Quotes from Losing Lila

“We completely need him. Who else comes up with the plans?"
"Demos?"
"Yes, but he isn't hot, Nate. We talked about is.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“When I'm done sorting out the Unit, Alex and I are going to have a little chat"
"Over my dead body"
"I'm thinking over his dead body.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“What I'm trying to tell you, Lila,' he said, his voice husky in his throat, "is that I've always been there, looking out for you, even when you didn't know it - even when you couldn't see me."
My stomach flipped. Alex took hold of my hands and squeezed. "Nothing's changed. I'll be right there, I promise. You might not be able to see me, but I'll be there.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“Damn Alex and his resolve. If I died a virgin, I’d never forgive him.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“Something’s up,’ I say, handing the phone back.
‘Not necessarily,’ Jack says.
‘You think this is the first time Lila’s been hot-headed? Seriously, dude, you do remember my sister, right? Short, blonde, impulsive as shock therapy? Stubborn as a mule who won’t take no for an answer?’
Does Jack ever listen to himself?
Does he appreciate the irony of this statement? I shake my head at him in wonder.
‘Hey, I’m not short or blond,’ Jack protests as he catches the look on my face.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“Jack stares at me blankly. ‘A what?’ he asks.

I choke back the laugh. ‘A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don’t seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Jack asks, ‘A boy? She’s just a kid.’

I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. ‘She’s seventeen. She’s not a kid anymore.’

Jack looks like he’s about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. ‘If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I’m going to kill him,’ he says.

Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn’t require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“Urgh, her,' Suki groaned. "Yeah, she's still with us. And she's still a pain in the culo. I'm learning Spanish,' she said brightly. "Culo means ass.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“He smiled, a little smile, but the sight of it made my breathing speed up. "I've always needed you. For my entire life,' I said in a whisper,'and I'm always going to need you.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“First I need to do something.’ He pulled me closer towards him until our lips were almost touching.
‘What might that be?’ I managed to stutter, closing my eyes, anticipating the warmth of his lips against mine. But the kiss didn’t come. I opened my eyes. Alex had jumped to his feet.
‘Swim,’ he said, grinning at me. ‘Come on.’
‘Swim?’ I pouted, unable to hide my disappointment that he wanted to swim rather than make out with me.
Alex pulled his T-shirt off in one swift move. My eyes fell straightaway to his chest – which was tanned, smooth and ripped with muscle, and which, when you studied it as I had done, in detail, you discovered wasn’t a six-pack but actually a twelve-pack.
My eyes flitted to the shadowed hollows where his hips disappeared into his shorts, causing a flutter in parts of my body that up until three weeks ago had been flutter-dormant. Alex’s hands dropped to his shorts and he started undoing his belt.
I reassessed the swimming option. I could definitely do swimming.
He shrugged off his shorts, but before I could catch an eyeful of anything, he was off, jogging towards the water. I paused for a nanosecond, weighing up my embarrassment at stripping naked over my desire to follow him. With a deep breath, I tore off my dress then kicked off my underwear and started running towards the sea, praying Nate wasn’t doing a fly-by.
The water was warm and flat as a bath. I could see Alex in the distance, his skin gleaming in the now inky moonlight. When I got close to him, his hand snaked under the water, wrapped round my waist and pulled me towards him. I didn’t resist because I’d forgotten in that instant how to swim. And then he kissed me and I prayed silently and fervently that he took my shudder to be the effect of the water.
I tried sticking myself onto him like a barnacle, but eventually Alex managed to pull himself free, holding my wrists in his hand so I couldn’t reattach. His resolve was as solid as a nuclear bunker’s walls. Alex had said there were always chinks. But I couldn’t seem to find the one in his armour. He swam two long strokes away from me. I trod water and stayed where I was, feeling confused, glad that the night was dark enough to hide my expression.
‘I’m just trying to protect your honour,’ he said, guessing it anyway.
I groaned and rolled my eyes. When was he going to understand that I was happy for him to protect every other part of me, just not my honour?”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“Her eyes suddenly went round. "Hang on. You shoved him!"

"She shoved him?"

I turned to glare at Nate.

"Yes. And she's always running off on him." Suki shook her head at me. "We'd treat him much better if he was ours-”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“Look on the bright side: if you cause an inferno, you can always put it out with a tidal wave.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“I'm not stupid," I muttered lamely.
"Well, why else would you tell Alex to go anywhere? What will we do for eye candy now? Were you thinking of Nate at all? Were you thinking of me? I think you're incredibly selfish, Lila.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“You just were so cold with me. And the nurse’s outfit didn’t seem to make any kind of impression.
Whatsoever. So I thought . . .’ I looked at the ground. ‘I thought you were only staying because you had promised me and then . . . when I asked you,
you didn’t deny it.’
‘You didn’t give me a chance to,’ he said, shaking his head at me. He took a step nearer. ‘And believe me the nurse’s outfit made an
impression.’ He took another step towards me, so he was just a few centimetres away. ‘A very big impression.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“I cannot have this Imelda Marcos woman beating me, whoever she is,’ Suki shrugged by way of explanation.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“I was aware of his lips. Like they held the answers to every bit of knowledge in the whole wide world and suddenly I wanted to be the oracle and know it all.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“Si alguien me hubiera dicho hace un par de semanas que iba a estar en México con Alex y que él iba a estar caminando a través de la playa con una sonrisa en su cara, habiéndonos reservado una habitación, me habría caído muerta de la emoción. Habría necesitado desfribiladores para traerme de vuelta. Pero aquí estaba él, caminando a través de la arena hacía mí, y era mío. Y no había caído muerta. Al contrario, me sentía muy, muy viva.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“—Lo que estoy tratando de decirte, Lila
—dijo él con su voz ronca en su garganta —, es que siempre he estado allí, cuidando de ti, incluso cuando tú no lo sabías, incluso cuando no podías verme.
Mi estómago dio un vuelco. Alex se apoderó de mis manos y apretó.
—Nada ha cambiado. Estaré ahí, lo prometo. Puede que no seas capaz de verme, pero yo estaré allí.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“—No quise decir lo que dije, Alex. Por supuesto que te necesito. No puedo creer que no lo sepas. Te necesito tanto que cuando no estás a mí alrededor, duele. En realidad duele, físicamente. Aquí. —Me toqué entre las costillas, donde podía sentir mi corazón martillando—. Sólo puedo hacer esto por ti. Sólo estoy aquí por ti.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

