Today is the New York Times Bestselling author of The Mortal Instruments Cassandra Clare’s birthday! Translated into over 34 languages with a plethora of international covers and 50 million copies sold worldwide, The Mortal Instruments is the first series in the iconic Shadowhunter Chronicles that has since grown to include over 30 books and graphic novels. To celebrate her birthday, let’s take a look at some of Clare’s best quotes. Some of them will make you laugh out loud and some of them will inspire you, while others will break your heart, but we can all agree that they will make you want to read (or re-read) the books.
1. Will’s letter to Tessa in clockwork prince
“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”
2. will to Tessa in clockwork princess
“I am catastrophically in love with you.”
3. Jem to charlotte Branwell in clockwork princess
“I lived for you. And I lived for Will, and then I lived for Tessa – and for myself because I wanted to be with her. But I cannot live for other people forever. No one can say that death found in me a willing comrade, or that I went easily. If you say you need me, I will stay as long as I can for you. I will live for you and yours, and go down fighting death until I am worn away to bone and splinters. But it would not be my choice.”
4. valentine in city of ashes
“Fate is never fair. You are caught in a current much stronger than you are; struggle against it and you’ll drown not just yourself but those who try to save you. Swim with it. And you’ll survive.”
5. Magnus in city of lost souls
“I think of myself as a freewheeling bisexual.”
6. Will (somewhere) in the infernal devices
“Never trust a duck.”
7. Jace in city of ashes
“’I don’t want to be a man,’ said Jace. ‘I want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can’t confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead.'”
8. Jace in city of bones
“Declarations of love amuse me. Especially when unrequited.”
9. Magnus in clockwork princess
“You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all.”