“I picked up the nearest weapon I could lay my hands on: a stapler. I lifted it, going for “menacing.” I admit it lacked a certain elegance, but hey. It was worth a shot. David placed his hand on my arm and pushed it back down.
“What?”
“Just . . . that’s embarrassing for all of us,” he replied.”
“Bruce Wayne's parents get killed and he goes to Tibet or whatever, and Superman is an alien, and Spiderman had that radioactive spider. Me? I kissed a janitor in the school bathroom.”
“The great thing about best friends is that they know you really well. And the terrible thing about best friends is that they know YOU really well.”
“Look at him. Whole life turned upside down, and he’s in there making pizza rolls.”
“The three of us, working together to save the world. Me, my ex-girlfriend, and the guy she dumped me for.” His mouth twisted into a half smile. “This has to be the most screwed up situation three teenagers have ever found themselves in.”
“I think I saw an episode of Gossip Girl like that once,” I offered.”
“If by ‘graciously volunteered,’ you mean ‘was threatened and coerced,’ then yes, I did,”
“I know,” I told him. “It sounds insane. It is insane.”
His eyes fixed on mine. “You killed someone,” he said, his voice barely audible. “With a shoe.”
“He had a sword,” I fired back and then, to my shock, David burst out laughing.”
“Harper, did you just... did you just throw a pen at Liz?"
"Oh my gosh, no, Mrs. Ford! I was just... um... writing really fast because there was so much information to take in, and I had, like, some lotion? On my hands? Anyway the pen flew out of my hand and hit Liz”
“just . . . I don’t like crying girls, okay?” We were quiet for a second while I took that in. “That was very nice of you, David,” I finally said. “Now hold on because I’m about to drive into a fence.” “Yeah, okay,” he muttered, his eyes still closed. “You do that.” Then his eyes shot open. “Wait, what?”
“He and I had loathed each other since kindergarten. Heck, even before that. Mom says he’s the only baby I ever bit in daycare.”
“Looking back, none of this would have happened if I’d brought lip gloss the night of the Homecoming Dance.”
“I’m sure you’d hate to miss everyone’s felicitations.”
David had beaten me in the final round of our sixth-grade spelling bee with that word and now, all these years later, he still tried to drop it into conversation whenever he could.”
“It was such a relief to be able to sob and have someone know all the reasons why.”
“You know what's awkward?" David asked, the corner of his mouth lifting.
"Our entire existences?"
Now the grin was real. "That," he acknowledged. "And when you make a big, dramatic gesture because you think you're going to die, and then you-"
"Don't die," I finished for him, and he nodded.
"Exactly. Not that I'm not one hundred percent psyched that we didn't die, but...”
“I hurried out of the lobby and turned the corner into the English hall, so I didn’t see the guy in front of me until it was too late.
“Oh!” I exclaimed as we bumped shoulders. “Sorry!”
Then I realized who I’d bumped into, and I immediately regretted my apologetic tone. If I’d known it was David Stark, I would have tried to hit him harder, or maybe stepped on his foot with the spiky heel of my new shoes for good measure.
I did my best to smile at him, though, even as I realized my stomach was jumping all over the place. He must have scared me more than I’d thought.
David scowled at me over the rims of his ridiculous hipster glasses, the kind with the thick black rims. I hate those. I mean, it’s the 21st century. There are fashionable options for eyewear.
“Watch where you’re going,” he said. Then his lips twisted in a smirk. “Or could you not see through all that mascara?”
I would’ve loved nothing more than the tell him to kiss my ass, but one of the responsibilities of being a student leader at The Grove is being polite to everyone, even if he is a douchebag who wrote not one, but three incredibly unflattering articles in the school paper about what a crap job you’re doing as SGA president.
And you especially needed to be polite to said douchebag when he happened to be the nephew of Saylor Stark, President of the Pine Grove Junior League, head of the Pine Grove Betterment Society, Chairwoman of the Grove Academy School Board, and, most importantly, Founder and Organizer of Pine Grove’s Annual Cotillion.
So I forced myself to smile even bigger at David and said, “Nope, just in a hurry. Are you, uh… are you here for the dance?”
He snorted. “Um, no. I’d rather slam my testicles in a locker door. I have some work to do on the paper.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it," I said, trying to sound normal even though all I really wanted to do was run inside the garage and try to lift my dad’s SUV. You know, for scientific purposes.”
“Since when did David Stark have biceps? How did you get any muscle tone when all you did was type and be annoying?”
“I had just killed a teacher. With my shoe.”
“And the next time I did school stuff in the middle of the night, I just did it in my closet with the door locked. Honestly, what is wrong with this country when striving for excellence means you need antidepressants?”
“But please . . . don’t keep trying to fix us, Harper. We’re not broken.”
“What’s going to happen?” he asked. “Are we all going to stand in a circle and sing ‘Kumbaya’?”
“Aunt May, my sweet Aunt May, who taught me how to knit, who bought me a piece of candy every time we went to the store, jabbed a cocktail fork at my eye.”
“I had to get out of this before I was killed with some elaborate cutlery.”
“You do love him," I said, and she swung her gaze back to me.
"I do." She smoothed her hand over her thighs, flattening imaginary wrinkles from the linen.
"Even though he's not your family."
Saylor laughed, a surprisingly husky sound. "Don't you love people who aren't your family, Harper Jane?"
"Of course I do. But you love him for more than the whole Oracle thing. You love him because he's David.”
“A few weeks ago, if you had told me that being held in David Stark’s arms was one of the nicest things I’d ever feel, I wouldn’t have laughed at you. I would’ve been too busy choking on my own horror.”
“I'm a lover, not a fighter.”
“Okay, I should probably mention right here that Brandon used the real word, but this is my story, so I'm cleaning it up a little.”
“Oh, don't worry about it," I said, trying to sound normal even though all I really wanted to do was run inside the garage and try to lift my dad's SUV. You know, for scientific purposes.”
“I uncurled my legs and pushed until I had both arms fully extended and both legs straight up in the air. My dress fell down over my head, so if any of our neighbors were up and about, they saw more than just me going all Russian gymnast on our fence.”
“just . . . I don’t like crying girls, okay?” We were quiet for a second while I took that in. “That was very nice of you, David,” I finally said. “Now hold on because I’m about to drive into a fence.”
“Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.”
“I swear, every person I know gets far more satisfaction from doing good deeds than receiving them. Maybe that's the whole point in the end, all of us putting up with good deeds, tolerating them as best we can, counting the minutes until we have the opportunity to reciprocate.”
“Sometimes you don’t know the most important things,” Tavi said. “You believe them.”
“Please we would much rather sail free we mean you no harm I promise ” he floated upright in the water frowning then bowed his head in agreement. With a flick of their tails the blue men dived and were gone. “I promise ” Hannah breathed. Of course. “That’s a hard one to rhyme with. Scarlet Max and Donovan leapt up and down shouting with joy. “I knew you could do it” Scarlet shrieked. “It was just luck ” Hannah said “I didn’t have time to think. I just said the first thing that came into my mind. I could’ve said I swear and then he could have said pear or mare or square…” “That was amazing ” Donovan said. “You were so quick” I didn’t feel quick ” Hannah grinned ” I felt as thick as a brick.” “O goodness she cant stop ” Donovan said laughing.”
“I'm not sure if our friendship is strong enough to survive into next year when we’re away at college. But. We know each other in a way that no one else can. We share a history that makes us permanently connected. So I have to hope for us. All I can do is hope.”
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.