Libba Bray Quotations | Page 3

Think: who has vans, huh? Soccer moms and serial killers.

You want to know what pain is? Try running out of Advil when you've got a Category Five period. I've had cramps that would make grown men beg for a bullet between the eyes." - Jennifer, "Beauty Queens

I've had so many bikini waxes, I cry every time I see a Popsicle stick.

It isn't that we do what we want. It's that we're allowed to want at all.

Reality is a state of mind. To the banker, the money in his ledger book is all very real, though he doesn't actually see it or touch it. But to the Brahma, it simply doesn't exist the way the air and the earth, pain and loss do. To him, the banker's reality is folly. To the banker, the Brahma's ideas are as inconsequential as dust.

I'll try to communicate, Taylor said. She spoke slowly and deliberately. Hello! We need help. Is your village close? My village is Denver. And I think it's a long way from here. I'm Nicole Ade. Miss Colorado. We have a Colorado where we're from too! Tiara said. She swiveled her hips, spread her arms wide, then brought her hands together prayer-style and bowed. Kipa aloha. Nicole stared. I speak English. I'm American. Also, did you learn those moves from Barbie's Hawaiian Vacation DVD? Ohmigosh, yes! Do your people have that, too?

Helloooo." Miss Ohio rolled her eyes. "I'm from the Buckeye State. We are serious about our tailgating parties. I can turn anything into a grill.

And when it comes, her kiss is like something not so much felt as found.

In the end, I take my shoes off and stick my feet in, letting the lukewarm water lick at my ankles. It feels good, and not just because I’m stoned. I make a mental note to add this to Dulcie’s list of things worth living for. For some reason, I keep seeing her rolling her eyes at me, that big, goofy grin stretching her face like Silly Putty. On my private list, I add her smile. She doesn’t have to know.

I know because I read. Might I suggest you try it?

Goodbye," I whisper at last, when it no longer matters and there is no one to hear it but the window.

To live is to love, to love is to live.

This is going to make such a great story: How I nursed a pirate back to health and my love saved him," Miss Ohio said with a contented sigh. "And then we can have our own reality show about our relationship." - "Beauty Queens

The rules of magic, my dear, are best not discusses. For once we understand the illusion, we no longer believe it.

It's as if I've inherited a skin I cannot quite fit, and so I walk about constantly pulling and and tugging, pinning and pruning, trying desperately to fill it out, hoping that no one will look at me struggling and say, 'That one there- she's a fraud, Look how she doesn't fit at all.

Discord need not be an impediment. Differences can bring strength.

Women who have power are always feared.

I am for hockey. I find I should like to hit something with a stick. -Gemma Doyle Trilogy

Chin held high, Miss Ohio beamed at an imagined crowd. "I want to be a motivational speaker." "What are you going to motivate people to do?" Smile still in place, she cut her eyes at Adina. "You know. Motivational ... stuff.

Beggin' your pardon, miss, but I was told you be the one to help me cross on to the next world." "Who told you this?" His eyes widen. "A fearsome creature with a head full of snakes!" "You musn't fear her," I say, taking the man's hand and leading his toward the river. "She's as tame as a pussycat. She'd probably lick your hand given the chance." "Didn't seem harmless," he whispers, shuddering. "Yes, well, things are not always as they appear, sir, and we must learn to judge for ourselves.

Gonzo narrows his eyes. 'How often do you clean that thing?' 'Every night,' the waitress answers. Her smile is strained. 'That's it? Do you know how long it takes for Listeria to grow under those hot lamps, even with ice?' Here we go. 'It can happen in just five hours. Five hours and you've got the salad bar of death!' The waitress looks confused. 'From Listerine?

My platform's called Don't Even Think About It. I go to schools and I say, 'Whatever bad thing it is you're thinking of doing, don't even think about it. 'Cause I can see into your soul, and I will hide in your closet and come for you in the night, and the last sound you ever hear will be my sharp teeth popping through the flesh of my gums, ready to eat you.' Their eyes get all big. It's awesome. I love little kids, man. They're the cutest

You are unique, and this is a beautiful, beautiful thing, grasshopper.

Everyone's dying. A little, every day. Make it count.

