Quotes from The Book of Strange New Things

“The world changes too fast. You take your eyes off something that's always been there, and the next minute it's just a memory.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Most true things are kind of corny, don’t you think? But we make them more sophisticated out of sheer embarrassment.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Some people go through the heavy stuff. They fight in wars. They're in jail. They start a business and it gets shut down by gangsters. They end up hustling their ass in a foreign country. It's one long list of setbacks and humiliations. But it doesn't touch them, not really. They're having an adventure. It's like: What's next? And then there's other people who are just trying to live quietly, they stay out of trouble, they're maybe ten years old, or fourteen, and one Friday morning at 9:35 something happens to them, something private, something that breaks their heart. Forever.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Being apart was wrong. Simply lying side by side did more for a relationship than words. A warm bed, a nest of animal intimacy. Words could be misunderstood, whereas loving companionship bred trust.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Peter...” She let her head fall back against the seat and sighed. “Let’s not go there.”
“That’s what people always say about places where they already are.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Peter was struck by the scar’s essential nature: it was not a disfigurement, it was a miracle. All the scars ever suffered by anyone in the whole of human history were not suffering but triumph: triumph against decay, triumph against death.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Because human beings suffer so much more than ducks.”
“You might not think so if you were a duck.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“These days, the bigger the company, the less you can figure out what it does.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“I just wish,” she said, “that this magnificent, stupendous God of yours could give a fuck.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Clothes are nothing more than a fig leaf. And the bodies beneath are just another layer of clothing, an outfit of flesh with an impractically thin leather exterior, in various shades of pink, yellow and brown. The souls alone are real. Seen in this way, there can never be any such thing as social unease or shyness or embarrassment. All you need do is greet your fellow soul.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Without you at my side, I feel as though my eyes are just a camera, like a closed-circuit camera without film in it, registering what’s out there, second by second, letting it all vanish instantly to be replaced by more images, none of them properly appreciated.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“She talks about being a Christian as if it’s a gym membership you can sign up for.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“How strange it was to be inside a machine again! All his life he’d been inside machines, whether he realised it or not. Modern houses were machines. Shopping centres were machines. Schools. Cars. Trains. Cities. They were all sophisticated technological constructs, wired up with lights and motors. You switched them on, and didn’t spare them a thought while they pampered you with unnatural services.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Grainger looked exasperated. “Why don’t you just come straight out and use the word aliens?
“Because we’re the aliens here.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“There was a red button on the wall labelled EMERGENCY, but no button labelled BEWILDERMENT.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“There is so little in the New Testament about sexual love, and most of it consists of Paul heaving a deep sigh and tolerating it like a weakness.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“That was the sort of thing crazy people did—instinctively choosing the experiences that confirmed their own negative attitudes.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Why was even the shallowest human conversation so fraught with pitfalls and tricky calibrations? Why couldn’t people just keep silent until they had something essential to say, like the Oasans?”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“The highway looked different to him now, as they drove on. In theory it was the same stretch of tarmac, bounded by the same traffic paraphernalia and flimsy metal fences, but it had been transformed by their own intent. It was no longer a straight line to an airport, it was a mysterious hinterland of shadowy detours and hidey-holes. Proof, once again, that reality was not objective, but always waiting to be reshaped and redefined by one’s attitude. Of course, everybody on earth had the power to reshape reality. It was one of the things Peter and Beatrice talked about a lot. The challenge of getting people to grasp that life was only as grim and confining as you perceived it to be. The challenge of getting people to see that the immutable facts of existence were not so immutable after all. The challenge of finding a simpler word for immutable than immutable.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“He thought about history, the hidden human anxieties behind momentous events. The tiny trivial things that were probably bothering Einstein or Darwin or Newton as they formulated their theories: arguments with the landlady, maybe, or concern over a blocked fireplace. The pilots who bombed Dresden, fretting over a phrase in a letter from back home: What did she mean by that? Or what about Columbus, when he was sailing toward the New Land … who knows what was on his mind? The last words spoken to him by an old friend, perhaps, a person not even remembered in history books …”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“We are all specialised forms of survivor. We lack what we fundamentally need and forge ahead regardless, hurriedly hiding our wounds, disguising our ineptitude, bluffing our way through our weaknesses.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“People and their dwellings were such a thin dust on the surface of the globe, like invisible specks of bacteria on an orange, and the feeble lights of kebab shops and supermarkets failed utterly to register on the infinities of space above.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Can’t you see that? Everybody’s sentimental, everybody.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“It was such an infantile prayer, the sort of prayer a five-year-old might pray. But maybe those were the best kind.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Not for the first time, Peter thought about how much of our lives we spend sequestered inside small patches of electric brightness, blind to everything beyond the reach of those fragile bulbs.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“He only wished he’d had the chance to explain more fully how prayer worked. That it wasn’t a matter of asking for things and being accepted or rejected, it was a matter of adding one’s energy—insignificant in itself—to the vastly greater energy that was God’s love. In fact, it was an affirmation of being part of God, an aspect of His spirit temporarily housed inside a body.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“Forgive me, Lord, for the smallness and selfishness of my mind. Amen.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“You one of those decaffeinated Christians, padre? The diabetic wafer? Doctrine-free, guilt-reduced, low in Last judgement, 100% less Second Coming, no added Armageddon? Might contain small traces of crucified Jew?”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“The holy book he’d spent so much of his life preaching from had one cruel flaw: it was not very good at offering encouragement or hope to those who weren’t religious.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

