“Woah,' I said, blocking the doorway. 'You can't come in here. This is the girls' room.'
Even as it came out of my mouth, I knew it sounded dumb. Dumb, I thought and maybe even wrong.
You...are a boy, aren't you?' I asked. 'I mean, don't take that the wrong way or anything -'
J.Lo is a boy, yes.' I let that go.
So...you Boov have boys and girls...just like us?'
Of course,' said J.Lo. 'Do not be ridicumlous.'
I smiled a wan little smile. 'Sorry.'
The Boov have seven magnificent genders. There is boy, girl, girlboy, boygirl, boyboy, boyboygirl, and boyboyboyboy.'
I had absolutely no response to this.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“Is there a short-eared koobish, then?'
Mmmyes ...' said J.Lo. 'But it is technically not really a koobish. Is more alike a kind of singing pumpkin.'
We had conversations like these all the time, where I just eventually gave up.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“I spy, with my little eye, something that starts with ... G."
"Sausages.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“YOU have no room to laugh, that's all. I'm not doing any worse with Boovish than you did with English.'
Get off of the car,' J.Lo huffed. 'I am an English superstar.'
Uh-uh. There's no comparison. 'Gratuity' in written Boovish has seventeen different bubbles that all have to be the right size and in the right place. 'J.Lo' in written English only has three letters, and you still spelled it 'M-smiley face-pound sign.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“Wherefor are you knowing it? If you stacked all of the Gorg in the galaxy on top of eachother, the Gorg would kill you.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“The Boov frowned. 'Everybodies always is wanting to make a clone for to doing their work. If you are not wanting to do your work, why would a clone of you want to do your work?”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“Captain Smek himself appeared on television for an official speech to humankind.
[...] 'Noble Savages of Earth,' he said. 'Long time we have tried to live together in peace.' (It had been five months.) 'Long time have the Boov suffered under the hostileness and intolerableness of you people. With sad hearts I now concede that Boov and humans will never to exist as one.'
I remember being really excited at this point. Could I possibly be hearing right? Were the Boov about to leave? I was so stupid.
'And so now I generously grant you Human Preserves - gifts of land that will be for humans forever, never to be taken away again, now.'
[...] So that's when we Americans were given Florida. One state for three hundred million people. There were going to be some serious lines for the bathrooms.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“We could have made it to the Arizona border in a few more hours if we hadn't been distracting each other with stupid little arguments. Don't get me wrong; I liked J.Lo fine. I've made that bed. But I'm not sure there's a person in the world I could be with twenty-four hours a day for three weeks without getting a little snippy. If I ever meet such a person, I'm marrying them.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“Soon the Boov was in the ghost suit and Pig was in the car, which would be a good lyric for a bluegrass song, now that I think of it.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“The United States was a big country where everybody wore funny t-shirts and ate too much.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“[J.Lo] found us a police car. Sort of.
'It's not a police car,' I said.
'It is,' said J.Lo. 'Looknow. Lights for flashing.'
'That's true.'
'Writing on the sides.'
'Yeah, but the writing? It says ''BullShake Party Patrol.''
Yes. Whatnow?”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“I didn’t feel up to arguing about it, but I was pretty sure if you loved everything you didn’t really love anything.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“For you time-capsule types, MoPo was something called a convenience store, as in, 'The soda is conveniently located right next to the doughnuts and lottery tickets.' People who want to understand better how the human race was conquered so easily need to study those stores. Almost everything inside was filled with sugar, cheese, or weight-loss tips”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“J.Lo gasped. When I looked to see why, he had one hand to his mouth and the other pointing at me.
"You . . ." he squealed, wagging his finger. ". . . your hand!"
I raised my hand to my face, turning it over and back again.
"What? What's wrong with it?"
"You are bearing the mark! The mark that has been foretold! You are The One . . . The One who will bring peace onto the galaxy!"
"What, this? This is taco sauce," I said, wiping it clean.
J.Lo stared at my palm for a moment, then turned back to the wall.
"Never mind," he said.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“We found the bathrooms, which were labeled 'Aliens' and 'Femaliens.'
