“She would tell me to never change for anyone, because the people you change for are the people who control you.”
“The worst crime you can do to yourself is to forget why you chose the path you're on, but keep walking down it anyway.”
“Ava’s Mum: – We are not like them, Ava. […] We have to be ready to fight, and when the enemy gets you, one day, you show them what I taught you. When they lock you in the darkness, become an arsonist. When they put you under house arrest, or defile your name in public, or make you live beneath the rules that will suffocate you, become an arsonist. When they put a pistol in your hand and make you shoot your best friend, and when they throw you in a death camp, when you see everyone around you get sick from the poison they’re feeding them, light a fire that will destroy them. A fire they won’t forget the next time they try to do it to someone else.”
“Georg Winkler: – You take a lesson from Ava, […]. You want to know how to navigate life? Don’t live and die by the beliefs you had when you were young. Everything changes, that’s what you learn when you’ve lived as long as I have. The worst crime you can do to yourself is to forget why you chose the path you’re on, but keep walking down it anyway.”
“Molly: – You killed people. […] You made them disappear, and didn’t even let the families hold funerals.
Heinrich Werner: – That was the machine, not me.
Molly: – You were part of the machine.”
“Ava: – Gentle. I was never taught to be gentle. When I sang, I did so loudly. When I played sports, I had to win, otherwise what was the point? My mother would never tell me to quiet myself for a boy. She would tell me to never change for anyone, because the people you change for are the people who control you.”
“Grief is a kind of war, I think now. Loss is like a bullet. A person can only take so much.”
“Sure, okay, I'll pick up some cat litter. Anything else?"
"Watch your back, G." Then she hung up.
Hero paused in her sobbing to look at me quizzically. "Why does your mom want cat litter? You guys don't even have a cat."
"She uses it for..." I searched my brain madly, but all I could come up with was "teaching."
"She uses cat litter to teach English?"
I nodded. "She's kind of unconventional in her methods."
Hero frowned. "But how does she use it?"
The girl was relentless when she fixated on something. "Um, when their papers are really bad, she gives them a little bag of cat litter. It's her way of telling them their writing is crap." I laughed. "She's kooky.”
“to Vaneigem and the Situationists who by shrewd use of collage and juxtaposition exposed both the poverty and richness of slogans, and the thinly veiled hypocrisy of a "spectacular" society which by not respecting words abuses people, and by insulting the intelligence creates a state of political cretinisation in which the many and various forms of authoritarian control dominate.”
“Ain't no way to change the world for the better if you can't stand up for what's right when everyone else is wrong.”
“When Yesu is everything to you, it is impossible not to speak of him.”
“Grace," he admonished, catching her bottom in his hands and holding her still before she swayed him from his purpose. "I want to talk."
"Oh." Her tone was filled with disappointment. "We could talk later."
"We'll talk now."
She sighed long and drawn out. "Okay. About what?"
Noah laughed. "You haven't been paying attention, Grace."
"Well," she teased, now nibbling on his bottom lip, "I've got this big, gorgeous, buck-naked hunk in my bed. If that's not enough to stop a woman's heart and scatter her wits, I don't know what is." And then, more seriously, "I never, ever thought anything like this would happen to me, Noah. I can hardly believe it. I want to relish every moment.”
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