Chaos Choreography

Brenna Kelly, meet Alice Price-Healy. Grandma, meet Breanna. No one is shooting, stabbing or immolating anyone in this hotel room." "Please," added Dominic. "I have to sleep here." "HAIL!" Rejoiced the mice. "HAIL THE LACK OF STABBING, SHOOTING AND FLAME!

I know because your mice have been sending Facebook messages to my mice. They really like the caps lock key. Someone should teach them about proper email etiquette.

The second search party did say, lo, we are going this way, and the rest of us did say, yea, though you walk through the hallway that was not on the map, you should fear no evil.

Magic is real, in the sense that sometimes the world does things that can't be explained using science as we currently understand it. Magic isn't real, because once something becomes explainable, we start thinking of it as "science," and we no longer pretend it doesn't exist.

Love what you do. Even if it’s not what you thought you’d be doing when you were a kid, love what you do. Eventually, it’s going to kill you, and it would be a real pity if you died doing something you hate.” —Evelyn Baker

I’ve found that the difference between an opportunity and an obstacle often comes down to how many knives you have hidden in your clothing.

Painters and sculptors and designers, they take raw materials and turn them into art. Dancers turn themselves into art. We are poetry in motion

there’s no such thing as too many knives. There’s only more knives than you have room to hide under your mattress,

I don’t have much experience with gods, and I don’t want much experience with gods, since people who meet gods tend to wind up pregnant with demigods.

Some things we have to hide from science, waiting for the day when people will be ready to deal with the idea of talking mice or fish with fur. Other things science hides from itself, because no one really wants the night to be dark and filled with monsters. That era has passed.

Valerie didn’t have those problems. Valerie was just another dancer, and anything she needed to hide would be mundane and understandable. Sometimes I envied Valerie, even though I knew that her life was simple only because she didn’t actually exist. Maybe that was always the secret to a simple life. Reality was the complicating factor.

It’s like Scooby-Doo. People think it’s teaching you all these big lessons about how monsters aren’t real, when really it’s just showing kids over and over again that when something seems out of whack, there’s probably some old white dude behind it.

Magic isn’t real, because once something becomes explainable, we start thinking of it as “science,” and we no longer pretend it doesn’t exist.

Coincidence is just another word for an accident that doesn’t kill you,” said Alice.

Even exhausted, Alice was worth her weight in pissed-off badgers.

It is most irregular to send us away, rather than giving the food to us directly,” said the mouse. “But the Thoughtful Priestess did say, lo, Go Easy On Her, She Is Going To Be Under A Lot of Stress, and I believe that this is Going Easy.

They are as intelligent as their shapeshifting mates, because smart sharks is exactly what the ocean needed.

I turned to find her standing over the body of the knife-fighter, a petulant look on her face. “I broke mine,” she said, only half apologetically. She raised her head. “Is yours in any shape to be questioned? Because mine isn’t.

The plesiosaur was cranky and snappy, but it couldn’t leave the water. Well. I didn’t think it could leave the water. It probably couldn’t leave the water. I decided to stay a little farther back from the water.

even though I knew that her life was simple only because she didn’t actually exist. Maybe that was always the secret to a simple life. Reality was the complicating factor.

There’s a special sort of awful feeling that comes with making your husband look at you like you’re some sort of dangerous animal.

One thing I’ve learned is that people who love and accept you are worth their weight in silver bullets. You hold them fast, and you never let them go.

The pillow was a psalm to sleep. The mattress was a benediction. I closed my eyes, and sank instantly down into sleep

love is great, but it can be a poison. Sometimes you have to step away, or you’ll never be able to break free.

I felt like I was seeing their entire relationship in microcosm, and I didn’t want anything to do with it.

Reality was boring if it didn’t have a layer of sequins on top.

We had left the flea market—collecting Malena from a stall that sold live birds, where she’d purchased a box of pigeons which she had proceeded to suck dry in the car—