved. "I won't know if I like it until I try it, will I?"
"I've never swum naked in the Thames before, but I know I wouldn't like it."
"But think how entertaining for sightseers," said Tessa, and she saw Jem duck his head to hide the quick flash of his grin.

If no one cares for you at all, do you even really exist?

So you're a Shadowhunter,' Nate said. 'De Quincey told me that you lot were monsters.'
'Was that before or after he tried to eat you?' Will inquired.

Tessa craned her head back to look at Will. You know that feeling, she said, when you are reading a book, and you know that it is going to be a tragedy; you can feel the cold and darkness coming, see the net drawing tight around the characters who live and breathe on the pages. But you are tied to the story as if being dragged behind a carriage and you cannot let go or turn the course aside. His blue eyes were dark with understanding — of course Will would understand — and she hurried on. I feel now as if the same is happening, only not to characters on a page but to my own beloved friends and companions. I do not want to sit by while tragedy comes for us. I would turn it aside, only I struggle to discover how that might be done.
You fear for Jem, Will said.
Yes, she said. And I fear for you, too.
No, Will said, hoarsely. Don’t waste that on me, Tess.

Jessamine recoiled from the paper as if it were a snake. "A lady does not read the newspaper. The society pages, perhaps, or the theater news. Not this filth."
"But you are not a lady, Jessamine---," Charlotte began.
"Dear me," said Will. "Such harsh truths so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion.

Of course you can have a true Shadowhunter name," Will said. "You can have mine."
Tessa stared at him, all black and white against the black-and-white snow and stone. "Your name?"
Will took a step toward her, till they stood face-to-face. Then he reached to take her hand and slid off her glove, which he put into his pocket. He held her bare hand in his, his fingers curved around hers. His hand was warm and callused, and his touch made her shiver. His eyes were steady and blue; they were everything that Will was: true and tender, sharp and witty, loving and kind. "Marry me," he said. "Marry me, Tess. Marry me and be called Tessa Herondale. Or be Tessa Gray, or be whatever you wish to call yourself, but marry me and stay with me and never leave me, for I cannot bear another day of my life to go by that does not have you in it.

Reparations, said Jem very suddenly, setting down the pen he was holding.
Will looked at him in puzzlement. Is this a game? We just blurt out whatever word comes next to mind? In that case mine is ‘genuphobia’. It means an unreasonable fear of knees.
What’s the word for a perfectly reasonable fear of annoying idiots? inquired Jessamine.

Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from Heaven.

It's too late," she said.
"Don't say that." His voice was half a whisper. "I love you, Tessa. I love you.

Jem is nothing but goodness. That he struck you last night only shows how capable you are of driving even saints to madness.

And to the devil with it if she is!" said the Consul. "One girl, who is not Nephilim, is not,
cannot
, be our priority."
"She is
my
priority!" Will shouted.

Will rose slowly to his feet. He could not believe he was doing what he was doing, but it was clear that he was, clear as the silver rim around the black of Jem’s eyes. If there is a life after this one, he said, let me meet you in it, James Carstairs.
There will be other lives. Jem held his hand out, and for a moment, they clasped hands, as they had done during their parabatai ritual, reaching across twin rings of fire to interlace their fingers with each other. The world is a wheel, he said. When we rise or fall, we do it together.
Will tightened his grip on Jem’s hand, which felt thin as twigs in his. Well, then, he said, through a tight throat, since you say there will be another life for me, let us both pray I do not make as colossal a mess of it as I have this one.

Will has always been the brighter burning star, the one to catch attention — but Jem is a steady flame, unwavering and honest. He could make you happy.

Will’s voice dropped. Everyone makes mistakes, Jem.
Yes, said Jem. You just make more of them than most people.
I —
You hurt everyone, said Jem. Everyone whose life you touch.
Not you, Will whispered. I hurt everyone but you. I never meant to
hurt you.
Jem put his hands up, pressing his palms against his eyes. Will —
You can’t never forgive me, Will said in disbelief, hearing the
panic tinging his own voice. I’d be —
Alone? Jem lowered his hand, but he was smiling now, crookedly. And
whose fault is that?

When Will truly wants something, said Jem, quietly, when he feels something — he can break your heart.

Do reasons matter when there's nothing that can be done to change things.

This
is
about Tessa. I knew it was."
Will flushed, a wash of color across the pallor of this face. "Not just her."
"But you love her."
Will stared at him. "Of course I do," he said finally. "I had come to think i would never love anyone, but I love her.

There are so many worse things than death. Not to be loved or not to be able to love: that is worse.

