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Blood is thicker than water. That's what they say. But in truth, most things are. -- Libba Bray

don't. I don't know about you, but if I'm gonna be chained to a rock by the gods, I'd rather go out as the person who brought fire back from the mountain than as a pure princess who didn't have the sense to say to everyone, "Oh, hell no, you are not sacrificing me to some sea monster! -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

Yes, go on. Leave. You're always coming and going. The rest of us are stuck here. Do you think he'd still love you if he knew who you are? He doesn't really care - only when it suits him. -- Libba Bray

I'm going to eviscerate you and leave your organs on a pike in the yard as a warning to those who wear large jewelry. -- Libba Bray

'The Catcher in the Rye.' When I was a teenager, that was my book; yes, somebody gets it, somebody gets adolescence. -- Libba Bray

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

She smiled as sweetly as a show poster for the glorified, all-American Ziegfeld girl just before dumping her second cigarette into Wally's fresh cup of coffee. -- Libba Bray

People tend to think that hate is the most dangerous emotion. But love is equally dangerous," Will said. "There are many stories of spirits haunting the places and people who meant the most to them. In fact, there are more of those than there are revenge stories. -- Libba Bray

God save me from a woman's tears, for I've no strength against them. -- Libba Bray

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? -- Libba Bray

No, I call. Come back.
I'm here, he says.
But I can't see. It's too bright.
You can't hold back the light, Gemma. I'm here. Trust me. -- Libba Bray

She is the elephant's eyebrows," Evie whispered appreciatively. "Those jewels! How her neck must ache."
"That's why Bayer makes aspirin," Mabel whispered back, and Evie smiled, knowing that even a socialist wasn't immune to the dazzle of a movie star. -- Libba Bray

The uncertainty of our future is nothing more than a fog of breath on a windowpane. -- Libba Bray

When it is time for me to visit Brigid, I find her awake in her little room. "That's awl righ', luv. I don' care to forget, if it's all the same," she says, and there are no rowan leaves at her window anymore. -- Libba Bray

No, instead it is the beastly Cecily Temple who answers me. Dead, dear Cecily, or as I affectionately refer to her in the privacy of my mind, She Who Inflicts Misery Simply by Breathing. -- Libba Bray

Ohmigosh. No food at all." Tiara sank down on the sand as if the full weight of their predicament had finally hit her. She blinked back tears. And then that megawatt smile that belonged on cereal boxes across the nation reappeared. "I am going to be so superskinny by pageant time! -- Libba Bray

Evie wanted to cry. From fear. From exhaustion, yes. But mostly from the cruel uselessness, the damned stupid arbitrariness of it all. -- Libba Bray

Any book that can help you survive the slings and arrows of adolescence is a book to love for life; 'The Catcher in the Rye' did just that, and I still do love it. -- Libba Bray

I've been poked and prodded in places I'd always prided myself on keeping untouched for that one special doctor who gives me a ring and a promise someday. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

You couldn't be perfect enough to keep the world from betraying you. -- Libba Bray

But aren't many gardens beautiful because they are imperfect? ... aren't the strange, new flowers that arise by mistake or misadventure as pleasing as the well-tended and planned? -- Libba Bray

The beast attempts a beautific look that could be mistaken for a bout of painful wind. -- Libba Bray

They would place their hands together inside the circle so that they could walk in each other's dreams. It forged a bond that could not be broken. The circle represents love in eternity. For there is no beginning and no end.
-- Libba Bray

I'm a wild girl from a cursed line of women. I paw at the ground and run under the moon. I like the feel of my own body. I'm not a slut or a nympho or someone who's just asking for it. And if I talk too loud it's just that I'm trying to be heard. -- Libba Bray

Chasing after words like trying to grab the tails of comets. -- Libba Bray

These are hard times. The world hurts. We live in fear and forget to walk with hope. But hope has not forgotten you. So ask it to dinner. It's probably hungry and would appreciate the invitation. -- Libba Bray

Miss McCleethy stands to address us. "Thank you, Miss Bradshaw. That was a nice start to our day."
A nice start? It was lovely. Perfect, in fact. Miss McCleethy has no passion at all, I decide. I shall be forced to give her two bad conduct marks in my invisible ledger. -- Libba Bray

The world expected girls to pluck and primp and put on heels. Meanwhile, boys dressed in rumpled T-shirts and baggy pants and misplace their combs, and yet you were suppose to fall at their feet? Unacceptable. -- Libba Bray

I'm not interested in being polite. It's false. -- Libba Bray

Oh, I've a love, a true, true love, who waits upon yon shore ... and if my love won't be my love, then I will live no more ... -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

Sometimes when Sam's pretending to be in love with me, my stomach does funny things."
"Well, get some milk of magnesia and stop it. -- Libba Bray

Maybe that's what real friendship is
getting so used to people that you need to be annoyed by them. -- Libba Bray

You can't blame a fella for kissing the prettiest girl in New York, can you, sister?" Sam's grin was anything but apologetic.
Evie brought up her knee quickly and decisively, and he dropped to the floor like a grain sack. "You can't blame a girl for her quick reflexes now, can you, pal? -- Libba Bray

I told him Friday was a different religious occasion: Doctor Who. Hey, it's not my fault they don't have TiVo yet. -- Libba Bray

Did they find something wanting in you, Gemma, at the party? You didn't speak too freely or behave ... strangely?
I grew claws and bayed at the moon. I confessed that I eat the hearts of small children. I told them I like the French. -- Libba Bray

Who the heck is Don Quick-oats? -- Libba Bray

I am staring into the hissing face of a cobra. A surprisingly pink tongue slithers in and out of a cruel mouth while an Indian man whose eyes are the blue of blindless inclines his head towards my mother and explains in Hindi that cobras make very good eating. -- Libba Bray

I'm Sorry,' he says. It's simple and direct, with none of the nonsense about God calling home an angel too young and who are we to question his mysterious ways. -- Libba Bray

A guy's gotta live, you know, gotta make his way and find his meaning in life and love, and to do that he needs coffee, he needs coffee and coffee and coffee. -- Libba Bray

Besides, things you loved deeply could be lost in a second, and then there was no filling the hole left inside you. So she lived in the moment, as if her life were one long party that never had to stop as long as she kept the good times going. -- Libba Bray

It's knowing I'll never have what she has
a beauty so powerful it brings things to you. I fear I will always have to chase things I want. I'll always have to wonder whether I'm truly wanted or whether I've just been settled for. -- Libba Bray

