Ally Carter · 284 pages
Rating: (162.7K votes)
“I suppose a lot of teenage girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear. Well, that's me—Cammie the Chameleon. But I'm luckier than most because, at my school, that's considered cool.
I go to a school for spies.”
“I think it's kinda nice.' And I did. my mom isn't famous for her pies. No, she's famous for defusing a nuclear device in Brussels with only a pair of cuticle scissors and a ponytail holder. Somehow, at the moment, pies seemed cooler.”
“I know in the spy movies it always looks really cool when the operative goes from a maid's uniform to a slinky, sexy, ballgown in the amount of time it takes an elevator to climb three floors. Well, I don't know how it is for TV spies, but I can tell you that even with Velcro, the art of the quick change is one that must take a lot of practice (not to mention better lighting than one is likely to find in a tunnel that was once part of the underground railroad).”
“...maybe it's only fitting that relationship that started with a lie would end with one.”
“He looked as though I'd just run over his pet puppy (though no actual puppies were harmed in the formation of that metaphor).”
“Women of the Gallagher Academy, who comes here?" she asked.
Just then, every girl at every table (even the newbies) stood and said in unison, "We are the sisters of Gillian."
"Why do you come?" my mother asked.
"To learn her skills. Honor her sword. And keep her secrets."
"To what end do you work?"
"To the cause of justice and light."
"How long will you strive?"
"For all the days of our lives," we finished and I felt a little like a character in one of my grandma's soap operas.”
“The time for crying with your girlfriends about a broken heart is over chocolate ice cream
and chick flicks—not stun guns and bulletproof vests.”
“Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man seven different ways with her bare hands, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl.”
“Oh.' I shot upright. 'I was in Mongolia.'
Note to self: learn to be a less extreme liar.”
“Mr. Solomon was right the worst kind of torture is watching someone you love get hurt.”
“You shouldn't judge someone until you've walk a mile through an underground tunnel in her uncomfortable shoes”
“If you can be still enough and common enough, then it's really easy to be invisible.”
“Unusual financial activity: none, unless you count the fact that someone in the family is way too into Civil War biographies. (Can this be a possible indication of Confederate insurgents still living and working in Virginia? Must research further.)”
“I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You”
“That's when I heard the sounds of a certified genius spinning around in circles like a dog chasing its tail.”
“Yes?' Joe Solomon sounded like someone with far better things to do. 'Is there any homework?' she asked, and the class turned instantly from shocked to irritated. (Never ask that question in a room full of girls who are all black belts in karate) 'Yes,' Solomon said, holding the door in the universal signal for get out. 'Notice things.”
“If he'd looked like a cross between Mr. Clooney and, say, one of the hobbits, I probably would have been far more capable of coherent thought.”
“In a place where everyone knew my story, it was nice to know there was a chapter that ONLY I HAD TO READ. :)”
“Even though Liz might have been at the bottom of our class in P&E, she is the best person I've ever seen at getting me out of bed, which is saying something, considering the woman who raised me. Macey was asleep in her headphones, so Liz felt free to yell, "We're doing this for you!" as she pulled on my left leg and Bex went in search of breakfast. Liz put her foot against the mattress for leverage as she tugged. "Come on, Cam. GET. UP. " "No!" I said, burrowing deeper into the covers. "Five more minutes. " Then she grabbed my hair, which is totally a low blow, since everyone knows I'm tender-headed. "He's a honeypot. " "He'll still be one in an hour, " I pleaded. Then Liz dropped down beside me. She leaned close. She whispered, "Tell Suzie she's a lucky cat. " I threw the covers aside. "I'm up!”
“The Operative tried to implement the Purusey breathing technique, which has been proven effective at fooling polygraphs. There is no conclusive evidence as to
whether it is effective at masking the internal lie detectors of fifteen-year-old boys.”
“All these years I'd thought being a spy was challenging. Turns out, being a girl is the tricky part.”
“Hey, Cammie... tell Suzie she's a lucky cat."
Have sexier words ever been spoken? I seriously think not!”
“The Subject has really blue eyes that twinkle when he looks at someone like she's maybe a little bit insane.”
“I wrapped my arms around my knees and stared through the window's wavy glass. The red velvet curtains were drawn around the tiny alcove, and I was enveloped by an odd sense of peace, knowing that in twenty minutes, the halls were going to be crowded; music was going to be blaring; and I was going to go from being an only child to one of a hundred sisters, so I knew to savor the silence while it lasted.”
“But I kept it to myself--maybe because I didn't think it mattered, but probably because, in a place where everyone knew my story, it was nice to know there was a chapter that only I had read.”
“Did you say something Macey?' I asked, but she cut me a look that could kill. She reached into her bag, ripped off a sliver of Evapopaper, and scribbled:
'Can we study tonight? (Tell anyone, and I'll kill you in you sleep!)”
“...For all the days of our lives," we finished and I felt a little like a character in one of my grandma's soap operas...”
“Hello, ladies," Joe Solomon said, but not before I snatched the piece of paper and crammed it in my mouth, which ordinarily would have been really great spy maneuvering except that Josh didn't use Evapopaper.
"How's the lasagna?" Mr. Solomon asked, and I started to say something before I remembered that my mouth was...well...otherwise engaged.”
“Maybe wrist corsages cut off circulation to the brain? I mean, is that why so many girls do stupid things on prom night? I was really going to have to investigate this further, I decided”
“You know, Ms. Morgan, that was your mother you just hammered," Mr. Solomon said.”
“I suppose none of what I'm saying matters. In a few years a search like this won't even be necessary. We have instruments now that can be mounted on the underside of an airplane. To find a man all you have to do is fly over the spot where you think he is, and the machine will register his body heat. Right now there aren't enough of those machines to go around. Most of them are in the war. But when we come home from there, well, a man on the run won't have hope. And a man like me, he won't be needed. This is the last of something. It's too bad. As much as I hate war, I fear the day when machines take the place of men. At least now a man can still get along on his talents.”
“There were a few things she knew about Will Trent. He was tall, at least six-three, with a runner's lean body and the most beautiful legs she had ever seen on a man. His mother had been killed when he was less than a year old. He'd grown up in a children's home and never been adopted. He was a special agent with the GBI. He was one of the smartest men she had ever met, and he was so dyslexic that, as far as she could tell, he read no higher than a second-grade level.”
“By July 1933 it was illegal in Germany to belong to any other political party than the Nazis. In November the Nazis staged a parliamentary election in which”
“if you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find them strange...they all consider death a great evil...and the brave among them face death, when they do, for fear of greater evils...therefore, it is fear and terror that make all men brave, except for philosophers. yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice...what of the moderate among them? is their experience not similar?...they master certain pleasures because they are mastered by others...i fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that they only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom.”
“I do not want leaving me to be easy.”
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