“—Lo siento —dije. Alex abrió la boca para hablar y yo negué con la cabeza para detenerlo—. Alex, sólo escúchame. Necesito que entiendas. Cuando pensé que mi madre estaba muerta… su funeral… y los días posteriores, sólo conseguí lograrlo gracias a ti, porque estuviste justo a mi lado cuidándome. Y cuando mi padre me llevó a Londres, lo único que conseguía sacarme de la cama en la mañana, y a través de cada día en esa maldita escuela, era el pensamiento de que un día llegaría a verte de nuevo. Sólo saber que estabas por ahí, era suficiente. Así que, incluso antes de esto, incluso antes de que realmente comenzaras a rescatarme de los hombres malos con armas grandes, te necesitaba. He sido impulsiva y loca y aprovechado oportunidades toda mi vida porque siempre he sabido que estarías allí cuando las cosas fueran mal. Lo que pasa. Mucho.¿Recuerdas el lago? ¿El incidente del trineo? ¿El árbol en el patio trasero? Y ni siquiera hemos llegado a casi ser capturada por La Unidad en un Seven Eleven o recibir un disparo en Joshua Tree. Y en cada uno de esos momentos me has rescatado. Cada vez has estado allí. Eres como mi red de seguridad.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila

About the author

Popular quotes

“Go then if you must, but remember, no matter how foolish your deeds, those who love you will love you still.”
― Sophocles, quote from Antigone

“What do you know?”
“Almost everything. That almost part can be a real kick in the teeth sometimes.”
“What do you want, then?”
“What I can’t have.” Wit turned to him, eyes solemn. “Same as everyone else, Kaladin Stormblessed.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from Words of Radiance

“...in that dilated moment after sunset when the sky holds all the light...”
― David Wroblewski, quote from The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

“The news filled me with such euphoria that for an instant I was numb. My ingrained self-censorship immediately started working: I registered the fact that there was an orgy of weeping going on around me, and that I had to come up with some suitable performance. There seemed nowhere to hide my lack of correct emotion except the shoulder of the woman in front of me, one of the student officials, who was apparently heartbroken. I swiftly buried my head in her shoulder and heaved appropriately. As so often in China, a bit of ritual did the trick. Sniveling heartily she made a movement as though she was going to turn around and embrace me I pressed my whole weight on her from behind to keep her in her place, hoping to give the impression that I was in a state of abandoned grief.

In the days after Mao's death, I did a lot of thinking. I knew he was considered a philosopher, and I tried to think what his 'philosophy' really was. It seemed to me that its central principle was the need or the desire? for perpetual conflict. The core of his thinking seemed to be that human struggles were the motivating force of history and that in order to make history 'class enemies' had to be continuously created en masse. I wondered whether there were any other philosophers whose theories had led to the suffering and death of so many. I thought of the terror and misery to which the Chinese population had been subjected. For what?

But Mao's theory might just be the extension of his personality. He was, it seemed to me, really a restless fight promoter by nature, and good at it. He understood ugly human instincts such as envy and resentment, and knew how to mobilize them for his ends. He ruled by getting people to hate each other. In doing so, he got ordinary Chinese to carry out many of the tasks undertaken in other dictatorships by professional elites. Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship.

That was why under him there was no real equivalent of the KGB in China. There was no need. In bringing out and nourishing the worst in people, Mao had created a moral wasteland and a land of hatred. But how much individual responsibility ordinary people should share, I could not decide.

The other hallmark of Maoism, it seemed to me, was the reign of ignorance. Because of his calculation that the cultured class were an easy target for a population that was largely illiterate, because of his own deep resentment of formal education and the educated, because of his megalomania, which led to his scorn for the great figures of Chinese culture, and because of his contempt for the areas of Chinese civilization that he did not understand, such as architecture, art, and music, Mao destroyed much of the country's cultural heritage. He left behind not only a brutalized nation, but also an ugly land with lit He of its past glory remaining or appreciated.

The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings. Weeping for Mao was perhaps just another programmed act in their programmed lives.

Yet the mood of the nation was unmistakably against continuing Mao's policies. Less than a month after his death, on 6 October, Mme Mao was arrested, along with the other members of the Gang of Four. They had no support from anyone not the army, not the police, not even their own guards. They had had only Mao. The Gang of Four had held power only because it was really a Gang of Five.

When I heard about the ease with which the Four had been removed, I felt a wave of sadness. How could such a small group of second-rate tyrants ravage 900 million people for so long? But my main feeling was joy. The last tyrants of the Cultural Revolution were finally gone.”
― Jung Chang, quote from Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

“I can awaken things inside you that have been sleeping all your life. You're strong enough to live in the dark, to glory in it. You can become a queen of the shadows. Why not take that power, Elena? Let me help you take it.”
― L.J. Smith, quote from The Awakening / The Struggle

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.