Afterworlds

What did a happy ending even mean in real life, anyway? In stories you simply said, 'They lived happily ever after,' and that was it. But in real life people had to keep on living, day after day, year after year.

Being an author sucks, doesn't it? It's like telling a joke and nobody laughs for two years.

Real life doesn’t have many happy endings. Why shouldn’t books make up the difference?

Hiding from the truth was worse than being lied to.

You don't know what it's like, when your best friend disappears.

You don't think happy endings are stupid anymore?" "Your question is irrelevant," Imogen said. "This isn't the end.

The best way to know a city is to eat it.

Just remember, the things we write, they aren't always really us.

First love is amazing and wonderful, but a kind of panic underlies it, a sense of not knowing what you're doing.

Being fathomed was even better than being flattered, it turned out.

Sleep is a little slice of death.

In a novel you always knew the moment when something Happened, when someone Changed. But real life was full of gradual, piecemeal, continuous transformation. It was full of accidents and undefineables, and things that just happened on their own. The only certainty was 'It's complicated,' whether or not unicorns tolerated your touch.

...but loving had left her skinless.

The universe is math on fire.

Blurbs don’t work anymore!” was another. “You should make sure that the quotable lines of dialogue in your book never exceed a hundred and forty characters!” seemed at best debatable.

For me, writing's the only thing that's always real. I've never regretted a day I wrote a good scene, whatever else I screwed up that day. That's what's fucking real.

Adulation is like rain. You can only get so wet.

Nice concept. But is it a trilogy or a tweet?" "I can't tell any more.

The scent of a faraway place lay on my skin.

Looking for a thousand years is worth it, if in the end you find what you need.

Mindy had explained that a lot of things had ghosts, not just people. Animals, machines, even things as vast as a paved-over forest or as humble as the smell of good cooking could leave traces of themselves behind. The world was haunted by the past.

Maybe that was the point of truth-you could erase it all you wanted, and it was there was to be discovered again.

Maybe that was the point of truth--you could erase it all you wanted, and it was there to be discovered again

More lies, but maybe lies were better than the truth.

It’s just . . . it feels like someone’s going to ask me for ID. Like, writer ID.” The

Happy endings are popular. Do you not watch movies?" "Yeah, but that's movies," Darcy groaned. "Books are above all that!

the things we write, they aren’t always really us.

I'm here to learn. And what you have taught me is to avoid love as long as possible.

The opening chapter was the book's unique selling point, the singular idea that had carried Darcy through last November, and Coleman had just come up with it off the top of his head.

She would find her answers in the words she wrote, in the stories she told, not by asking for permission.