You know, people, just being beautiful isn't enough."
Tiara looked confused. "But ... it always has been. -- Libba Bray

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

If this were a movie, I would bust a secret move so fierce the entire place would be razed to the ground. I'd finish with something snappy like "And don't forget my soda, punk" while I strolled off into the night. -- Libba Bray

How do people stay in love, anyway? Is it a choice? Or is it like those plants we studied in biology that mutate into something new and totally different but are still part of the same plant family? -- Libba Bray

However, it has come to our attention that there is a small safety "glitch" with the Git R Done 447, which might cause it to fire too soon or even randomly, accidentally killing someone you love. Awkward, we know. -- Libba Bray

I understand we'll be attending your friend Miss Worthington's Christmas ball. Perhaps I'll find a suitable
which is to say wealthy
wife among the ladies attending.
And perhaps they will run screaming for the convent. -- Libba Bray

She never utters a sound even when she's crying, and that makes me a little sad. Doesn't seem right. When you cry, people should hear you. The world should stop. -- Libba Bray

Time has no meaning. I feel as if I have been left in the desert to die and am eagerly awaiting the vultures to begin their work and end my misery. -- Libba Bray

Just once I'd like to meet a fella who isn't a phony. Somebody who doesn't wanna buy me a fur so he can show me off to his boys. -- Libba Bray

Travel opens your mind as few other things do. -- Libba Bray

When you live in Brooklyn, if you throw a rock, you'll hit a writer - Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Lethem, Paul Auster. -- Libba Bray

I miss Latin. So much fun
all those exciting verbs that don't come until the end of the sentence. It's like a movie trailer for language. -- Libba Bray

A gentle breeze catches in the branches then and I hear it, soft and low, a murmured prayer
Gem-ma, Gem-ma
and then the leaves bend down and trail delicate fingers across my cold cheeks. -- Libba Bray

And please, stay away from those books you devour. They are putting the most fantastical tales into your head. -- Libba Bray

I am not asking you to understand, Papa. I'm asking for you to accept."
"Accept what?"
Me. Accept me, Papa. "My decision to live my own life as I see fit."
It is so quiet that I suddenly wish I could take it back. Sorry, it was only a terrible joke. I should like a new dress, please. -- Libba Bray

We're all damaged, somehow. -- Libba Bray

Creostus's booming laugh leaves gooseflesh upon my arms. He paces close to me. "Jealous, Priestess? Do you wish to compete for my affections? I should like to see that." "I'm sure you would. But you will die first and so let us journey to Philon, if you please. -- Libba Bray

It is all I can do not to confide to the girl closest to me: "If I should die during tea - asphyxiated by my own corset - please do not let them bury me in such a hideous dress or I shall come back to haunt you. -- Libba Bray

Our days are numbered in the book of days, Most High," Gorgon murmurs as the garden comes once more into view. "That is what gives them sweetness and purpose. -- Libba Bray

Because really, sometimes the irony gods just get drunk. -- Libba Bray

We all walk in a land of dreams. For what are we but atoms and hope, a handful of stardust and sinew? We are weary travelers trying to find our way home on a road that never ends. Am I a part of your dream? or are you but a part of mine? -- Libba Bray

It is the taste of forgetting. Of sleep and dreams with no waking. Never to long or yearn, to struggle or hurt or love or desire ever again. And I understand that this is what it truly means to lose your soul. -- Libba Bray

There are no safe choices. Only other choices. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth."
"If I were the last man on earth it'd be because you drove the other poor suckers to early graves. -- Libba Bray

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Felicity and Ann hunched over their ornaments as if they were fascinating relics from an archaeological dig. I note that their shoulders are trembling, and I realize that they are fighting laughter over my terrible plight. There's friendship for you. -- Libba Bray

So much of the literature we had to read for high school English class was filled with victimized, tragic, symbolic women who spurred the plot forward with their inevitable shunning/death/shunning-followed-by-pregnancy-followed-by-death timelines. -- Libba Bray

The world's most bada** Viking yard gnome is on the counter by the cash register using a dinner plates as a shield and a steak knife as a sword -- Libba Bray

My joke is that my father was a minister and my mother was an English teacher, so I'm trained to see the world in terms of symbols, which is hard when you just want to make toast. -- Libba Bray

To each his own magic. -- Libba Bray

When the world moves forward too fast for some people, they try to pull us all back with their fear. -- Libba Bray

We're all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they'd like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance. -- Libba Bray

Robot. Is. Sad. Because silly bitch. Will. Not. Dance. -- Libba Bray

Welcome to finishing school, Gemma. Learn to embroider, serve tea, curtsy. Oh, and by the way, you might be demolished in the night by a hideous winged creature from the roof. -- Libba Bray

The face staring back at me isn't beautiful but she isn't something that would scare the horses, either. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

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

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

My aunt says you should only pray to Jesus."
Blind Bill grunted and spat. "You think the white folks' god is gonna help you? You think he's on our side?"
"I don't think anybody's god is on our side. -- Libba Bray

Weren't you wearing a purity ring when we got here? Aren't you supposed to be saving yourself?" Shanti asked.
"Yeah," Mary Lou answered. "And then I thought, for what? You save leftovers. My sex is not a leftover, and it is not a Christmas present. -- Libba Bray

Adina sat up. "It's denigrating and objectifying."
"No. It's eye shadow and lipstick and sex and mystery and magic and transformation and fun. And nobody's taking that away from me. You will pry my Petal Power lip gloss out of my cold, dead hands," Shanti insisted. -- Libba Bray

Ann turns to me. I know she's waiting for some hint of kindness-a kiss, an embrace, even a smile. But I can't muster any of it.
"You'll make a fine governess." My words are like a slap.
"I know," she answers, a slap of her own. -- Libba Bray

I have seen what a handful of girls can do. They can hold back an army if necessary, so please don't tell me it isn't possible. -- Libba Bray

It was a kiss small in its ministrations but epic in its feeling. -- Libba Bray

Oh, I didn't think it wise to hide it. Might not be able to find it again," I say, cheerily. "It's sitting in plain view on your chair in the great hall. I do hope that was the best place for it. -- Libba Bray

I love to be scared. Not, 'Hey, I think I smell smoke ... ' scared, but creepy, paranoid, what's-that-out-there-in-the-dark, ghost story scared. It's no surprise that I was the girl who got invited to the slumber parties because I could be counted on to tell a tale to scare the bejesus out of you. -- Libba Bray