You're quite tall.' Just what a girl wants to be reminded of.

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

But you've changed,' I whisper. 'Haven't you?' It is the scorpian's nature to sting. Just because he has no opportunity doesn't mean that he cannot.

Just once, she'd like to be the exciting one, the girl somebody wanted.

I shan't ever understand your willingness to lie down and die," Felicity bars. "If you won't at least try to fight, I have no sympathy for you.

Forget your pain. It was what I said when I took Father's hand in the drawing room yesterday, what I repeated again tonight. But I didn't mean this. I must be careful. Yet what bothers me isn't the power of the magic or how, to a person, they've all accepted it as truth. No, what unsettles me the most is how much I want to believe it too.

Tell my brother to remember his heart in all things. That is where his honor and his destiny will be found. Tell him.

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

Pippa's laugh is bitter, tinged with tears. 'Ha! Why do girls think being beautiful will solve every problem? Being beautiful just creates problems. It's a misery. I wish I were someone else.

There are always rebels and radicals, I suppose,' McCleethy allows. 'Those who live on the fringes of society. But what do they contribute to the society itself? They reap its rewards without experiencing its costs. No. I submit that loyal, hardworking citizens who push aside their own selfish desires for the good of the whole are the backbone of the world. What if we all decided to run off and live freely without thought or care for society's rules? Our civilization would crumble. There is a joy in duty and a security in knowing one's place...It is the only way.

Learn to master yourself-to understand both your fears and your desires. That's the key to magic. Then, no one shall have any hold over you. Remember... the magic (sic)... is a living thing, joined to whomever it touches and changed by them as well... You must come to know everything-even your darkest corners. Especially those...Everything has its price.

Harold Brodie is a louse and a lothario who cheats at cards and has a different girl in his rumble seat every week. That coupe of his is pos-i-tute-ly a petting palace. And he’s a terrible kisser to boot.” Evie’s parents stared in stunned silence. “Or so I’ve heard.

"Promise. Don't misunderstand me-you are quite vexing." He touches his tender jaw. "And you hit like a man. But you didn't cause his illness. That is his doing."

Prohibition? I drink to its health whenever I can.

One could argue that it's romantic to die for love. Of course, then you're dead and unable to take that honeymoon trip to the Alps with all the other fashionable young couples, which is a shame.

All morning, Spence has been a well-oiled machine of activity. Everyone doing her bit, quietly and efficiently. It's strange how deliberate people are after a death. All the indecision suddenly vanishes into clear, defined moments--changing the linens, choosing a dress or a hymn, the washing up, the muttering of prayers. All the small, simple, conscious acts of living a sudden defense against the dying we do every day.

Did you hear? You are free." Yessss. Choice. It is a fine thing. And I choose to take you back, Most High.

Or perhaps it is some combination of spirit and desire, love and hope, some alchemy that we each possess and can put to use, if we first know where to look without flinching.

Simon, would you still care for me if you discovered I was not who I say I am?" What do you mean?" I mean would you still care for me, no matter what you came to know?" What a thing to ponder. I don't know what to say." The answer is no. He does not need to say it. With a sigh, Simon digs at the fire with the iron poker. Bits of the charred log fall away, revealing the angry insides. they flare orange for a moment, then quiet down again. After three tries, he gives up. I'm afraid this fire's had it." I can see a few embers remaining. "No, I think not. If..." He sighs, and it says everything.

Memphis found his smile. 'You know me, sir. I don't wear worry.

The wind picks up. It sends leaves scurrying for cover until a softer breeze blows through, settling them down again as if to say, Shhh, there, there, it's all right. One leaf still dances in the air. It spins higher and higher, defying gravity and logic, stretching for something just out of reach. It shall have to fall, of course. Eventually. But for now, I hold my breath, willing it to keep going, taking comfort in its struggle.

We don't look at each other anymore. Not really. Not since I pulled him from that opium den. Now when I look at him, I see the addict. And when he looks at me, he sees what he would rather not remember. I wish I could be his adored little girl again, sitting at his side.

Beneath the skin, there is fear. Pain. Remorse. Yearning. Desire. A fierce longing for power. All of this. We are joined. It is as if we live in the center of a great storm. Around us the world of the realms revolves like a giant kaleidoscope, images refracted again and again. So many worlds! So much to know.

