“Better to be strong than pretty and useless.”
“You're not dead. You're too goddamn annoying to be dead.”
“I guess since the groin is the center of a guy's world, he rarely guesses it isn't the center of yours.”
“It's dangerous and dirty and smells bad and--"
"Yeah, well, so is sex and drugs and everything else worth doing.”
“Did you feel me up when you were tying me down?"
"Um, no. Did you want me to?"
"Well, it would have been nice.”
“Why can't I have a normal girlfriend?" he asked the air over his head. "I finally meet someone I like and she turns out to be crazy.”
“When you're wrecked, that's the only thing you can do, right? Hold on to whatever you can. Hold on hard.”
“I searched for something witty to say, settled for bare honesty. "I want to pee.”
“I've been bitten, beat up, tied to a bed, James Bonded out, and now you finish off by choking a goddamn teacher!”
“People don’t really want to know anything about you. They just want you to fit into their little predetermined slots.
They decide what you are in the first two seconds, and they only get nervous or upset if you don’t live up to their snap judgments.”
“... I'd already shot a zombie. Maybe this smartmouth blue-eyed apple-pie boy would be next.”
“His shoulder bumped mine again. "Can I ask you something?"
I didn't answer. He was going to ask me anyway. People don't say that if they don't want to pry something out of you.”
“Come on. Keep moving. Your lips are turning blue."
"Keep my lips out of this.”
“Jesus, you've got a death wish."
"Right now I have a bathroom-and-sleep-somewhere safe wish, kid.”
“Hello, Officer? Can you help me? My dad got turned into a zombie. You know, we’ve been travelling around getting rid of things that aren’t real, and this time they hit back. I really need someplace to stay – but can you make sure I have some holy water or something wherever it is? And some silver-jacketed bullets? That’d be sweet. Yeah, that’d be totally cool. Thanks. And while you’re at it, can you tell the guys with the straitjackets that I’m really sane? That would help.”
“I'm here to help you, fucking morons.”
“I even poured him a glass of milk.
Call me domestic.”
“What do you say when someone takes on a really bad ass, murdering sucker for you? There just aren't words for that.”
“That's the funny thing about old hurts- they just wait for new heartache to come along and then show up, just as sharp and horrible as the first day you woke up with the world changed all around you.”
“Boys always get the best eyelashes; it's like some kind of cosmic law. And half-breed kids get some kind of extra help there from genetics, too.”
“The smell of apple pies didn't quite fill the house, but it was there, a thread under everything else. It was kind of hard to take Christophe seriously when he smelled like baked goods. I wondered if other djampjir smelled like Hostess Twinkies and sniggered to myself.”
“I guess since the groin is the center of a guy's world, he rarley guesses it isn't the center of yours.”
“If wishes were fishes, even beggars would eat”
“I got a washed out version of Mom’s curls and a better copy of Dad’s blue eyes, The rest of me, I guess, is up for grabs. Except maybe Gran’s nose, but she could have been trying to make me feel better. I’m no prize. Most girls go through a gawky stage, but I’m beginning to think mine will be a lifelong thing. It doesn’t bother me too much. Better to be strong than pretty and useless. I’ll take a plain girl with her head screwed on right over a cheerleader any day.”
“I thought I'd pay you a visit, my dear. Since you're so interesting."
My mouth shifted into high gear, leaving my brain behind. "You know, you're the second guy in a few days to call me that. You should be more creative.”
“Boys always get the best lashes; it's like some kind of cosmic law.”
“He hadn't told me everything, but I'd left him for dead. I guess we were just about even.”
“Would I be as strong as that once I did that thing Christophe was talking about? Blooming? Would I smell like a bakery item? Or was that just him? Did he use pie filling for cologne?”
“Graves scooched a little closer to me, and I didn't even think about it. I put my arms around him and hugged. I didn't care if it hurt my arm and my ribs and my neck and pretty much every other part of me, my heart most of all. When you're wrecked, that's the only thing to do, right? Hold onto whatever you can. Hold on hard.”
“I invite you to consider anew what you know and what you have; what you are here for and where you are going; and how you are going to do what you have come here to do. p 13”
“IT’S THE neverness that is so painful. Never again to be here with us—never to sit with us at table, never to travel with us, never to laugh with us, never to cry with us, never to embrace us as he leaves for school, never to see his brothers and sister marry. All the rest of our lives we must live without him. Only our death can stop the pain of his death. A month, a year, five years—with that I could live. But not this forever. I step outdoors into the moist moldly fragrance of an early summer morning and arm in arm with my enjoyment comes the realization that never again will he smell this. As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to the grave does not return, He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more. JOB 7:9-10 One small misstep and now this endless neverness.”
“Nobody lives forever, nobody stays young long enough. My past seemed like so much excess baggage, my future a series of long goodbyes, my present an empty flask, the last good drink already bitter on my tongue. She still loved Trahearne, still maintained her secret fidelity as if it were a miniature Japanese pine, as tiny and perfect as a porcelain cup, lost in the dark and tangled corner of a once-formal garden gone finally to seed.”
“Also ist mein Sohn ein Simpel.'
In einer Hinsicht. Aber der größte Teil der Menschheit ist so. Weil es sonst zu schwer zu ertragen ist, Mensch zu sein. Im Gegensatz zu den Tieren wissen wir zu viel. Sie, die anderen Tiere, wissen gerade genug, um ihren Job zu machen und zu sterben. Um zu essen, zu schlafen, zu vögeln, Babys zu kriegen und zu sterben.”
“Snagging the ball from Pietr, Derek leaned in and snapped, “What? You
think you’re a bad-ass because you’ve got a tattoo?”
Derek body-checked Pietr with a force that would have sent anybody else onto the floor. Pietr wobbled but didn’t even move his feet to compensate. A minute later Derek skidded across the gym floor. Pietr was methodically dribbled and passed the ball between them. I saw him mouth the phrase “That’s why I’m a bad-ass!”
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