“You won't further the cause of human rights by walking away with your morals intact. Change is about getting your hand dirty.”
“The halls are full of kids, scrawny ones and fat ones, cool ones and uncool ones, freaks and jocks, cheerleaders and dogs, burnouts and nerds. It’s like Berlin, divided, except there are more walls in this city, and they’re better guarded.”
“That's the thing with the dead, they get to say nothing, forever.”
“She was a real quiet woman. But maybe we just weren't listening.”
“But there’s this thing in her voice, like what my mom called “doublespeak.” Saying one thing and meaning another. Aunt Nora told me it was leftover from English rule. She said, “That’s the only good thing to ever come of colonialism, Kevin. The Irish can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.”
“Tis a child that dreams there’s something better ’round the corner. It’s a grown man who knows it’s right there in front of him.”
“Any story worth telling is worth exaggerating.”
“Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”
“All it takes to make a new person is one night with some skank you hardly know. I mean, there I am, screwing her, and now there’s somebody like you or me on the way. It’s so fucking bizarre. You screw up one time and nine months later, bam! A new person.”
“I wanna fuck all the time, I've never wanted a baby.”
“Mom always used to say that stupid people have more nerve than brains.”
“Jon’s brought a couple of bottles of Phillips peppermint schnapps to Van Cleve Park. The label says Enjoy in Moderation. Not much chance of that in this crowd.”
“Age before beauty, Mr. MacRieve. If you think you can fit."
"Only humans call me Mr. MacRieve."
"I'm not a human. So would you like me to call you Bowen, or Bowe for short?"
"Bowe is what my friends call me, so you doona."
"No problem. I have a slew of other more fitting names for you. Most of them end in er."
"You in the tunnel first."
"Don't you think it'd be unbecoming for me to be on my hands and knees in front of you? Besides, you don't need my lantern to see in the dark, and if you go first, you'll be sure to lose me and get to the prize first."
"I doona like anything, or anyone, at my back. And you'll have your little red cloak on, so I will no' be able to see anything about you that might be... unbecoming."
"Twisting my words? I'll have you know that I am criminally cute - "
"Then why hide behind a cloak?"
"I'm not hiding. And I like to wear it. Fine. Beauty before age.”
“No matter how hard she tried to maintain her calm and collected persona, she knew it was all a ruse. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and hide. Hide from the world. Hide from her memories. Enter a shell and never leave. But hers would always be a broken shell, with all her cracks and holes exposed for the world to see. The veneer she had carefully painted to protect and hold herself together was peeling away.”
“Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits.”
“There he was: perfection. Tan skin, square jaw, twinkling blue eyes, and blond hair that curled slightly since it was still wet from the pool. Brody threw his head back and laughed at something his friend T.J. said.”
“Just another day in my life. This was one of those days when I thought that maybe a new life, a different life, wouldn't be so bad. But where the hell had I put the receipt, and could you return something that was over twenty years old? Where do you go to get a new life when your old one has you so puzzled you don't know how to fix it? Wish I knew.”
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