No person has ever held all the power. There must be a balance between chaos and order, dark and light. With the Temple magic bound to you, the realms are no longer in balance. The power could change you... and you could change the magic.

There is never any turning back Gemma. You have to go forward. Make the future yours.

Jericho lay back down on his side, watching her breathe just an arm's length from him. She was not beautiful while she slept; her mouth hung open and she snored very lightly, and this, despite everything that had happened, made him smile.

Because there's nothing wrong with you... that can't be fixed.

She was too much—for Zenith, Ohio. She’d tried at times to make herself smaller, to fit neatly into the ordered lines of expectation. But somehow, she always managed to say or do something outrageous—she’d accept a dare to climb a flagpole, or make a slightly risqué joke, or go riding in cars with boys—and suddenly she was “that awful O’Neill girl” all over again.

The Corporation would like to apologize for the preceding pages. Of course, it's not all right for girls to behave this way. Sexuality is not meant to be this way - an honest, consensual expression in which a girl might take an active role when she feels good and ready and not one minute before. No. Sexual desire is meant to sell soap. And cars. And beer. And religion.

Wanna rock you, girl, with a butterfly tunic. / No, I'm not gay, I'm just your emo enuch. / Gonna smile real shy, won't cop a feel, / 'cause I'm your virgin crush, your supersafe deal. / Let those other guys keep sexing. / You and me, we be texting / 'bout unicorns and rainbows and our perfect love. / Girl, we fit together like a hand in a glove. / Now I don't mean that nasty, tell your mum don't get mad. / I even wrote 'You're awesome' on your maxi pads.

Brought to you by The Corporation: In your homes and in your pants.

Please, I'm a transgender former boy-bander. You think I don't know how to defend myself?

I changed my mind. I don’t want to be an inveshtigative journalist anymore. I want to be a professional rum drinker.” “There are people who do that,” Duff said. He’d barely sipped his rum. “Really? What do you call them?” “Alcoholics.

...I took Advanced PowerPoint last semester. You guys are always misunderestimating me. I'm totally ready to handle the big stuff.

...dreams were dreams and reality was reality and she felt people were better off understanding the difference.

Books are, at their heart, dangerous. Yes, dangerous. Because they challenge us: our prejudices, our blind spots. They open us to new ideas, new ways of seeing. They make us hurt in all the right ways. They can push down the barricades of ‘them’ & widen the circle of ‘us.

You are absolute angels of the first order. If I were Pope, I’d canonize you.” “The Pope would probably love to turn a cannon on you!

A pair of Blue Noses on the next bench glared their disapproval at Evie’s knee-length dress. Evie decided to give them a real show. She hiked her skirt and, humming jauntily, rolled down her stockings, exposing her legs. It had the desired effect on the Blue Noses, who moved down the platform, clucking about the “disgrace of the young.” She would not miss this place.

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

God doesn't like lesbians," Grandma Huberman hised, throwing the magazine in the trash. Jennifer knew what lesbian meant, and she knew she probably was one. But she couldn't understand why God would hold that against her or against Monica Mathers, who'd never started a war or killed anybody, and whose deadeye three-pointers were straight-up amazing. After all, hadn't God made both of them? But people were like that, she'd noticed. They'd invoke Godly privilege at the weirdest of times and for the most stupid reasons.

Really? And what curse befalls the Adams of the world?" Ann opens her mouth and, presumably thinking of nothing to say, closes it again. It is Felicity who answers, eyes steely. "They are weak to temptation. And we are their temptresses.

But sons are a different matter to a man. More a duty than an indulgence.

Does my new feminism make me look fat?

The world is only as fair as you can make it. Takes a lot of fight. A lot of fight. But if you stay in here, in your little cave, that's one less fighter on the side of fair.

On TV, talking heads wrung their hands over a lack of traditional feminine values and wondered if girls’ sports were to blame. Then they cut to a commercial featuring a sexy college coed vacuuming her dorm room in her underwear.

Agent Jones held Sinjin’s face in his hands. “I’m going to make balloon animals. People need balloon animals.” “How right you are, strange delusional man,” Sinjin said.