Yes, fine," I say, feeling dead inside. They don't know what they're in for at Spence, getting me, a ghost of a girl who'll nod and smile and take her tea who isn't really here. -- Libba Bray

They don't know what they're in for at Spence, getting me, a ghost of a girl who'll nod and smile and take her tea but who isn't really here. -- Libba Bray

Sometimes, Johannes would pop his head in the filing room and ask, "Need anything?"
'Yes. I would like you to ravage me here on the floor and swear your undying love to me.'"No. Thanks. I'm good. -- Libba Bray

I will never, ever drink whiskey again. From now on, it's strictly sherry. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

You're not a man. You're their lackey. I don't care about you, or your brother, or your ridiculous organization. From now on, I shall do exactly as I wish and you cannot stop me. Do not follow. Do not watch. Do not even attempt to contact me or you'll be sorry indeed. Do you understand? -- Libba Bray

I should never be left alone with my mind for too long. -- Libba Bray

She loved attention. It was like a glass of the best champagne - bubbly and intoxicating - and as with champagne, she always wanted more of it. Still, she didn't want to seem like an easy mark.
"If you must know, I've come to join a convent," Evie said, testing him. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

And afterward, in the small cabin, they'd do this, this tangle of bodies, this blurring of the edges that kept people distant and lonely. -- Libba Bray

I don't know. Sometimes, I feel nothing, and I'm so afraid. Afraid I'll stop feeling anything at all. I'll just slip away inside myself ... I just need to feel something A Great and Terrible Beauty, Page 177, by -- Libba Bray

I'm from the health department. You've heard of Typhoid Mary? This fella's got enough typhoid to start his own colony. -- Libba Bray

Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on. Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells 'em off for a coupla stones. -- Libba Bray

Didn't you have any sadistic nannies who told you these tales to keep you quiet and well behaved at night? Heavens, what's to become of the Empire if governesses have lost their touch for scaring the wits out of their girls? -- Libba Bray

But forgiveness ... I'll hold on to that fragile slice of hope and keep it close, remembering that in each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

I feel like I swallowed a Magritte. Like on the inside, I'm made of clouds and floating eyes, green apples, and slowly rising men in bowler hats. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

She has a scent that is familiar and comforting, like all the things you wish you could take with you on your travels to make you feel less alone. -- Libba Bray

Hey," the cabbie yelled. "How's about a tip?"
"You bet-ski," Evie said, heading toward the old Victorian mansion, her long silk scarf trailing behind her. "Don't kiss strange men in Penn Station. -- Libba Bray

She's right. I don't trust her farther than I can run full-steam in a corset, but she's right. The truth is hard and unfair, but there it is. -- Libba Bray

Sam. Don't make me kill you on a full stomach. I might get a cramp. -- Libba Bray

Life is too short not to be who you are -- Libba Bray

What kind of person doesn't let you have gummi bears? -- Libba Bray

There are no girl books. There are no boy books. There are just books. -- Libba Bray

Fashionable debutantes in pastel chiffon party dresses wilt into leather club chairs like frosted petit fours melting under the July sun. -- Libba Bray

I should rather take my chances with the lions of Rome's ancient Colosseum than endure another tea chat with the likes of them. At least the lions are honest about their desire to eat you and make no effort to hide it. -- Libba Bray

I do have to wonder what sort of childhood the Grimm brothers endured. They are not a merry bunch of storytellers, what with their children roasted by witches, maidens poisoned by old crones, and whatnot. -- Libba Bray

Why had this power come to me? I can scarcely govern myself. At times, I feel as if I could dance through the halls with happiness, and then, just as suddenly, my thoughts are dark and lost and frightening. -- Libba Bray

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

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

But as soon as the thought enters my mind, another one swims in and eats the first one like a shark. Fuck that, it burps. -- Libba Bray

She insisted on Knight for her last name. It made her feel strong and bold. A name of armor. For she would defend herself in this new life. -- Libba Bray

Cash or check?" he said cheekily. Even the dullest Ohio girls knew that bit of lingo: Kiss now or kiss later?
"Bank's closed, pal. -- Libba Bray

You set fire to my house, killed my family, and ate my dog. But steal my boyfriend? That's a step too far. -- Libba Bray

I have met the devil, and her name is Cecily Temple -- Libba Bray

Could I have a Sloe Gin Fizz, without the gin?"
"What's the point of that, Miss?" the waiter said.
"Tomorrow morning," Mabel said. -- Libba Bray

Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed. -- Libba Bray

She's no beauty, mate -- Libba Bray

What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices? -- Libba Bray

When I dream, I dream of him. For several nights now he's come to me, waving from a distant shore as if he's been waiting patiently for me to arrive. He doesn't utter a word, but his smile says everything: I've missed you. -- Libba Bray

Beliefs converge and become something new all the time. -- Libba Bray

I can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I understand what it costs him to hide it all. -- Libba Bray

Adina appealed to the sky. "We asked for rescue and you sent us incompetent rockstar pirates with a broken ship and perfect abs?"
"Thank you, God," Petra said. -- Libba Bray

The wolf was at the door. His shadow spilled into the room, taking it over. -- Libba Bray

We're never prepared for how much we love our children, for how much we wish we could protect them by being perfect. -- Libba Bray

Discord need not be an impediment. Differences can bring strength. -- Libba Bray

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

No? Part girl, part wolf? Do they lick their butter knives? -- Libba Bray

Corrupt my brother, will you? I'll see you in hell first, sir. -- Libba Bray

Okay. That's fair. Abso-tive-ly fair. Let's say the tables were turned. If I were about to walk off a cliff, what would you do?"
Evie pursed her lips. "Push?"
"I don't believe that."
"You would on the way down. -- Libba Bray

- 'Music opens your soul, makes you ready.'
- 'Ready for what?'
- He smiles big. 'Exactly. -- Libba Bray

If God has nothing better to do than punish schoolgirls for a bit of tomfoolery, then I've no use for God. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

Will you punish me forever? -- Libba Bray

From the elevator, Mabel watched the old woman's bare feet hobbling away, a trail of salt and the lace hem of her nightgown left in her wake like sea foam. -- Libba Bray

Dead bodies are such trouble, Evie said with a little sigh, and Mabel had to turn her head away so as not to laugh. -- Libba Bray

I'm floating inside my skin. I could go on floating like this for days. Right now, the real world with its heartbreak and disappointments is just a pulse against the protective membrane we've drunk ourselves into. It's somewhere outside us, waiting. A Great and Terrible Beauty, Page 141, by -- Libba Bray

