The Scorpio Races Quotes
"It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die."
"There are more interesting ways to die than on this beach."
"They are beautiful and deadly, loving us and hating us."
"I remember him as he was before the race: afraid."
"The truth is, until you know any different, the island is enough."
"The ocean is just too uncertain a thing when it’s cold."
"This is a really stupid thing you’re doing, Kate."
"Not every day," Finn says. "Just today. Just the first day."
"That one looks like two horses stuck together," Finn says.
"I whisper: 'You will not be the one to drown me.'"
"Five years I’ve kept you alive on that beach."
"It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Skarmouth after dark."
"The morning is raw and pink as I make my way out to Dove’s pasture."
"I’m sorry that you came all this way," I say, although I’m not, and it’s unusual for me to lie before a proper breakfast."
"My husband and I were talking about you last night, right before we went to sleep," she says, and for some reason, this makes me feel odd."
"I see how it is," Holly replies. He gestures his chin toward Corr. "Can I hold him for a moment? Will he let me?"
""Is better food that expensive?" "Do you see alfalfa growing on this island?""
""What are you and your brothers willing to do to save this house?""
"There is no way for him to relax; with the sound of this rising sea, with the smell of horse blood on my hands, with me restless before him."
"What am I willing to risk for the possibility of getting what I want?"
"I can’t bear the idea that Mutt Malvern would ride him if I left."
"It’s so dark that I can hear the sea better than I can see it."
"There’s no one on the second floor of the tearoom at this time of day."
"Every day that I’ve been on the beach is written on it."
"The glossy coat, the bright eye, the bulbous nose over too-fleshy lips."
"A roof over my head and reins in my hand and the sand beneath me."
"The wind is coming straight across the hills as I pedal."
"That’s the way of this island. Not everyone can stay, or we’d fall off the edges, wouldn’t we?"
"I feel, sometimes, like the rest of Thisby knows more about my business than I do."
"I don’t know why you aren’t just riding Dove."
"Boys, just aren’t very good at being afraid."
"I can see my words burrow under Mutt’s skin. I feel untethered and dangerous."
"There is nothing faster than a capall uisce. Period."
"I think brothers are the most inexplicable species on the planet."
"I think they’re both deadly, which isn’t the same as being afraid."
"If you feed the island blood before the race, maybe she won’t take as much during it."
"I believe in the same thing they believe in. I just don’t believe you can find it in a building."
"It didn’t say anything about that in the rules. I read them. Every single one."
"The women are the island, and the island keeps us."
"I have my own reasons for riding. Just like every man who climbed onto this rock. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t make those reasons any less."
"Let the sea decide what’s right and what’s wrong."
"It’s not that he’s not mine. It’s that he’s Benjamin Malvern’s."
"For eleven months of the year I make myself valuable to Malvern, and then for one month, I make myself invaluable."
"I won’t say there’s nothing. I just don’t know what it is."
"You should save your money for hay. It’ll be a long winter."
"Let no one say that Sean Kendrick isn’t an optimist."
"On Thisby, it’s less about wanting, and more about being."
"It’s about wanting," I say eventually, after some considering. "The tourists always seem to want something. On Thisby, it’s less about wanting, and more about being."
"Everything that he said are things that I love about the island, except for maybe the smell of fish, which I guess might ruin everything else."
"They won’t be calm with that scream going on,"
"Every groom and stable boy and rider that Malvern has is in evidence, trying to calm the most precious of the horses."
"The bulbs overhead sway in wind that’s found its way inside."
"I hear Corr clucking and singing, driving the horses near him to madness."
"That’s too bad. So Malvern will know that I’m still among his horses."
"I’m instantly wet to the skin. There’s water in my ears, my eyes. I’m drinking the sky."
"Corr’s pure, high scream is no different from the scream it replaced — except this one I can stop."
"There’s not a single dry thing left in the world."
"I’d rather run barefoot in the Scorpio Races than try to sleep in Beech’s narrow ham-scented bed with Gabe again."
"The island itself looks like our kitchen — too much stuff, not enough tidying."
"This island is a cunning and secretive thing. I can’t say what it has planned for me."
"It’s easy to convince men to love you, Puck. All you have to do is be a mountain they have to climb or a poem they don’t understand."
"No point seeking the grail if it looks like your teacup."
"Good luck doesn’t seem to be something that holds the hands of the Connollys these days."
"I don’t want to be told that soot’s good for my digestion."
"How long do you have to be in a place before it’s your home? This is their home on land."
"Not everyone’s hands can always be the site of miracles."
"There’s nothing too disagreeable about either of those things so long as there’s not too much of it and it’s not too fresh."
"I feel a small, fierce pang of sadness that I won’t ever have a farm."
"I reckon horse manure is a lot like a cat scratch."
"There’s something rewarding about watching a job done well, or at least a job done with everything you’ve got."
"It’s something about hesitation. Most people hesitate between steps or pause or are somehow uneven about the process."
"I know," I reply. Dove’s blanket didn’t really need washing but it got washed anyway, since I had Sean’s jacket to do as well. I worked at it until my fingers became wrinkled and my benevolence became irritation.
"It’s quite agreeable and I’d be happy enough with another."
"The way he says it makes me realize just how much he’s risking right now, putting me on his horse, giving me the reins."
"And when I squeeze my legs around him, Corr bounds forward again, as if we’d been merely straggling before."
"My heartbeat trips and surges against his skin. I’m pinned by his touch, a sort of fearful magic."
"It makes me feel ungenerous, since he’d answered so honestly."
"I always liked the idea of being such a bother that I affected even the weather."
"But Sean leans forward, hard, against me, in order to reach Corr’s mane, and ties knots in it. Three. Then seven. Then three again."
"The island spools out beneath the moonlight. We gallop parallel to the cliff edge, and beyond it I see a flock of white birds keeping pace with us."
"I don’t trust the ocean, either; it would kill me as soon as not. It doesn’t mean I’m afraid of it."
"I think that’s the mercy of this island, actually, that it won’t give us our terrible memories for long, but lets us keep the good ones for as long as we want them."
"Dad told me once you should be grateful for the gifts that are the rarest."
"If you trust me on anything, don't risk today. You're ready as you'll ever be."
"The island cares nothing for love but it favors the brave."
"I'm not trying to change anything but my own situation."
"If you want a race, you'll give this horse some room. Now."
"I don’t think such a thing is had on Thisby. And if it is, I don’t know how you would keep it."
"You whisper to it. What it needs to hear. Isn’t that what you said?"
"That tomorrow we’ll rule the Scorpio Races as king and queen of Skarmouth and I’ll save the house and you’ll have your stallion."
"Corr stood here, I would’ve died. He didn’t have to stay."