Aru Shah and the End of Time

It is not failure to fail.

A particularly good book has a way of opening new spaces in one's mind. It even invited you to come back later and rummage through what you'd learn.

Maybe that's why superheroes wore capes. Maybe they weren't capes at all, but safety blankets, like the one Aru kept at the bottom of her bed and pulled up under her chin before she went to sleep. Maybe superheroes just tied their blankies around their necks so they'd have a little bit of comfort wherever they went. Because honestly? Saving the world was scary. No harm admitting that.

It was one of the things that she liked best when her mother told her the stories: villains could be heroic, and heroes could do evil.

Sometimes light illuminates things that are better left in the dark.

You will never be a hero. You were never meant to be a hero." Hero. that one word made Aru lift her chin. It made her think of Mini and Boo, her mom, and all the incredible things she herself had done in just nine days. Breaking the lamp hadn't been heroic... but everything else? Fighting for people she cared about and doing everything it took to fix her mistake? That was heroism. Vajra became a spear in her hand. "I already am. And it's heroine.

Tales are slippery, her mother had often said. The truth of a story depends on who is telling it.

I believe that the world could be different. I believe that our destinies aren't chains around our necks, but wings that give us flight.

People are a lot like magical pockets. They're a lot bigger on the inside than they appear to be on the outside.

You are the Daughter of Death," hissed Aru. "You don't walk into a telephone pole because of a boy.

Death is like a parking lot. You stay there for just a bit and then go somewhere else.

This is what we get for thinking that scaley orange skin and fake hair could keep that former demon out of elected office.

Secrets are curious things. They are flimsy and easily broken. For this reason, they prefer to remain hidden.

Aru used to think that friends were there to share your food and keep your secrets and laugh at your jokes while you walked from one classroom to the next. Sometimes, though, the best kind of friend is the one who doesn't say anything but just sits beside you. It's enough.

It is better, perhaps, to be thought of as a fiction than to be discarded from memory completely.

Four p.m. is like a basement. Wholly innocent in theory. But if you really think about a basement, it is cement poured over restless earth. It has smelly, unfinished spaces, and wooden beams that cast too-sharp shadows. It is something that says almost, but not quite. Four p.m. feels that way, too. Almost, but not quite afternoon anymore. Almost, but not quite evening yet. And it is the way of magic and nightmares to choose those almost-but-not-quite moments and wait.

Memories are the grandest illusion of all.

The world had a tendency to trick people.

They said I would never remember how strong and powerful I am until someone reminded me," said Hanuman. "Sometimes I wonder if it is a curse that we are all under at some point or another.

Aru was twelve years old. Even she knew that half the time she didn't know what she was doing.

Sometimes you don't even know how special you might be. Sometimes it takes moments of horror or happiness to, if you will, unleash that knowledge.

Does that mean I get to do magical things, too? Do I get powers? Or a cape?" "There shall be no capes." "A hat?" "No." "Theme song?" "Please stop.

Who are you?" Aru grinned. This was the moment she had been waiting for all her life. In school, the teachers always asked instead: What's you name? Now, finally, she could say her dream response to Who are you? "Your worst nightmare," she said in a deep Batman voice.

Blood isn't the only thing that makes you related to someone

It wouldn't be a unicorn without a horn. That's what the word means! Uni, for one. And then corn for, you know, horn. One-horned." "Yeah, but they're supposed to be all peaceful and nice. Why would a unicorn need a horn? What's it do with it?" Mini turned red. "I dunno. For shooting off magic and stuff." "Or they use it to maul things." "Thats horrible, Aru" They're unicorns. They're perfect.

The day was on its way to being uneventful. That should have been her first warning. The world has a tendency to trick people. It likes to make a day feel as bright and lazy as sun-warmed honey dripping down a jar as it waits until your guard is down... And that's when it strikes.

But worry for a friend can make ordinary circumstances extraordinary.

Between a demon that could end the world and a seventh-grade girl, Aru (and probably most people) would choose the demon any day.