The Diviners

How do you invent a religion?” Evie asked. Will looked over the top of his spectacles. “You say, ‘God told me the following,’ and then wait for people to sign up.

Some mornings, she’d wake and vow, Today, I will get it right. I won’t be such an awful mess of a girl. I won’t lose my temper or make unkind remarks. I won’t go too far with a joke and feel the room go quiet with disapproval. I’ll be good and kind and sensible and patient. The sort everyone loves. But by evening, her good intentions would have unraveled. She’d say the wrong thing or talk a little too loudly. She’d take a dare she shouldn’t, just to be noticed. Perhaps Mabel was right, and she was selfish. But what was the point of living so quietly you made no noise at all? “Oh, Evie, you’re too much,” people said, and it wasn’t complimentary. Yes, she was too much. She felt like too much inside all the time. So why wasn’t she ever enough?

There is nothing more terrifying than the absoluteness of one who believes he's right.

There is a hideous invention called the Dewey Decimal System. And you have to look up your topic in books and newspapers. Pages upon pages upon pages…” Uncle Will frowned. “Didn’t they teach you how to go about research in that school of yours?” “No. But I can recite ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ while making martinis.” “I weep for the future.” “There’s where the martinis come in.

Your mother and I do not approve of drinking. Have you not heard of the Eighteenth Amendment?” “Prohibition? I drink to its health whenever I can.

But what was the point of living so quietly you made no noise at all?

There is no greater power on this earth than story.” Will paced the length of the room. “People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense—words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions—words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History.” Will grabbed the sheaf of newspaper clippings he kept in a stack on his desk. “This, and these”—he gestured to the library’s teeming shelves—“they’re a testament to the country’s rich supernatural history.

I salute your spunk, but I question your sanity,” Sam said.

I hear they feed you in Sing Sing,” Evie muttered. “Three squares a day.” “Evangeline,” Will said with a sigh. “Charity begins at home.” “So does mental illness.

People will believe anything if it means they can go on with their lives and not have to think too hard about it.

I thought research would be more glamorous, somehow. I'd give the librarian a secret code word and he'd give me the one book I needed and whisper the necessary page numbers. Like a speakeasy. With books.

You can’t blame a fella for kissing the prettiest girl in New York, can you, sister?” Sam’s grin was anything but apologetic. Evie brought up her knee quickly and decisively, and he dropped to the floor like a grain sack. “You can’t blame a girl for her quick reflexes now, can you, pal?

Any librarian or scholar will tell you: Close is not the same as accurate.

Evie replied with an eye-roll. “Do you think you can manage to not steal anything while I’m gone?” “The only thing I’m trying to steal is your heart, doll.” Sam smirked. “You’re not that talented a thief, Sam Lloyd.

She was tired of being told how it was by this generation, who’d botched things so badly. They’d sold their children a pack of lies: God and country. Love your parents. All is fair. And then they’d sent those boys, her brother, off to fight a great monster of a war that maimed and killed and destroyed whatever was inside them. Still they lied, expecting her to mouth the words and play along. Well, she wouldn’t. She knew now that the world was a long way from fair. She knew the monsters were real.

Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on. Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells 'em off for a coupla stones.

She knew what it was to wait for someone who would never come home. She knew that grief, like a scar, faded but never really went away.

I’m not interested in being polite. It’s false.

People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense-words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions-words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History

People always fear what they don't understand, Evangeline. History proves that.

There were few things worse than being ordinary, in Evie’s opinion. Ordinary was for suckers.

Hey,” the cabbie yelled. “How’s about a tip?” “You bet-ski,” Evie said, heading toward the old Victorian mansion, her long silk scarf trailing behind her. “Don’t kiss strange men in Penn Station.

What took you so long?” Will asked when Evie came panting into the room. He and Jericho had assembled a stack of books, which they were tucking into Will’s attaché case. “I walked to Jerusalem for the Bible. I knew you’d want an original,” Evie snapped.

There is no greater power on this earth than story.

Life don’t come to you, Memphis. You gotta take it. We have to take it. Because ain’t nobody handing it to us.

People tend to think that hate is the most dangerous emotion. But love is equally dangerous,” Will said. “There are many stories of spirits haunting the places and people who meant the most to them. In fact, there are more of those than there are revenge stories.

Cash or check?” he said cheekily. Even the dullest Ohio girls knew that bit of lingo: Kiss now or kiss later? “Bank’s closed, pal.

I'm a librarian, not an oracle.

Evie didn’t mind yelling, but she hated feeling judged. It got under her skin and made her feel small and ugly and unfixable.

I am starting a collection of only right-hand gloves. It’s ever so bourgeois to have two.