You evah hear of a magic screw?'
I cough back a laugh. 'No. No, sir. -- Libba Bray

Kartik feels like a country I want to travel - vast, dangerous, and unknown. -- Libba Bray

Ain't that a sight? With all the things we know and learn, we still ain't touched the big mysteries
where we come from, where we go next, why we even her. And when something truly miraculous happens, we run and hide in our caves. We deny. -- Libba Bray

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

The dark does not weep for itself because there is no light. Rather, it accepts that it is the dark. -- Libba Bray

I've never been in love. I will die without knowing what it feels like to need to see one person's face when you go to sleep at night, to crave seeing it when you wake up. I wish I knew. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

They're too tired for bathing, but they're not too tired for dreams. For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning. The longing of dreams draws the dead, and the city hall to many dreams. -- Libba Bray

No historians or librar ians were harmed in the making of this book, but some were badgered extensively with questions. -- Libba Bray

Her eyes take on that suspicious, wounded look girls get when they know they've fallen off the top rung of friendship and someone else has passed them, but they don't know when or how the change took place. -- Libba Bray

Adina gave a little shriek. "That fish just swam past my leg! Creepy! Where did it go?"
"To your right! Two o'clock! Get it!"
"You are officially the most bloodthirsty vegetarian ever. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

What do I want? Why is that simple question - four little words - so impossible to answer? -- Libba Bray

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

Greetings, ax murderer! I was just wondering how you like your eggs? -- Libba Bray

Just because you're funny doesn't mean you get to be cruel. -- Libba Bray

No. It is impossible to maintain a smile in my brother's presence. Monks haven't the sort of patience required. -- Libba Bray

We have work to do if you are not to be a total failure like high-waisted, acid-wash jeans. -- Libba Bray

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

It was a machine that required constant feeding- Henry hated the machine, and he hated himself for wanting the sort of admiration it promised, as if he had no worth unless someone was there to applaud it -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

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

Gemma~Was he really looking at me that way?
Kartik~What way?
Gemma~Like a piece of ripe fruit?
Katrik~You'd best be on your guard with him. -- Libba Bray

Evie winked at Sam and he whispered low in her ear, making her neck tingle. Sister, together, we could be a hell of a team. -- Libba Bray

True affection and love have a purity which shall always prevail over bigotry. -- Libba Bray

Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills. -- Libba Bray

I can't help feeling humiliated for Ithal. He stands at the wall and watches us go, and when we reach the turnoff for the school, he's still there with the mangled flower in his hands, far behind us a small, dying star fading out of our constellation. -- Libba Bray

All the small, simple, conscious acts of living a sudden defense against the dying we do every day. -- Libba Bray

Dude, this is a stoner conversation and we're not even high -- Libba Bray

The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage. -- Libba Bray

I've spent the last two hours worried that you were bleeding to death in a ditch," Evie continued. "Now that I know you're okay, I just want you to be bleeding to death in a ditch."
"Aww, Lamb Chop, you missed me. -- Libba Bray

I hear they feed you in Sing Sing," Evie muttered. "Three squares a day."
"Evangeline," Will said with a sigh. "Charity begins at home."
"So does mental illness. -- Libba Bray

But ... you could have whatever you wished."
"Exactly," he says, nuzzling my neck.
"But," I say, "you could turn stones to rubies or ride in a fine gentleman's carriage."
Kartik puts his hands on either side of my face. "To each his own magic," he says and kisses me again. -- Libba Bray

Oh, honey, of course it hurts! Beauty is pain. But you don't want to look like a troll, do you? -- Libba Bray

And she wanted so much to make him happy that she forgot how to make herself happy"
"That is not happiness. That is kind of murder, yeah? -- Libba Bray

See, now I don't know whether to be all 'Yay!' because you're empowered or sad because you're having delusional almost-sex with an imaginary boyfriend. -- Libba Bray

Does my new feminism make me look fat? -- Libba Bray

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

They swoon over Tom, who preens for them, bowing, which sets them to blushing and giggling.
God help us all. -- Libba Bray

I love you for who you are, not for who the world thinks you should be. -- Libba Bray

Ain't that the way of the world, now? Good luck turns bad. Bad luck turns good. Just a big rolling craps game played between this world and the next, and we the dice getting tossed around. -- Libba Bray

He loved her very much. She inspired his work. He used to say, 'There is no meaning but what we assign to life, and she is my meaning. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

Felicity laughs and takes on the tone of a fashionable lady. Darling, the Bryn-Joneses have just done the most marvelous thing in their parlor with human blood. We simply must have ours done straightaway! -- Libba Bray

Sorry for all the pain and loneliness and disappointment. But there is this, too. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

I know. And I'm Sorry. People will disappoint you, Gemma. The question to ask is whether you can learn to live with the disappointment and move on. I'm offering you a new world. -- Libba Bray

Yes, after all, if I were to join you, I might enjoy myself, and wouldn't that be a shame? Please, don't spare me another thought. -- Libba Bray

Theta blew out another plume of cigarette smoke. Not interested. Love's messy, kiddo. Let those other girls get moony-eyed and goofy. Me? I got plans. -- Libba Bray

Evie didn't mind yelling, but she hated feeling judged. It got under her skin and made her feel small and ugly and unfixable. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

Nobody Wants to be themselves. That's why there's tv. -Ephigenia, -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

But if we are to remain a great empire, we must have a greater understanding of the hearts and minds of others. -- Libba Bray

That's some moon"
"Stop talking about my ass, you beast. -- Libba Bray

Next I know, I'll be calling myself the queen of Romania and wandering down the lane wearing my bed linens for a cape. -- Libba Bray

sometimes a little crazy is all you need -- Libba Bray

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

Absence is a curious thing. When friends are absent they seem to loom ever larger, till the lack of them is all one can feel. -- Libba Bray

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

It wasn't my doing. It is the drink and the laudanum and the opium and that bloody refusal to live. That selfish grief. I thought I could change it with magic, but I can't. People will be who they are, and there is not enough magic in any world to change that. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

In every end, there is also a beginning. -- Libba Bray

History was haunted by the ghosts of buried crimes, which required periodic exorcisms of truth. Actions had consequences. Will -- Libba Bray

