Quotes from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“That book is filthy. Wicked. Dangerous. Yet it feels so comforting to own it.”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“No, that watch doubles as a high-power flame-thrower and a bidet.”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“THE SLITHERING QUIVER OF THE RIVER LIZARD'S TWISTED LIVER-BLISTERS In the city of Phlemuria, three miles west of Ulthar in the Elder Dreamlands, folks had a saying: the god of Fate is no more than a capricious old pig-herder made cranky by an embarrassing rash.”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“THAT IS NOT DEAD WHICH CAN ETERNAL LIE /AND WITH STRANGE AEONS, EVEN DEATH MAY LIVE AND LET DIE”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“Reginald’s furnishings, I noted, were solid oak. Oak! Now there was a wood you could trust. I noticed something odd about his bookcase—something that caused a small but sharp bell of warning to ring in my mind. Most of the volumes on its shelves were quite old, and bound in rotting human skin. Finally I noticed the thing that had set off my inner alarm: the bookends were mismatched. One was a human skull and the other was a kitschy little plastic owl. Certainly plastic has no place in the decor of a gentleman’s study.”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“My hands shivered like twin albino bats in an Antarctic ice-cave, assuming such caves served as lodging for such bats. I’m not really sure. They’d have to be pretty hardy bats. What would they eat?”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“1. Dark Lord of the Screaming Abyss 2. Protector of the Night-Gaunts 3. Messenger of the Crypt Gods 4. Vile Master of the Blood-Soaked Torments 5. Father of the Black Scorpions 6. Uncle of the Flesh-Eating Hawks 7. Second-Cousin of the Accursed Pharaoh with Pubic Dandruff 8. Niles Lathotep 9. The Killjoy of Kadath 10. Discount Abdul, the Persian Carpet King—Half-Off This Week Only 11. Keeper of the Sacred Camel-Toes 12. He Who Doth Swing Both Ways in Darkness 13. Minty Belasco 14. Big Jake”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“What’s that you say, girl? A foamy-mouthed kitty bit your ass and now you’ve gone mondo batshit?”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“The thing looked like an especially unsavory cross between a mangy hound-dog, a Tasmanian devil, and a scruffy, drug-addled, middle-aged British rock star.”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“I happened to run into Anton at the Arkham Public Library just a few days later. I was walking down a shadowy hallway when he came bustling out of the Forbidden, Unspeakably Dangerous, Never-To-Be-Checked-Out-By-Anyone Section with a notepad in his hand”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“I only hope you are never tempted to venture into the library’s Forbidden, Unspeakably Dangerous, Never-To-Be-Checked-Out-By-Anyone Section to peruse our secret copy of that most shocking and insanity-inducing of ancient tomes, typeset at a point-size convenient to those with impaired vision—the Large-Print Necronomicon!”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“If what’s behind that door is so terrible, shouldn’t we carry a machete or two? A kitchen knife? An especially sturdy cocktail umbrella?” “There is no weapon on Earth one could wield against such terror!” he moaned. “Oh, I see. Then we should just go in unarmed. Well, fine. Lead the way.”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“And at 10:23 p.m. Central Time, a cornfield in Buttercup, Iowa split open and It emerged: that selfsame deity that the Pre-Atlantean, Post-Lemurian Serpent Priests addressed by Seven-Thousand-and-Twelve Sacred Names (Number Eleven translating to “Whatever It Is, We Wish It Would Just Leave Us Alone”); that lugubrious critter known to the ancient Aztecs as He-Who-Drips-Sweat-All-Over-Our-Nice-Clean-Temple, to whom they sacrificed the lymph nodes of their enemies after they’d given the hearts to gods they actually liked.”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

“Miss Tuppenceworth, W.’s pretty blonde secretary, looked out the window of her office, which served as antechamber to her superior’s sanctum sanctorum. “Why is it that whenever H.P. shows up, the sky is suddenly filled with multi-colored silhouettes of shapely women flying about? One can see outlines of guns among the female forms, and hear music filled with saxophones and trumpets. And there’s this sort of swirly gun-barrel shifting to and fro…Decidedly odd.”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

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“The intruders spoke no words as they rushed in. Five boys carrying baseball bats and tire irons. They wore an assortment of Halloween masks and stocking masks.
But Derek knew who they were.
“No! No!” he cried.
All five boys wore bulky shooter’s earmuffs. They couldn’t hear him. But more importantly, they couldn’t hear Jill.
One of the boys stayed in the doorway. He was in charge. A runty kid named Hank. The stocking pulled down over his face smashed his features into Play-Doh, but it could only be Hank.
One of the boys, fat but fast-moving and wearing an Easter Bunny mask, stepped to Derek and hit him in the stomach with his aluminum baseball bat.
Derek dropped to his knees.
Another boy grabbed Jill. He put his hand over her mouth. Someone produced a roll of duct tape.
Jill screamed. Derek tried to stand, but the blow to his stomach had winded him. He tried to stand up, but the fat boy pushed him back down.
“Don’t be stupid, Derek. We’re not after you.”
The duct tape went around and around Jill’s mouth. They worked by flashlight. Derek could see Jill’s eyes, wild with terror. Pleading silently with her big brother to save her.
When her mouth was sealed, the thugs pulled off their shooter’s earmuffs.
Hank stepped forward. “Derek, Derek, Derek,” Hank said, shaking his head slowly, regretfully. “You know better than this.”
“Leave her alone,” Derek managed to gasp, clutching his stomach, fighting the urge to vomit.
“She’s a freak,” Hank said.
“She’s my little sister. This is our home.”
“She’s a freak,” Hank said. “And this house is east of First Avenue. This is a no-freak zone.”
“Man, come on,” Derek pleaded. “She’s not hurting anyone.”
“It’s not about that,” a boy named Turk said. He had a weak leg, a limp that made it impossible not to recognize him. “Freaks with freaks, normals with normals. That’s the way it has to be.”
“All she does is—”
Hank’s slap stung. “Shut up. Traitor. A normal who stands up for a freak gets treated like a freak. Is that what you want?”
“Besides,” the fat boy said with a giggle, “we’re taking it easy on her. We were going to fix her so she could never sing again. Or talk. If you know what I mean.”
He pulled a knife from a sheath in the small of his back. “Do you, Derek? Do you understand?”
Derek’s resistance died.
“The Leader showed mercy,” Turk said. “But the Leader isn’t weak. So this freak either goes west, over the border right now. Or…” He let the threat hang there.
Jill’s tears flowed freely. She could barely breathe because her nose was running. Derek could see that by the way she sucked tape into her mouth, trying for air. She would suffocate if they didn’t let her go soon.
“Let me at least get her doll.”
― Michael Grant, quote from Lies

“Sometimes while you wait for what you think is better," Philomene said, "what is good enough slips away.”
― Lalita Tademy, quote from Cane River

“He would see her again. He knew he would. Magic bent the world. Pulled it into shape. There were fixed points. Most of the time they were places. But sometimes, rarely, they were people. For someone who never stood still, Lila felt like a pin in Kell's world. One he was sure to snag on.”
― V.E. Schwab, quote from A Darker Shade of Magic

“It was like walking into a treasure trove of books, hoarded by pirate librarians.”
― Pseudonymous Bosch, quote from The Name of This Book Is Secret

“day sleeper. solicitors will be eaten.”
― Kim Harrison, quote from The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

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