Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

"What's this?"he demanded, looking from Clary to his companions, as if they might know what she was doing there."It's a girl,"Jace said,recovering his composure. "Surely you've seen girls before, Alec. Your sister Isabelle is one."

"If there were such a thing as terminal literalism, you'd have died in childhood."

"One of the Silent Brothers is here to see you. Hodge sent me to wake you up. Actually he offered to wake you himself, but since it's 5 a.m., I figured you'd be less cranky if you had something nice to look at.""Meaning you?""What else?"

"I knew then that I hadn't stopped believing in God. I'd just stopped believing God cared. There might be a God, Clary, and there might not, but I don't think it matters. Either way we're on our own."

"How can you tell? That I like books, I mean.The look on your face when you walked in, somehow I doubted you were that impressed by me."

"And next time you're planning to injure yourself to get me attention, just remember that a little sweet talk works wonders."

"My shoulder will never be the same. I expect you to nurse me back to health."

"Simon!"Clary shouted, and seized his arm. "What?"Simon looked alarmed."I'm not really sleeping with your mom, you know. I was just trying to get your attention. Not that your mom isn't a very attractive woman, for her age."

"It means 'Shadowhunters: Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of our Enemies Since 1234'."

"It's not gray,"Clary felt compelled to point out. "It's green.""If there was such a thing as terminal literalism, you'd have died in childhood,"said Jace."

"Pretty soon the only people left without a girlfriend will be me and Wendell the school janitor, and he smells like windex.""At least you know he's still available."

"I don't want tea,"said Clary, with muffled force. "I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them.""Unfortunately,"said Hodge, "we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing."

"And next time you're planning to injure yourself to get me attention, just remember that a little sweet talk works wonders."

"By the Angel,"Jace said, looking the demon up and down. "I knew Greater Demons were meant to be ugly, but no one ever warned me about the smell."Abbadon opened its mouth and hissed. Inside its mouth were two rows of jagged glass-sharp teeth."I'm not sure about this wind and howling darkness business,"Jace went on, "smells more like landfill to me. You sure you're not from Staten Island?"

"Haven't you ever heard that modesty is an attractive trait?""Only from ugly people,"Jace confided. "The meek may inherit the earth, but at the moment it belongs to the conceited. Like me."He winked at the girls, who giggled and hid behind their hair."

"Don't stop there. I suppose there are also, what, vampires and werewolves and zombies?""Of course there are. Although you mostly find zombies farther south, where the voudun priests are.""What about mummies? Do they only hang around Egypt?""Don't be ridiculous. No one believes in mummies."

"Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt."

"I forgot that's what gets you all hot and bothered, Jace, girls killing things.""I like anyone killing things, especially me."he said with a smile."

"The meek may inherit the earth, but at the moment it belongs to the conceited. Like me."

"You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me.""I was ninety percent sure.""I see,"Clary said. There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hands on his cheek, more in surprise than pain."What the hell was that for?""The other ten percent."