We’ve compiled the best Lila Bard quotes that make her the HBIC she is in Victoria Schwab’s Shades of Magic series.
Victoria Schwab’s Lila Bard from the Shades of Magic series has her own agenda, and she won’t apologize for it. From her very first scene to the last, she knows what she wants and she goes for it, leading male character’s wants be damned.
The inciting incident of A Darker Shade of Magic is Lila stealing from Kell, a Traveler and smuggler, creating a massive domino effect that spans parallel universes. Unapologetic and independent, Lila reluctantly aids Kell in trying to restore Grey London before black magic encompasses it, destroying the world she knows.
“Whatever I am, let it be enough.”- Lila Bard, A Gathering of Shadows
Her aspirations of being a pirate and escaping her life as a thief is lofty, a dream that seems unachievable at the beginning of the series, but Lila is, if nothing else, resilient. For some, she is a difficult character to empathize with, despite her very real need to prove to herself. To put it simply: by her being completely autonomous and unrelenting, this sets her aside from most female leads whose wants and needs are usually cast aside for that of the male lead in some form or another.
Lila Bard, though she ends up (spoiler!) loving Kell, she doesn’t end up “giving up” anything to be with him. She kicks ass and takes names, and as I talked about in my article about internal misogyny in books, both writing and reading them, even though we, as female readers, want to see female characters be in charge of their own destiny, sometimes it is hard to push aside what we’ve been taught our whole lives: that women shouldn’t take up the same amount of space that men do.
Victoria Schwab does exactly that, though. She gives Lila an assertive, out for her own good, Slytherin-like personality that if were given to a male character, would be a fan favorite. Known for her complex female characters (such as Marcella in the Villains series, and Kate in The Monsters of Verity series, and now Lila Bard), Victoria doesn’t shy away from writing about flawed female characters and putting those flaws out on display for all to see.
Lila takes up space within the Shades of Magic universe, as she should and is her right as one of the main characters, going off on her own in A Gathering of Shadows and quite literally kicking ass without her male counterparts there beside her. I, for one, get goosebumps when reading quotes by or about her, so I wanted to share some of my favorites so we can all bask in the glory that is both Victoria’s writing style and the bright light in a dull world that is Lila Bard.
10 best Lila Bard quotes
- “I apologize for anything I might have done. I was not myself.”
“I apologize for shooting you in the leg.” said Lila. “I was myself entirely.” –A Darker Shade of Magic - “Aren’t you afraid of dying?” he asked Lila now.
She looked at him as if it were a strange question. And then she shook her head. “Death comes for everyone,” she said simply. “I’m not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of dying here.” She swept her hand over the room, the tavern, the city. “I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still.” –A Darker Shade of Magic - “She bent most of the rules. She broke the rest.” –A Gathering of Shadows
- “Everyone thinks I have a death wish, you know? But I don’t want to die — dying is easy. No, I want to live, but getting close to death is the only way to feel alive. And once you do, it makes you realize that everything you were actually doing before wasn’t actually living. It was just making do. Call me crazy, but I think we do the best living when the stakes are high.” –A Gathering of Shadows
- “Whatever I am, let it be enough.” –A Gathering of Shadows
- “What are you supposed to be?” she asked in Arnesian. “A fish?”
Alucard made a noise of mock affront. “Obviously,” he said, brandishing the helmet, “I’m a dragon.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to be a fish?” challenged Lila. “After all, you do live on the sea, and you are rather slippery, and—”
“I’m a dragon,” he interjected. “You’re just not being very imaginative.” –A Gathering of Shadows - “What do you want to know?”
Lila returned to the chair and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “Everything.” –A Gathering of Shadows - “Then why are you smiling?”
“Because,” she said, “bad ideas are my favorite kind.” –A Conjuring of Light
- “Looking for trouble, he’d say. You’re gonna look til you find it.
Trouble is the looker, she’d answer. It keeps looking till it finds you. Might as well find it first.
Why do you want to die?
I don’t, she’d say. I just want to live.” –A Darker Shade of Magic - “She used to think that if she stole enough, the want would fade, the hunger would go away, but maybe it wasn’t that simple. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of what she didn’t have, of what she wasn’t, but what she was.” –A Gathering of Shadows
Next up from Victoria Schwab is the release of the second book in the Cassidy Blake series, Tunnel of Bones, which comes out on September 3. She’s currently working on The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, which is about a woman who sells her soul in order to live forever, but is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. I, for one, cannot wait to read this one!
Buy A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, and A Conjuring of Light, or the box set is on sale at Bookoutlet!
Related: A Darker Shade of Magic brings unique vibe to fantasy genre, Internalized misogyny in books: taking a step back from the page