If Jem dies, I cannot be with Tessa, said Will. Because it will be as if I were waiting for him to die, or took some joy in his death, if it let me have her. And I will not be that person. I will not profit from his death. So he must live. He lowered his arm, his sleeve bloody. It is the only way any of this can ever mean anything. Otherwise it is only —
Pointless, needless suffering and pain? I don’t suppose it would help if I told you that was the way life is. The good suffer, the evil flourish, and all that is mortal passes away, Magnus said.
I want more than that, said Will. You made me want more than that. You showed me I was only ever cursed because I had chosen to believe myself so. You told me there was possibility, meaning. And now you would turn your back on what you created.

He bent to put his cheek against hers. His breath against her ear made her shudder with each deliberately spoken word. "I have wanted to do this," he said, "every moment of every hour of every day that I have been with you since the day I met you.

Will: "Nice place to live, isn't it? Let's hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two ..."
Jem: "Indeed. Perhaps, if we're fortunate, we can still catch syphilis."
"Or demon pox," Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs.

Astriola. That IS demon pox. You had evidence that demon pox existed and you didnt mention it to me! Et tu, Brute!' He rolled up the paper and hit Jem over the head with it.

We live and breathe words. It was books that kept me from taking my own life after I thought I could never love anyone, never be loved again. It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them.

And indeed it was, the arrow still protruding from its wet, grayish skin, humping its body along with incredible speed. A flick of its tail caught the edge of a statue, sending it flying into the dry ornamental pool, where it shattered into dust.
By the Angel, it just crushed Sophocles, noted Will. Has no one respect for the classics these days?

She leaned forward and caught at his hand, pressing it between her own. The touch was like white fire through his veins. He could not feel her skin only the cloth of her gloves, and yet it did not matter.
You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.
He had wondered once why love was always phrased in terms of burning. The conflagration in his own veins, now, gave the answer.

Excellent. I've been told I have a lovely, melodic reading voice." He flipped the book open to the front page, where the title was printed in ornate script. Across from it was a long dedication, the ink faded now and barely legible, though Clary could make out the signature:
With hope at last, William Herondale.

They say you cannot love two people equally at once, she said. And perhaps for others that is so. But you and Will—you are not like two ordinary people, two people who might have been jealous of each other, or who would have imagined my love for one of them diminished by my love of the other. You merged your souls when you were both children. I could not have loved Will so much if I had not loved you as well. And I could not love you as I do if I had not loved Will as I did.

Jem knotted his fingers in the material of Will's sleeve. "You are my parabatai," he said, "You said once I could ask anything of you.

Our souls are knit. We are one person, James.

While the Clave disapproves of trespassers, oddly they take an even darker view of beheading and skinning people. They're peculiar that way.

Bright star, Magnus said, and his eyes were thoughtful, as if he were remembering something, or someone. Those of you who are mortal, you burn so fiercely. And you fiercer than most, Will. I will not ever forget you.

I shall charm him with such force that when I am done, he will be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.

She smiled. Her skin looked whiter than he recalled, and dark spidery veins were beginning to show beneath its surface. Her hair was still the color of spun silver and her eyes were still green as a cat’s. She was still beautiful. Looking at her, he was in London again. He saw the gaslight and smelled the smoke and dirt and horses, the metallic tang of fog, the flowers in Kew Gardens. He saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes like Alec’s, heard violin music like the sound of silver water. He saw a girl with long brown hair and a serious face. In a world where everything went away from him eventually, she was one of the few remaining constants.
And then there was Camille.

Someday, Will, I will go where none can follow me, and I think it will be sooner rather than later. Have you ever asked yourself why I agreed to be your parabatai?

You know that feeling, she said, when you are reading a book, and you know that it is going to be a tragedy; you can feel the cold and darkness coming, see the net drawing tight around the characters who live and breathe on the pages. But you are tied to the story as if being dragged behind a carriage and you cannot let go or turn the course aside.

Jem told me what Ragnor Fell said about my father, Will said. That for my father, there was only ever one woman he loved, and it was her for him, or nothing. You are that for me. I love you, and I will only ever love you until I die —

I am not the one of us who has no heart.

I suspect he's sweet on Sophie and doesn't like to see her work too hard.'
Tessa was glad to hear it. She'd felt awful about her reaction to Sophie's scar, and the thought that Sophie had a male admirer - and a handsome one like that- eased her conscience slightly. 'Perhaps he's in love with Agatha', she said.
'I hope not. I intend to marry Agatha myself. She may be a thousand years old, but she makes an incomparable jam tart. Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.

Love potions? For Will Herondale? T’aint my way to turn down payment, but any man who looks like you has got no need of love potions, and that’s a fact.

Jem shook his head. "You bit de Quincey" he said. "You fool. He's a VAMPIRE"
"I had no choice" said Will " He was choking me"
"I know" Jem said. " But really Will, AGAIN?