Gemma Doyle Quotes

I change the world, the world changes me.

~ Libba Bray

I've heard it said that God is in the details. It's the same with the truth. Leave out the details, the crucial heart, and you can damn someone with the bare bones of it.

~ Libba Bray

Pippa's laugh is bitter, tinged with tears. 'Ha! Why do girls think being beautiful will solve every problem? Being beautiful just creates problems. It's a misery. I wish I were someone else.

~ Libba Bray

Centuries of fighting, and for what? I say. Today it ends. I can't live in fear any longer. I've cursed this power. I've both enjoyed and misused it. And I've hidden it away. Now I must try to wield it correctly, to marry it to a purpose and hope that is enough.

~ Libba Bray

No one asks how or what I am doing. They could not care less. We’re all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they’d like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance.A fissure forms in the vessel. I’m cracking open.

~ Libba Bray

I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I've got to think.

~ Libba Bray

A man bumps me on his busy way without so much as an apology. But that is all right. I forgive you, busy man about town with the sharp elbows. Hail and farewell to you! For I, Gemma Doyle, am to have a splendid Christmas in London town. All shall be well.God rest us merry gentlemen. And gentlewomen.

~ Libba Bray

My whole life I’ve been ordered about. Now I shall give the orders.” I’ve never seen Felicity so wounded. “Not me,” she says. “I never ordered you about.” “Oh, Fee.” The old Pippa surfaces for just a moment, hopeful and childlike. She pulls Felicity to her. Something I cannot name passes between them, and then Pip’s lips are on Fee’s in a deep kiss, as if they feed on one another, their fingers entwined in each other’s hair. And suddenly, I understand what I must have always known about them—the private talks, the close embraces, the tenderness of their friendship. A blush spreads across my neck at the thought. How could I not have seen it before?

~ Libba Bray

I know you adore Father, but he isn't the white knight you imagine him to be. He never was. True, he's charming and loving in his way. But he's selfish. He's a limited man determined to bring about his own end-But-Tom grabs both my hands in his and gives them a small squeeze. Gemma, you can't save him. Why can't you accept that?I see my reflection on the surface of the Thames. My face is a watery outline, all blurred edges with nothing settled. Because if I let go of that - I swallow hard, once, twice - then I have to accept that I am alone.The ship's horn howls again as it slips out toward sea. Tom's reflection appears beside mine, just as uncertain.We're every one of us alone in this world, Gemma. He doesn't say it bitterly. But you have company, if you want.

~ Libba Bray

Do you ever feel that way?Lonely?I search for the words. Restless. As if you haven't really met yourself yet. As is you'd passed yourself once in the fog, and your heart leapt - 'Ah! There I Am! I've been missing that piece!' But it happens too fast, and then that part of you disappears into the fog again. And you spend the rest of your days looking for it.He nods, and I think he's appeasing me. I feel stupid of having said it. It's sentimental and true, and I've revealed a part of myself I shouldn't have.Do you know what I think? Kartik says at last.What?Sometimes, I think you can glimpse it in another.

~ Libba Bray

She shrieks above the din. If you wish a battle, I shall give it. I am the last of my kind. I shall not lie down without a fight.

~ Libba Bray

I'm an oddity of one, my strangeness too complicated to explain or share.

~ Libba Bray