'Finally,' I said to J.Lo. 'Here's a bathroom you're allowed to use.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“I'm sorry, but -I'm sorry!' I yelped and skipped backward as Gorg advanced on me. 'You were given bad information. Probably some human's fault.'
I AM PRINCIPAL ANGER COORDINATOR ASSOCIATE-OF-THE-MONTH GORG FOUR-GORG! HUMANS WILL GIVE ME BAD INFORMATION AT THEIR PERIL!'
He didn't look like a principal. He looked like something Hercules ought to be wrestling on the side of a vase.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“Sometimes you really want to say "Duh," but you can't. It's a part of growing up, I guess.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“I meow now?" hissed J.Lo when she was gone. "What comes next? Do I juggle fire?"
"Look, I'm sorry, but it's good this happened. Mrs. Hoegaarden will probably tell people you meow, and we'll spread the word, too, and soon if anybody hears Pig they'll just think it's you."
"Yes!" droned J.Lo, throwing his hand up. "A foolproof plan! Thank Mother Ocean that you do not use your genius for evil.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“Look," I said halfheartedly. "Another one of those tumbleweeds made out of old hair weaves."
"Tumbleweave," said J.Lo.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“The fog was mysterious. The lights were mysterious. The music was "A-Tisket, A-Tasket".”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“I'm half white," I said, folding my arms.
"Hrrm. Which half?"
I blinked. "Uh...dunno. Let's just say it's from the waist down."
Chief Shouting Bear nodded. "Deal. I only hate your legs.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“You heard my name was Chief Shouting Bear," he said. "It doesn't matter. You can call me whatever you want, Stupidlegs.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“This is exciting," said J.Lo. "We are sneaky agent men, like Bond James Bond."
"I don't know where you pick this stuff up.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“I felt a stack of shelves, and these were filled with plastic bottles and maybe buckets, and one object that felt like the worst thing in the world but which turned out later to be a sandwich.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“As far as pets go, a cat is a nice on to have.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“They were just people. They were too smart and too stupid to be anything else.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“The Boov are having seven magnificent genders. There is boy, girl, boygirl, girlboy, boyboy, boyboygirl, and boyboyboyboy.” I”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
“Apocalypse Hal was on the corner by the Laundromat. Hal was a neighborhood street preacher who worked at the fish and crab place next door. He wore a sandwich board sign of Bible verses and shouted angry things at passersby like “The end times are near” and “Seafood sampler $5.99.” Now his sign just read “TOLD YOU SO,” and he looked more anxious than angry.”
― Adam Rex, quote from The True Meaning of Smekday
Adam Rex
Born place: Dayton, OH
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“Maybe I wanted to be crushed, too. To be ready you need to be tired, and you need to have seen a great deal, or what you consider to have been a great deal- we all have such different capacities, are able to absorb and sustain vastly different quantities of visions and pain- and at that moment I started thinking that I had seen enough, that in general I'd had my fill and that in terms of visual stimulation the week thus far has shown me enough and that I was sated. The rock-running in Senegal was enough, the kids and their bonjours- that alone would prepare me for the end; if I couldn't be thankful enough having been there I was sick and ungrateful, and I would not be ungrateful, not ever, I would always know the gifts given me, I would count them and keep them safe! I had had so much so I would be able to face the knife in the alley and accept it all, smiling serenely, thankful that I'd be taken while riding the very crest of everything. I had been on a plane! A tiny percentage of all those who'd ever lived would ever be on an airplane- and had seen Africa rushing at me like something alive and furious. I could be taken and eaten by these wet alleyways without protest.”
― Dave Eggers, quote from You Shall Know Our Velocity!
“up beside the car. Then he pulled out a Sig Sauer”
― James Patterson, quote from Roses are Red
“. . . and he knew that our dreams are none the less terrible to lose, because they have never been the realities for which we have mistaken them.”
― Mary Elizabeth Braddon, quote from Lady Audley's Secret
“In the end, though, science is what matters; scientists not a bit.”
― James D. Watson, quote from The Double Helix
“Really, Channing,” remonstrated Alexia, “did you have to eat the man’s dog? I am convinced you will experience terrible indigestion.”
― Gail Carriger, quote from Blameless
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