The Raven Boys Mortality Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

"He's dead," Gansey said. His arms were tight over his chest. "You're really dead, aren't you?"

Noah's voice was plaintive. "I told you."

They stared at him, just feet away from Ronan. Really, he was so much less real than Ronan, Adam thought—it should have been obvious. It was ludicrous that they hadn't noticed. Ridiculous that they had not thought about his last name, about where he came from, about the classes he did or did not go to. (29.49-51)

How do you not notice that one of your best friends is a ghost? The raven boys somehow totally fail to notice that Noah is "smudgy" and not very… real. It's only when Gansey finds his long-dead body that all the pieces fall into place.

Quote #8

"This is the ritual Gansey was talking about," Adam said to Ronan. "Someone did try it. With a sacrifice as the symbolic way to touch the ley line. You were the sacrifice, weren't you, Noah? Someone killed you for this."

"My face," Noah said softly, and he turned his head away, pressing his ruined cheek into his shoulder. "I can't remember when I stopped being alive." (32.114-115)

Noah's still kind of traumatized from his death seven years ago. Being murdered by your best friend isn't exactly something that you can get over quickly.

Quote #9

Whelk lay broken. His body was covered with leaf litter, as if he'd lain there for years, not minutes. There was not as much blood as one would expect in a trampling, but there was something broken in his appearance nonetheless. A sort of rumpled look to his form. (47.2)

Well, Whelk's storyline has definitely come full circle. He first murdered someone at Cabeswater in order to wake the ley lines, and now he's died at Cabeswater after witnessing the ritual.