The wind has shifted to the East. A storm isn't far off. I can smell the moisture in the air, a fetid, living thing. Isolated drops fall, licking at my hands, my face, my dress. The quests squawk in surprise, turn their palms up to the sky as if questioning it, and dash for cover. -- Libba Bray

She bestowed the blessing of a wild girl's lips. -- Libba Bray

Naming my favorite books feels like naming a favorite child - impossible. -- Libba Bray

'Pastoralia' by George Saunders. Possibly my favorite book. It's one of the weirdest books I've 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. -- Libba Bray

I was a big reader as a kid, but it was 'Charlotte's Web' that showed me you could feel as if you were actually living inside a book. -- Libba Bray

There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way. -- Libba Bray

The line between faith and fanaticism is a constantly shifting one," Dr. Poblocki said. "When does belief become justification? When does right become rationale and crusade become crime? -- Libba Bray

Little clue: wasted on me." "What?" "I'm into girls." "Oh. Oh!" Chu said. "Right. Got it. That's cool. I've got a cousin who's gay. Amy Liu. Know her?" Jennifer laughed. "Oh, sure. I'll just look her up in the Big Book of Lesbians. We get a copy of that with the purchase of our first flannel shirt. -- Libba Bray

Nearby, Lady Liberty hoists her torch in the harbor, a beacon to all who come to these shores to escape persecution or famine or hopelessness. For this is the land of dreams. The -- Libba Bray

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

Any good world would allow for us to have free will, yes?" he continued. "Can we agree to this point? But once human beings have free will, they also have the ability to make choices - and commit evil. Thus, this very good thing, free will, allows the possibility of evil into our fine world. -- Libba Bray

You can never know about about your own destiny: are the people you meet there to play a part on your oun destiny, or do you exist just to play a role in theirs? -- Libba Bray

Because 'You're perfect just the way you are,' is what your guidance counselor says. And she's an alcoholic. -- Libba Bray

That's totally their interpreter," a girl with a lip ring informs us. "Even though they totally record their music in English, they totally speak in Inuktitut. Totally. -- Libba Bray

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! -- Libba Bray

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

I don't get jazz. It always sounds like a bunch of toddlers let loose in a music room. -- Libba Bray

You look very handsome, Papa," I say.
The twinkle is back in his eyes. "Smoke and mirrors," he says with a wink. "Smoke and mirrors. -- Libba Bray

One day, Evie O'Neill, you're gonna fall head over heels for me! -- Libba Bray

It's so daunting to walk into a classroom or a school auditorium. It's like the world's weirdest blind date. I know all the students are thinking, 'Who is this tool standing up in front of us?' -- Libba Bray

It seemed odd to Sosie that she had to make some hard-and-fast decision about such an arbitrary, individual thing as attraction, like having to declare an orientation major: I am straight with a minor in gay. -- Libba Bray

Duff's little moans traveled up her spine, made her head buzz. And another thought grabbed hold: She was doing this. She had the power to do this. THat she could be both completely vulnerable and totally in control was mind-blowing. -- Libba Bray

I'm a techno moron. I need help just to plug in my video camera. -- Libba Bray

- So my own sister will not promote me? Speaking of which, weren't you supposed to find me a beautiful future wife with a small fortune? Have you had any success on that front?
- Yes - I have warned them all. -- Libba Bray

They have money and position and Ann has none.It's amazing how often you can be right as long as you have those two things working in your favor. -- Libba Bray

I'm tired of everyone deciding what's for my own good! -- Libba Bray

I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I've got to think. -- Libba Bray

I must remember to forgive myself. Because there's an awful lot of gray to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.-A Great and Terrible Beauty -- Libba Bray

Oh, sure. Of course, they say now that we've got Freud and the motorcar, God is dead."
"He's not dead; just very tired. -- Libba Bray

When you peeled back the skin, you were dealing with bone and muscle, blood and nerve endings. It was all the same. She liked the beautiful logic of the circulatory system, the elegance of the neurological, and the fierce warrior spirit of the heart. The body had rules and it had quirks. -- Libba Bray

And for a moment, I understand that I have friends on this lonely path; that sometimes your place is not something you find, but something you have when you need it. -- Libba Bray

Tell him I went to the lavatory," Evie said with a roll of her eyes. "Men are pos-i-tute-ly paralyzed by the mention of females in lavatories. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

I don't think you should die until you're ready. Until you've wrung out every last bit of living you can. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

Taylor clapped three times for attention. "Ladies! Ladies! My stars! That's enough. Now. We all know Miss Arkansas's girls are fake, Miss Ohio's easier than making cereal, and Miss Montana's dress is something my blind meemaw would wear to bingo night."
- "Beauty Queens -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

I do not want to pass the time. I want to grab hold of it and leave my mark upon the world. -- Libba Bray

Everything is randomly connected. -- Libba Bray

I had a friend who said, "You don't have an internal critic. You have an internal sadist." -- Libba Bray

I love myself. They make it so hard for us to love ourselves. -- Libba Bray

I thought research would be more glamorous, somehow. I'd give the librarian a secret code word and he'd give me the one book I needed and whisper the necessary page numbers. Like a speakeasy. With books. -- Libba Bray

Do you think they missed him terribly when he fell? Did God cry over his lost angel, I wonder? -- Libba Bray

Who but the mad would choose to keep on living? In the end, aren't we all just a little crazy? -- Libba Bray

It's so laughable that it's somewhere beyond comedy and right into tragedy again. -- Libba Bray

You are truly Satan's sequined spawn. -- Libba Bray

As a journalist, I am compelled to know the answers."
"As a girl, I am compelled to protect what's left of my manicure," Petra said. -- Libba Bray

There is nothing more terrifying than the absoluteness of one who believes he's right. -- Libba Bray

Board the cows! We've come to enslave your marigolds. -- Libba Bray

Murder was just another reason to drink -- Libba Bray

Idealism is just an escape from reality. There is no utopia. -- Libba Bray

Why was his grief more powerful than his love? Why couldn't he find it within himself to fight back?
Why am I not enough to live for? -- Libba Bray

I'm one of those people who has to write. If I don't write, I feel itchy and depressed and cranky. So everybody's glad when I write and stop complaining already. -- Libba Bray

He took comfort in the neon signs, the wild strands of jazz creeping out of clubs whenever happy swells of people pushed through the doors in their finery. -- Libba Bray

Evie narrowed her eyes. "A time limit. Four weeks of the swooniest, swellest romance New York City has ever seen. And then, kaput. Over and out. Off the air."
"Golly, when you say it like that, it sounds as if our love's not real, Lamb Chop. -- Libba Bray