“There was a red button on the wall labeled EMERGENCY, but no button labeled BEWILDERMENT.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things

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“And so I make my way across the room steadily, carefully. Hands shaking, I pull the string, lifting my blinds. They rise slowly, drawing more moonlight into the room with every inch
And there he is, crouched low on the roof. Same leather jacket. The hair is his, the cheekbones, the perfect nose . . . the eyes: dark and mysterious . . . full of secrets. . . . My heart flutters, body light. I reach out to touch him, thinking he might disappear, my fingers disrupted by the windowpane.
On the other side, Parker lifts his hand and mouths:
“Hi.”
I mouth “Hi” back.
He holds up a single finger, signalling me to hold on. He picks up a spiral-bound notebook and flips open the cover, turning the first page to me. I recognize his neat, block print instantly: bold, black Sharpie. I know this is unexpected . . . , I read. He flips the page.
. . . and strange . . .
I lift an eyebrow.
. . . but please hear read me out.
He flips to the next page.
I know I told you I never lied . . .
. . . but that was (obviously) the biggest lie of all. The truth is: I’m a liar.
I lied.
I lied to myself . . .
. . . and to you.
Parker watches as I read. Our eyes meet, and he flips the page.
But only because I had to.
I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you, Jaden . . .
. . . but it happened anyway.
I clear my throat, and swallow hard, but it’s squeezed shut again, tight.
And it gets worse.
Not only am I a liar . . .
I’m selfish.
Selfish enough to want it all.
And I know if I don’t have you . . .
I hold my breath, waiting.
. . . I don’t have anything.
He turns another page, and I read:
I’m not Parker . . .
. . . and I’m not going to give up . . .
. . . until I can prove to you . . .
. . . that you are the only thing that matters. He flips to the next page.
So keep sending me away . . .
. . . but I’ll just keep coming back to you. Again . . .
He flips to the next page.
. . . and again . . .
And the next:
. . . and again.
Goose bumps rise to the surface of my skin. I shiver, hugging myself tightly.
And if you can ever find it in your (heart) to forgive me . . .
There’s a big, black “heart” symbol where the word should be.
I will do everything it takes to make it up to you. He closes the notebook and tosses it beside him. It lands on the roof with a dull thwack. Then, lifting his index finger, he draws an X across his chest. Cross my heart.
I stifle the happy laugh welling inside, hiding the smile as I reach for the metal latch to unlock my window. I slowly, carefully, raise the sash. A burst of fresh honeysuckles saturates the balmy, midnight air, sickeningly sweet, filling the room. I close my eyes, breathing it in, as a thousand sleepless nights melt, slipping away. I gather the lavender satin of my dress in my hand, climb through the open window, and stand tall on the roof, feeling the height, the warmth of the shingles beneath my bare feet, facing Parker. He touches the length of the scar on my forehead with his cool finger, tucks my hair behind my ear, traces the edge of my face with the back of his hand. My eyes close.
“You know you’re beautiful? Even when you cry?”
He smiles, holding my face in his hands, smearing the tears away with his thumbs.
I breathe in, lungs shuddering.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, black eyes sincere. I swallow. “I know why you had to.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore,” I say, shaking my head. The moon hangs suspended in the sky, stars twinkling overhead, as he leans down and kisses me softly, lips meeting mine, familiar—lips I imagined, dreamed about, memorized a mil ion hours ago. Then he wraps his arms around me, pulling me into him, quelling every doubt and fear and uncertainty in this one, perfect moment.”
― Katie Klein, quote from Cross My Heart

“Don't worry my love, we shall have our vengeance. I promise it." -Jack”
― Melissa de la Cruz, quote from Keys to the Repository

“It’s really a whole new feeling when you realize you’re in charge of your life, your thoughts, and your actions—or inaction.”
― Kaira Rouda, quote from Here, Home, Hope

“Smiley himself was one of those solitaires who seem to have come into the world fully educated at the age of eighteen. Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession. The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colourful adventurers of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, has lived and worked for years among his country's enemies learns only one prayer: that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim, he learns to love the crowds who pass him in the street without a glance; he clings to them for his anonimity and his safety. His fear makes him servile - he could embrace the shoppers who jostle him in their impatience, and force him from the pavement. He could adore the officials, the police, the bus conductors, for the terse indifference of their attitudes. (ch. 9)”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality

“Doesn't matter. You'll pick up what you need to know--cultural osmosis.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from InterWorld

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