She wished she were as inconsequential as the ghosts in her dreams.

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

...we're in English class, which for most of us is an excruciating exercise in staying awake through the great classics of literature. These works-- groundbreaking, incendiary, timeless-- have been pureed by the curriculum monsters into a digestible pabulum of themes and factoids we can spew back on a test. Scoring well on tests is the sort of happy thing that gets the school district the greenbacks they crave. Understanding and appreciating the material are secondary.

Things aren't good or bad in and of themselves. It's what we do with them that makes them so.

We're all damaged somehow."-A Great and Terrible Beauty

Centuries of fighting, and for what? I say. "Today it ends. I can't live in fear any longer. I've cursed this power. I've both enjoyed and misused it. And I've hidden it away. Now I must try to wield it correctly, to marry it to a purpose and hope that is enough.

She was chosen,' Mae insists. No, you're wrong,' I say. 'She was only a girl.'... She was gone for some time. You were the only force that kept her from turning completely. That's magic. Perhaps the most powerful I've seen.' -In response to Felicity's love for Pippa keeping her from turning into a Winterland creature.

War." Gorgon spits the word. "That is what they call it to give the illusion of honor and law. It is chaos. Madness and blood and the hunger to win. It has always been thus and shall always be so.

The mere suggestion of fame and fortune casts a glamour all its own. It is rather alarming how quickly people will turn someone else's fiction into fact in order to support their own fictions of themselves.

You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty." "If you wish to suffer, you do so of your own free will, not on my behalf. Or Father's or Grandmama's or anyone's. You are a fine physician, Thomas. Why is that not enough?" "Because it isn't," he says with a rare candor. "Only this and the hope of nothing more? A quiet respectability with no true greatness or heroism in it, with only my reputation to recommend me. So you see, Gemma, you are not the only one who cannot rule her own life.

There are times when I wish I could go back and change the course of my life. Make different choices...But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on. Do you remember that I told you that at Spence?

We're like pretty horses, and just as on horses, they mean to put blinders on us so we can't look left or right but only straight ahead where they would lead.

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

I'm a librarian, not an oracle.

She shrieks above the din. "If you wish a battle, I shall give it. I am the last of my kind. I shall not lie down without a fight.

I know it. I know I shall make beastly mistakes, Father-" "The world does not forgive mistakes so quickly, my girl." He sounds bitter and sad. "If the world will not forgive me," I say softly, "I shall have to learn to forgive myself." He nods in understanding. "And how will you marry? Or do you intend to marry?" I think of Kartik, and tears threaten. "I shall meet someone one day, as Mother found you.

I wonder how many times each day she dies a little.

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Feast for the Fisherman, the ultimate emo band. Said to be sold with a complimentary prescription for antidepressants and a free flatiron.

HI. I’m from Arkansas, the cantaloupe state. And tonight, I hope you will hold my melons close to your heart and vote me your Miss Teen Dream.

I hate high heels. Walking in high heels for eight hours a day should be forbidden by the Geneva Convention.

Taylor clapped for attention. “Miss New Mexico, let’s not get all down in the bummer basement where the creepy things live. There are people in heathen China who don’t even have airline trays. We have a lot to be grateful for.

He plants his feet stubbornly, adopting what he must think is an heroic post. He's just begging for a pigeon to fly by and relieve itself.

It's possible to pretend I'm someone other than who I am, and if I pretend long enough, I can believe it.

Tonight, she went into the woods, and I fear she shall live in the woods of my soul for the rest of my days.

Kartik places a sovereign in the lady's cup, and I know that it's likely all he has. "Why did you do that?" I ask. He kicks a rock on the ground, balancing it nimbly between his feet like a ball. "She needed it." Father says it isn't good to give money to beggers. They'll only spend it unwisely on drink or other pleasures. "She might buy ale with it." He shrugs. "Then she'll have ale. It isn't the pound that matters; it's the hope...I know what it's like to fight for things that others take for granted.

Because you can't keep up the illusion forever," I say. "No one has that much magic.

And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.

I thought I was having an existential crisis, but it was nothing. Please don't tailgate: body in trunk.

I'm sorry, Gemma. But we can't live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the dark with you.