“The plane blew up.”
“I wonder what happened to all the other people?”
As soon as I’d spoken, I wished I hadn’t said that. I decided shy people shouldn’t try to make conversation, not even in an emergency. If I manage to talk to strangers at all, nervousness always makes me say the wrong thing.”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“But I suppose I’m a typical nerd, good at the details, not very smart at seeing the larger picture. I’d gone in for the competition because I liked my science teacher, and it had been like doing any interesting piece of homework. I had not thought it through. I had never sat myself down and said to myself, hold on, Semirah, what if you win? You are shy. How are you going to survive for three weeks surrounded by total strangers?”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“I walked all the way around the zoo, and then came back to a girl with a round face and fluffy hair, who looked like a baby owl. I like owls. I was about to say hello when along came Very Cool Girl, with her beautiful hair swinging. She smiled at me, and so did the baby owl. But oh no…My throat closed up. I simply could not speak. I can’t talk to strangers! I swerved off, and pretended I’d been headed for a nearby drinks machine.”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“I’d given up on the animal identities, so I didn’t try to think of one; but I decided I’d sit down, not next to him but a couple of seats away, to drink my can of Coke. I would try to look casually inviting, and maybe we could strike up a conversation. I sat down, giving a sigh that might have been a sort of noncommittal half-hello. He looked up from the game he was playing on his GameBoy and stared at me, narrow-eyed. His expression said very clearly, I’ve got your number, Unpopular Girl. Stay away from me.”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“Good morning,” I said awkwardly.
Being shipwrecked doesn’t make shyness any easier.”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“We came across a rucksack, wedged in among the coral. It was fastened up, but it seemed to have been invaded by some weird fluffy white sea creature that was trying to get out.
“What’s that?” said Arnie, poking it.
Miranda and I took a second look, and started to giggle. “It’s tampons,” I said. “Expanding widthways when wet—”
“Yecch!”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
Ann Halam
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“Cliff, I’d like to take over, but our charter prevents it. NSA can’t engage in domestic monitoring, even if we’re asked. That’s prison term stuff.”
― quote from The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
“If the modern world were a patient in my care...” She shook her head. “I would diagnose it suicidal.”
― John Shirley, quote from BioShock: Rapture
“Chaos and love when hand in hand and oh, the glorious grace of the world because of it.”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Dead After Dark
“Mortality is one of the greatest gifts ever bestowed. After a long and fruitful life, we are able to rest.”
― Nancy Straight, quote from Blood Debt
“But I welcome the darkness where the two eyes of that soft panther glow. The darkness is my cultural broth. The enchanted darkness. I go on speaking to you, risking disconnection: I’m subterraneously unattainable because of what I know.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Stream of Life
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