How now Mad Cow? -- Libba Bray

It was not a curse to fully inhabit your body. -- Libba Bray

Sheep. I'm stuck in a boarding school filled with sheep. -- Libba Bray

You can't believe how bleeding scary the sea is! There's, like, whales and storms and shit! They don't bloody tell you that! -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning. -- Libba Bray

Sam had a skill that often let him take what he needed. But you couldn't do that with love. It had to be given. Shared. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

And now if you'll excuse me, I should like to finish my book, alone, without the presence of a single ringleted girl to disrupt me. If you should come for me at dinner and find me in my chair, gone to the angels at last, you shall know that I died alone, which is to say in a state of utter bliss. -- Libba Bray

I hate this place," Tiara whimpered. "It's super creepy. Like a haunted Chuck E. Cheese's where the games all want to kill you and you never get your pizza. -- Libba Bray

Live life as if today is your last day living. -- Libba Bray

It's over, her mind whispered. There's still hope, her heart insisted. -- Libba Bray

The man in the shop peered disapprovingly at Evie through the glass. She pumped her arms and legs up and down in imitation of a marching band, gave the man a salute, and continued her meandering walk to the museum. -- Libba Bray

What happened to the winner" Adina asked.
"She tripped."
"And the first runner-up?"
Miss Michigan cracked her knuckles. "She tripped, too. -- Libba Bray

People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense-words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions-words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History -- Libba Bray

Oh shit! Can you say 'fuck' in a graveyard or will it jinx you with the undead? -- Libba Bray

Careful there, Poet. I might start to believe you. -- Libba Bray

My cholera's acting up again. -- Libba Bray

Theta crashed next to them on the thick zebra-skin rug. "I'm embalmed."
"Potted and splificated?"
"Ossified to the gills. Time for night-night. -- Libba Bray

I've never done acid, finding it hard to go willingly to a place that could be frightening, hellish, and totally beyond my control. A place much like high school. -- Libba Bray

There had been something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade. They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping. They were becoming. They were. -- Libba Bray

Sometimes Felicity is as much a mystery to me as the location of the Temple. She is spiteful and childish one minute, lively and spirited in the next; a girl kind enough to bring Ann home for Christmas and small enough to think Kartik her inferior. -- Libba Bray

I know because I read ... Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

Are you saying we're not ravish-worthy? -- Libba Bray

Warning: If you are insufferable, do not walk here. We shall eat you down to the marrow. -- Libba Bray

The gasps catch from girl to girl like a brush fire. -- Libba Bray

I refuse to let the past find me here. -- Libba Bray

New Maxi-Pad Pets. Accessories for your period.
Brought to you by The Corporation: In your homes and
in your pants. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

She holds up a finger. I'm getting to it. Don't rush a girl in the middle of her exposition. -- Libba Bray

The dull pain of truth weights my soul, pulling it under. I am left hopelessly awake. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

One can never go back. One always has to move forward. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

It's just too bad they have to die. They're totally bangable, you know?" "Bangable," Taylor mouthed in disgust. She wanted to show this boy another meaning for the word bang, and it involved his head against a steel door. -- Libba Bray

Felicity and I watch the dancers moving as one. They spin about like the earth on it's axis, enduring the dark, waiting for the sun. -- Libba Bray

I'm just saying it's not all sand castles and ninjas. -- Libba Bray

You've been assigned an identity since birth. Then you spend the rest of your life walking around in it to see if it really fits. You try on all these different selves and abandon just as many. But really it's about dismantling all that false armor, getting down to what's real. -- Libba Bray

I'm an oddity of one, my strangeness too complicated to explain or share. -- Libba Bray

The police have asked for my help. There's been a murder."
"A murder! Oh, my. Let me just change my shoes," Evie said excitedly. "It won't be a minute. -- Libba Bray

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 -- Libba Bray

I can be whatever. You can be whatever. We can be whatever. Whatever, together. -- Libba Bray

How I'd love to get away from here and be someone else for a while in a place where no one knows or expects certain things from me. -- Libba Bray

What
you don't believe in true love?" Petra asked. "The kind that can then be parlayed into awesome merchandising opportunities?"
- "Beauty Queens -- Libba Bray

You know that moment in 'The Matrix' when Neo takes the red pill and is plunged into the real world? That's what it felt like when I first read 'Watchmen' - like someone was taking a can opener to my head to make room for Moore's audacious brilliance. -- Libba Bray

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

He's jealous! Kartik is jealous and Simon finds me ... delicious? I am a bit giddy. And confused. But no, mostly giddy, I find. -- Libba Bray

I'm coming with you," Kartik insists. "You'll get yourself killed," I argue. "Then it's a good day to die," he says, -- Libba Bray

Meraa mitra yahaan aaiye," he murmurs. I understand only a little Hindi, enough to know what he has said: Come here, my friend.
I've never known a braver girl," he says. -- Libba Bray

When I dream, I dream of him. -- Libba Bray

Thou shalt not steal. I seem to recall that being one of God's I'd rather you didn't lest I have to smite you into ash commandments. -- Libba Bray

Why is it that some secrets can drown you while some pull you close to others in a way you never want to lose? -- Libba Bray

I salute your spunk, but I question your sanity, Sam said. -- Libba Bray

He's attracted to the smell of manure," Felicity says. "You might wallow in the stables to bring out the full flower of his love. -- Libba Bray

Reminds us that greatness lies even in the smallest of moments, in the humblest of hearts, and we shall, each of us, be called to greatness. Whether we shall rise to meet it or let it slip away is the challenge put before us all. -- Libba Bray

I'm sorry,' he says simply. 'People make mistakes, Gemma. We take the wrong action for the right reasons, and the right action for the wrong reasons. -- Libba Bray

They misspelled 'party.' How evil genius can they be? -- Libba Bray

I run after her, not really giving chase. I'm running because I can, because I must.
Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop. -- Libba Bray

Perhaps it is only the light. Perhaps it is the power of the realms at work through me. 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 first we know were to look without flinching. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

Sometimes I just want to burn down all the rules and start over. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

Wow, you're awesome and The universe loves a winner, so the universe must really love you! -- Libba Bray

I change the world, the world changes me. -- Libba Bray

There is a dualism inherent in democracy
opposing forces pushing against each other, always. Culture clashes. Different belief systems. All coming together to create this country. But this balance takes a great deal of energy. -- Libba Bray

