“Jonah has that strange look on his face. He must have another of Maryrose’s memories. Probably that she once sang a lullaby on a windy day. OR SOMETHING ELSE TOTALLY USELESS. “Is it about canoeing?” I ask, trying to be positive. He scratches his head. “It is! Maryrose was good at canoeing!” Oh! Yay! “Did she ever stop a boat?” “Yes!” he exclaims. Great! “How?” I ask. “With paddles!” he says. Argh. “Thanks for nothing, Maryrose’s memories!” I yell. “We have to stop this canoe!”
― Sarah Mlynowski, quote from Once Upon a Frog
“Do you know I ate frog legs once?” Jonah asks. Uh-oh. “You what?” screams a horrified Frederic. “It’s true!” Jonah says, clearly not catching the stop talking look I’m shooting him. “We went to a French restaurant for our dad’s birthday and he ordered an appetizer of frog legs. Remember, Abby? We tried them! Both of us did!” “It was before I knew you,” I tell Frederic apologetically. “They tasted like chicken!” Jonah exclaims. He’s right. They did taste like chicken. “I think I’m going to throw up,” Frederic moans.”
― Sarah Mlynowski, quote from Once Upon a Frog
“Well, there are other versions of the story,” I say, thinking out loud. “Besides the throwing and the kissing.” “Like what?” Frederic asks. I bite my lip. This is going to be worse than the frog-legs conversation. “Well, there’s the one where the princess chops off the frog’s head, and then he turns into a prince,” I say all in a rush. Frederic’s eyes almost pop out of his head. “I do not wish to try that one.”
― Sarah Mlynowski, quote from Once Upon a Frog
“We find our way to the marble kitchen, open the fancy silver fridge, and serve ourselves a heaping plate of coleslaw and chicken fingers. “Mmm,” I say. Prince makes sloppy eating sounds. “Delicious,” says Jonah. He smiles at Frederic. “Tastes just like frog legs.” I laugh so hard I snort coleslaw out of my nose.”
― Sarah Mlynowski, quote from Once Upon a Frog
“I’m still irritated at the end of the day when my brother, Jonah, and I are standing outside school, waiting for our dad to pick us up. It doesn’t help when Brandon says, “Bye, Crabby Abby,” as he strolls past me. He walks home from school by himself. Either his parents trust him to make his way home alone or they think he’s awful, too, and are hoping he gets kidnapped.”
― Sarah Mlynowski, quote from Once Upon a Frog
“Life, authentic life, is supposed to be all struggle, unflagging action and affirmation, the will butting its blunt head against the world's wall, suchlike, but when I look back I see that the greater part of my energies was always given over to the simple search for shelter, for comfort, for, yes, I admit it, for cosiness. This is a surprising, not to say shocking, realisation. Before, I saw myself as something of a buccaneer, facing all-comers with a cutlass in my teeth, but now I am compelled to acknowledge that this was a delusion. To be concealed, protected, guarded, that is all I have ever truly ever wanted, to burrow down into a place of womby warmth and cower there, hidden from the sky's indifferent gaze and the air's harsh damagings. That is why the past is just such a retreat for me, I go there eagerly, rubbing my hands and shaking off the cold present and the colder future. And yet, what existence, really, does it have, the past? After all, it is only what the present was, once, the present that is gone, no more than that. And yet.”
― John Banville, quote from The Sea
“Because letting someone in close meant they could hurt you. I knew all about that kind of fear. I lived with it.”
― Lisa Kleypas, quote from Blue-Eyed Devil
“Engang kom han med skjorten åpen og han var tykt lodden på brystet. Det er som en eng å lægge sig i! tænkte jeg, for jeg var så ung. Jeg kysset ham nogen ganger, det er på det jeg vet at jeg aldrig har oplevet noget lignende.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Pan
“What happened was, I told you I loved you.”
― Jennifer Echols, quote from Forget You
“He hesitated. “We’ve been told we’re larger than typical males.”
Larger. She swallowed. “I can deal with that. Larger as in ‘just a bit bigger’ or as in ‘that is never, ever going to fit inside me’?”
― Laurann Dohner, quote from Justice
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