“Moments, when lost, can't be found again. They're just gone.”
“It's the imperfections that make things beautiful”
“In the dark you can feel really close to a person. You can say whatever you want.”
“Best friends are important. They're the closest thing to a sister you'll ever have.”
“Would you rather live one perfect day over and over or live your life with no perfect days but just decent ones?”
“When you walk on the beach at night, you can say things you can't say in real life.”
“Victory is a thousand times sweeter when you're the underdog.”
“Things couldn't stay the same forever.”
“She and I were still friends, but not best friends, not like we used to be. But we were still friends. She'd known me my whole life. It's hard to throw away history. It was like you were throwing away a part of yourself.”
“Sometimes it’s like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your mind. It’s like you see them through a special lens — but maybe if it’s how you see them,that’s how they really are. It’s like the whole tree falling in the forest thing.”
“I wondered if this was the way old crushes died, with a whimper, slowly, and then, just like that—gone.”
“I love Conrad and I probably always would. I would spend my whole life loving him one way or another. Maybe I would get married, maybe I would have a family, but it wouldn’t matter, because a piece of my heart, the piece where summer lived, would always be Conrad’s”
“For me, it was almost like winter didn’t count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers.”
“It was a summer I would never, ever forget. It was the summer everything began. It was the summer I turned pretty. Because for the first time, I felt it. Pretty, I mean. Every summer up to this one, I believed it’d be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was.”
“It’s hard to throw away history. It was like you were throwing away a part of yourself.”
“For me there was-is-nothing better than walking on the beach late at night. It feels like you could walk forever, like the whole night is yours and so is the ocean. When you walk on the beach at night, you can say things you can't say in real life. In the dark you can feel really close to a person. You can say whatever you want.”
“I say, " I can't believe you're really here."
He sounds almost shy when he says, "Me neither." And then he hesitates. "Are you still coming with me?"
I cant believe he even has to ask. I would go anywhere. "Yes," I tell him. It feels like nothing else exists outside of that word, this moment. There's just us. Everything that happened this past summer and every summer before it, has all led up to this.
To Now”
“I had been lying to myself, thinking I was free, thinking I had let him go. It didn't matter what he said or did, I'd never let him go." - Belly Conklin”
“On the way out Jeremiah turned around and danced a quick jig for me and i couldn't help it, I laughed. Over his shoulder Conrad said, "Good night Belly."
And that was it. I was in love”
“You just want to keep me on this hook, right? So I'll keep chasing after you and you can feel good about yourself. As soon as I start to get over you, you just reel me back in. You're so screwed up in the head. But I'm telling you, this is it. You don't get to have me anymore. Not as your friend or your admirer or anything. I'm through.”
“He pulled my foot, drawing me closer. Being this close to him was making me feel dizzy and nervous. I said it again, one last time, even though i didn't mean it.
"Conrad let go of me."
He did. And then he dunked me. It didn't matter. I was already holding my breath.”
“Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer”
“The thing was, Jeremiah was right. I did love him. I knew the exact moment it became real too. Conrad got up early to make a special belated
Father's Day breakfast, only Mr. Fisher hadn't been able to come down the night before. He wasn't there the next morning the way he was
supposed to be. Conrad cooked anyway, and he was thirteen and a terrible cook, but we all ate it. Watching him serving rubbery eggs and
pretending not to be sad, I thought to myself, I will love this boy forever.”
“I loved the feeling of talking and having somebody really listen to what I have to say. It was like a high or something.”
“We sat around the kitchen table picking off of foil-covered plates. Conrad kept sneaking looks at me, and every time I looked back, he looked away. I'm right here, I wanted to tell him. I'm still here.”
“He made it so hard not to love him. When he was sweet like this, I remembered why I did. Used to love him, I mean. I remembered everything.”
“I'd never heard of them, but at that moment, it was the best song I'd ever heard. I went out and bought Ten and listened to it on repeat. When I listened to track five, "Black," it was like I was there, in that moment all over again.
After the summer was over, when I got back home, I went to the music store and bought the sheet music and learned to play it on the piano. I thought one day I could accompany Conrad and we could be, like, a band.”
“My dad once told me that Winstone Churchill said that Russia was riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. According to my dad, Churchill had been talking about my mother. This was before the divorce, and he said it half-bitterly, half-respectfully. Because even when he hated her, he admired her.
I think he would have stayed with her forever, trying to figure out the mystery. He was a puzzle solver, the kind of person who likes theorems, theories. X always had to equal something. It couldn't just be X.
To me, my mother wasn't that mysterious. She was my mother. Always reasonable, always sure of herself. To me, she was about as mysterious as a glass fo water. She knew what she wanted; she knew what she didn't want. And that was to be married to my father. I wasn't sure if it was that she fell our of love or if it was that she just never was. in love, I mean.”
“I wondered if it was possible to take someone's pain away with a kiss. Because that was what i wanted to do, take all of his sadness and pour it out of him, comfort him, make the boy i knew come back.”
“Something we’ve been working on in R and D for a while.” He crossed to her, ran his fingers over the lining himself. “It’s body armor.”
“Get out.” Her forehead creased as she examined it more closely. “It’s too thin and light. Plus it moves.”
“Trust me, it’s been thoroughly tested. Leonardo was able to take the material and fashion it into the coat. It will block a stun on full, though you’ll feel the impact. It’ll protect from a blaster, though the leather would suffer. And it will block a blade—though again, pity about the leather.”
“Seriously?” She pulled her weapon again, offered it. “Try it.”
He had to laugh even as he thought: Typical. Just typical. “I will not.”
“Not very confident in your research and development.”
“I’m not firing a stunner at my wife in our bedroom.”
“And then I would cry, because even though boys don’t cry, I did.”
“You see, I am not pretty, not in the least, never was, and so I have to be odd. Nothing for it! It answers delightfully.”
“It was the Arch-votary, with its patterned shell. Slowly, it approached; those massive claws raised…The Arch-votary stopped, looming up before them. “Evil ones,” it said, “enemies of the Great One, come and be judged.”
Roshaun raised his head and gave the Arch-votary an inexpressibly haughty look. “Killed, perhaps,” he said, “But your dark Master has neither authority nor right to judge us. Therefore, stand away, lackey, and keep silent in the presence of your betters.”
“LOS NADIES
Sueñan las pulgas con comprarse un perro y sueñan los nadies con salir de pobres, que algún mágico día llueva de pronto la buena suerte, que llueva a cántaros la buena suerte; pero la buena suerte no llueve ayer, ni hoy, ni mañana, ni nunca, ni en lloviznita cae del cielo la buena suerte, por mucho que los nadies la llamen y aunque les pique la mano izquierda, o se levanten con el pié derecho, o empiecen el año cambiando de escoba.
Los nadies: los hijos de los nadies, los dueños de nada.
Los nadies: los ningunos, los ninguneados, corriendo la liebre, muriendo la vida, jodidos, rejodidos:
Que no son, aunque sean.
Que no hablan idiomas, sino dialectos.
Que no profesan religiones, sino supersticiones.
Que no hacen arte, sino artesanía.
Que no practican cultura, sino folklore.
Que no son seres humanos, sino recursos humanos.
Que no tienen cara, sino brazos.
Que no tienen nombre, sino número.
Que no figuran en la historia universal, sino en la crónica roja de la prensa local.
Los nadies, que cuestan menos que la bala que los mata.”
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