I don't want to have this conversation. It's sunny out. There's bacon downstairs. -- Libba Bray

Women who have power are always feared. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

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

There's no such thing as nothing. In every nothing, there's a something. In fact, there could be everything! -- Libba Bray

Hot off the presses, today's headlines: The love of your life does not approve of my wanton flapper ways," Evie said in a voice of affected mystery. "Really, Mabesie. You might want to reconsider - he is a bit of a killjoy. -- Libba Bray

There were few things worse than being ordinary, in Evie's opinion. Ordinary was for suckers. -- Libba Bray

With each shimmy, the bugle beads on their scandalously revealing costumes swung and shook. It was the sort of display Evie knew her mother would have found appalling - an example of the moral decay of the young generation. It was sexual and dangerous and thrilling, and Evie wanted more of it. -- Libba Bray

For once, Evie didn't know what to say. She hadn't really thought of her uncle as very human. He was more like a textbook who occasionally remembered to put on a tie. But it was clear that he was, indeed, human, with a deep wound named Rotke. -- Libba Bray

Next time we see you, you'll be on trial for some ingenious crime!" Dottie said with a laugh. Evie grinned. "Just as long as they know my name. -- Libba Bray

Judge not, lest ye be judged. -- Libba Bray

A token of bathroom stoner etiquette. -- Libba Bray

If there's anything I'm starting to learn about people it's (a) that they are fundamentally suspicious and afraid of anyone who is "different," and (b) that fear makes them do and say asinine things. -- Libba Bray

I want to ask him if it's possible that a girl can be born unlovable, or does she just become that way? -- Libba Bray

Memphis - it's just a bird. Birds fly around, brother. It's what they do. It's not following you, and it's not a sign. Unless you really did give it candy and flowers, in which case you are one strange brother. -- Libba Bray

In books, the truth makes everything good and fine. The good prevail. The wicked are punished. There is happiness. But it's not like that really, is it?"
"No," I say. "I suppose it only makes everything known. -- Libba Bray

They talked, too, of their futures, as if they could shape the glittering course of their destinies with secret confessions offered like prayers to the room's benevolent hush. -- Libba Bray

I am no longer content to be the scared, obedient schoolgirl. Who are you, a stranger, to tell me what I can and cannot do? -- Libba Bray

Mawah meenon ne le plus poohlala, I say with an affected bow. -- Libba Bray

There are times when one friend requires the blind faith of another ... -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

When she can't bring me to heal with scolding, she bends me to shape with guilt. -- Libba Bray

Might. Is there any opiate more powerful than that word? -- Libba Bray

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

We have traveled through space and time. We have been many places. Visited many worlds. And there is good news: the acoustics everywhere are terrific. -- Libba Bray

They see her differently now, as somebody. And isn't that what everyone wants? To be seen? -- Libba Bray

And now I understand that truth casts a spell of its own, one I'm not sure of how to hold on to, though I'm desperate to try. -- Libba Bray

Amen, sister, ... All apologies to Tom Cruise. -- Libba Bray

I know because I read. -- Libba Bray

She is the elephant's eyebrows, -- Libba Bray

Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's is watching them so they can be who they really are -- Libba Bray

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

You don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. -- Libba Bray

Men have feelings too, you know. You bruise the petals of my manflower. -- Libba Bray

How terrible it is to have no cares, no longings. I do not fit. I feel too deeply and want too much. As cages go, it is a gilded one, but I shall not live well in it or any cage for that matter. -- Libba Bray

The world is a lie...not you and me. -- Libba Bray

Could you look again, please?" the woman asked in a clipped, slightly British accent. "It was sent parcel post two weeks ago from Miss Felicity Worthington and addressed to Mrs. Rao, Mrs. Gemma Doyle Rao. -- Libba Bray

You have a steady fella?" Sam asked after a bit.
"No fella can hold me for long."
Sam gave her a sideways glance. "That a challenge?"
"No. A statement of fact. -- Libba Bray

There's a lot of foot stomping, clapping, and cheering. I just want to win some cash and find my yard gnome. It's not a lot to ask. -- Libba Bray

It is funny how you do not miss affection until it is given, but once it is, it can never be enough; you would drown in it if possible. -- Libba Bray

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

Why does it always seem that I have only the shadow of my father? I'm like a child constantly grabbing at his coattails and missing. -- Libba Bray

Well, are you going to motivate people to bring peace to war-torn nations, or are you going to motivate people to join a cult and drink the Kool-Aid? -- Libba Bray

Because you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right. -- Libba Bray

Writers are also sort of like vultures, but with fewer ethics. -- Libba Bray

Your mother and I do not approve of drinking. Have you not heard of the Eighteenth Amendment?"
"Prohibition? I drink to its health whenever I can. -- Libba Bray

We sit and listen and are enthralled anew, for good stories, it seems, never lose their magic. -- Libba Bray

Hold up. How do you accidentally have sex with somebody?" Adina scoffed. "Is she all, 'Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't see your penis there'? -- Libba Bray

Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent."
"Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But ... she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to. -- Libba Bray

Often, the monsters we create in our imagination are not nearly as frightening as the monstrous acts perpetrated by ordinary human beings in the aim of one cause or another. -- Libba Bray

How do you invent a religion?" Evie asked.
Will looked over the top of his spectacles. "You say, 'God told me the following,' and then wait for people to sign up. -- Libba Bray

We've got about as much chance of communing with the dead as we do of sitting in Parliament. -- Libba Bray

He said to tell you to remember your heart in all things, that it is where your honor and your destiny will be found. Does it mean anything to you?'
It is something he would say from time to time-that the eye could be misled, but that the heart was true. -- Libba Bray

I am hard at work on the second draft ... Second draft is really a misnomer as there are a gazillion revisions, large and small, that go into the writing of a book. -- Libba Bray

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

I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment. -- Libba Bray

People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept. -- Libba Bray

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

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. -- Libba Bray

I don't trust her father than I can run full-steam in a corset. -- Libba Bray

In a manner befitting your station while at Spence. It's fine to be kind to the lesser girls, but remember that they are not your equals. Station. Lesser girls. Not your equals. It's a laugh, really. -- Libba Bray

Reason was for suckers and Presbyterians. -- Libba Bray

Very well, Your Ladyship Brooding St. Petulant, -- Libba Bray

There's a moment of profound sadness that can be dispelled only by summoning my anger. -- Libba Bray

