Libba Bray Quotes - Page 12

It's only his thumb brushing slowly across the lower edge of my lip, but it's as if time slows and the sweep of that thumb below my mouth takes forever. It is no spell that I know of, but it holds such magic, I can scarcely breath. He pulls his hand away fast, aware of what he's done. But his touch lingers.

There's no time to be modest. Reason will not work here. Without warning, I kiss Kartik. His lips, pressed firmly against mine, are a surprise. They are warm, light as breath, firm as the give of a peach against my mouth. A scent like scorched cinnamon hangs in the air, but I'm not falling into any vision. It's his smell in me. A smell that makes my stomach drop through my feet. A smell that pushes all thought out of my head and replaces it with an overpowering hunger for more.

Around us the night creatures have their say. We are surrounded by a symphony of crickets and frogs. Neither of us feels the need to speak, and I suppose that is one of the qualities I find comforting in Kartik. We can be alone together.

We're still expected to color within the lines of accepted femininity, and women who step out of those lines are usually attacked, whether verbally or physically.

The night's chilly breath tickles up my neck and finds my ear, whispering secrets only the wind knows.

I had thought Felicity dangerous a moment ago, when she felt powerful. I was wrong. Wounded and powerless, she is more dangerous than I could imagine.

That's what living in their world is-a big lie. An illusion where everyone looks the other way and pretends that nothing unpleasant exists at all, no goblins of the dark, no ghosts of the soul.

Do not be tempted by English roses. Their beauty fades, but their thorns are forever.

Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains.

My dad was a Presbyterian minister. Yes, I am one of those dreaded P.K.s - Preachers Kids. Be afraid.

There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn’t. I failed myself.

Pastoralia by George Saunders. Possibly my favorite book. Its one of the weirdest books Ive ever read. If Monty Python and Thomas Pynchon had a love child, and it was raised by Frank Zappa on a weird commune, that would be this book.

Can we really conquer chaos so easily? If that were so, I should be able to prune the pandemonium of my own soul into something neat and tidy rather than this maze of wants and needs and misgivings that has me forever feeling as if I cannot fit into the landscape of things.

Its so daunting to walk into a classroom or a school auditorium. Its like the worlds weirdest blind date. I know all the students are thinking, Who is this tool standing up in front of us?

And just as I begin to believe that all is well, there is some subtle change in the light. The room takes its true shape. I fight to go back to that blissful ignorance, but it is too late. The dull pain of truth weights my soul, pulling it under. I am left hopelessly awake.

Clothing left on the bed unfolded. Books stained with coffee spots. Tabs not paid until the last possible second. Boys kissed and then forgotten in a week’s time.

On the Bowery, in the ornate carcass of a formerly grand vaudeville theater, a dance marathon limps along. The contestants, young girls and their fellas, hold one another up, determined to make their mark, to bite back at the dreams sold to them in newspaper advertisements and on the radio. They have sores on their feet but stars in their eyes.

It keeps her purity vacum-sealed to preserve its freshness for her future husband.

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.

You are working up to Mr. Fantastic Fiction levels of Zombie Expert, which is like playing Guitar Hero on some level that actually melts the guitar controller, burning your fingers with searing hot plastic till you scream in pain. Only with words. And zombies.

She hadn’t meant to get trapped in a conversation. That was the trouble with offering help to old people.

I am creating an atmosphere! Oh, Unc, we’ve finally got bodies in this joint! Paying bodies. We could have a good racket going here.” “I’m not interested in a ‘racket.’ I’m an academic.” “That’s okay, Unc. I won’t hold it against you.

What happens if your choice is misguided, You must try to correct it But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t? Then you must find a way to live with it.

No one had ever said anything like that to Evie. Her parents always wanted to advise or instruct or command. They were good people, but they needed the world to bend to them, to fit into their order of things. Evie had never really quite fit, and when she tried, she’d just pop back out, like a doll squeezed into a too-small box.

I told myself it was the snow—she couldn’t possibly get to Philadelphia on the roads. I told myself a hundred lies. Children do that. It’s amazing the sorts of things you’ll make yourself believe.