I am dying a thousand cruel and unusual deaths as fifty pairs of eyes take me in, size me up like something that should be hanging over a fireplace in a gentleman's den. -- Libba Bray

But we can't go back. We can only go forward. -- Libba Bray

We've the right to dream, and that, I suppose, is the magic's greatest power: the notion that we can pick possibility from the trees like ripe fruit. -- Libba Bray

Prepared to fly, even if she has to loose her legs to do it -- Libba Bray

Jeez, someone needs to push the reset button on this planet. -- Libba Bray

People can live with only so much honesty. And sometimes, people can surprise you. -- Libba Bray

I know the English are terribly sentimental about the sea, but I can live without it. -- Libba Bray

I know because I read. Might I suggest you try it? -- Libba Bray

My misery is reaching epidemic proportions. -- Libba Bray

If you tell them what they want to hear, they don't bother to try to see. -- Libba Bray

What if I choose the dream instead? -- Libba Bray

It's always darkest before the ultimate sparkle. -- Libba Bray

The ground's soft with pine needles and the occasional crunch of a cone. The air smells like it's just been born. -- Libba Bray

Lord, cat. Announce yourself next time. I don't have no nine lives. -- Libba Bray

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

Retaliation is a dog chasing its tail -- Libba Bray

When you looked up to the sky and cried 'Why?' sometimes the sky shrugged, yet other times it answered with warm assurance of linked hands. -- Libba Bray

Evie replied with an eye-roll. "Do you think you can manage to not steal anything while I'm gone?"
"The only thing I'm trying to steal is your heart, doll." Sam smirked.
"You're not that talented a thief, Sam Lloyd. -- Libba Bray

Everyone seems to want more form me. I am a thoroughly disappointing girl around. I shall wear a scarlet 'D' upon my bosom for all to see so that they will know not to raise their expectations. -- Libba Bray

What is the French word for rain? Le rain? La rain? Is the rain masculine or feminine? It's such a bother that it must be masculine. -- Libba Bray

Nicole hated that she could never quite feel like she was just herself, just Nicole, but that she was somehow representing an entire race. That's how they saw her, as a "they" and not a "she. -- Libba Bray

This is how it is now. There is strength in acceptance, Ling. Your legs have been taken from you. But how you choose to live with that has not. -- Libba Bray

I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as a handprint in the snow. -- Libba Bray

As one, they leap, laughing, and that is where we leave them - mouths open, arms spread wide, fingers splayed to take in the whole world, bodies flying high in defiance of gravity, as if they will never fall. -- Libba Bray

I've heard it said that God is in the details. It's the same with the truth. Leave out the details, the crucial heart, and you can damn someone with the bare bones of it. -- Libba Bray

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 -- Libba Bray

You can never really know someone completely. That's why it's the most terrifying thing in the world, really - taking someone on faith, hoping they'll take you on faith too. It's such a precarious balance, It's a wonder we do it at all. And yet.. -- Libba Bray

Will was making a speech, something about having been young and careless once, the sort of thing old-timers said when they issued a deathblow, as if they thought their sanctimonious ramblings disguised as empathy would be welcomed, but Evie was only half listening. -- Libba Bray

She wears her grief like a coat of feathers too heavy for flight. -- Libba Bray

It is a giggle full of high spirits and merry mischief, proof that we never lose our girlish selves, no matter what sort of women we become. -- Libba Bray

I have never felt more ridiculous. If this is what it means to be a woman I am not the slightest bit interested. -- Libba Bray

They kept the lie going, and the people loved it. -- Libba Bray

A place to keep all your secrets -- Libba Bray

Usually, I avoid the topic by shoving food into my mouth then making "I'm sorry, as you can see, it would be rude for me to speak" hand signals -- Libba Bray

What's the difference between an undead and my last boyfriend? One is a soul-sucking beast from hell and the other is an undead. -- Libba Bray

Did God ever cry over his lost angel, I wonder? -- Libba Bray

It was funny how one afternoon with a best friend could set a girl right. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

I love you for who you are, not who the world thinks you should be. -- Libba Bray

Even Felicity can't keep from sputtering with laughter. I wish I could use my evil eye. Or at least my evil boot right smack against Cecily's backside. -- Libba Bray

And sometimes I just don't want to sparkle. -- Libba Bray

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

I changed the world; the world changed me.
Everything you do comes back to you. When you affect a situation, you are also affected. -- Libba Bray

Evie's eyes widened. More interesting than dope and sorcery? -- Libba Bray

He's got a laugh like a machine gun firing through velvet. -- Libba Bray

I am a lot of things, not all of them noble. -- Libba Bray

Miss Teen Dreamers. It is time to get ahold of ourselves. Miss Alabama, I did not mean that literally. That is gross. Stop it. Taylor -- Libba Bray

This is the world we live in, Gemma, for better or for worse. Make of it what you can, he says, and I pull him to me. -- Libba Bray

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

The hand you hold the longest is your own. -- Libba Bray

You've influenced the world not because you wanted to hug it and cuddle it and call it sweet thing, but because one day you wanted to beat the crap out of somebody but you didn't. You made a painting instead. -- Libba Bray

Why does anyone do anything? Belief. A belief that they are doing right and just in their actions. -- Libba Bray

With a low bow, she is gone in a haze of roses and hope -- Libba Bray

To those who will see, the world waits. -- Libba Bray

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

Don't you? if you keep them from the magic, they will never know what their lives could be.'
They will remain protected,' Asha insists.
No, 'I say. 'Only untested. -- Libba Bray

But without that spark of anger, without destruction, there can be no rebirth. -- Libba Bray

In them, she saw the sham of her life laid out like a book, the foolish belief that she, that anyone, could escape the consequences of this world, could flee from death. That was the deceit. The true serpent in the garden. -- Libba Bray

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

Sometimes we seek that which we are not yet ready to find. -- Libba Bray

Without further warning, the sky opens up and cries. -- Libba Bray

Peace is not happenstance. It is a living fire that must be fed constantly. It must be tended to with vigilance, else it dies out. -- Libba Bray

Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize. -- Libba Bray

Quick answers often lead to quick regrets. -- Libba Bray

In truth, it is the simplest act in the world. The trick works because you wish it to. You must remember the most important rule of and successful illusion; First the people must want to believe it. -- Libba Bray

It occurs to me that cricket is not the true sport in London - gossip is. -- Libba Bray

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

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

To live is to love, to love is to live. -- Libba Bray

You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it. -- Libba Bray

I grew up doing theatre and spent a long time as a playwright. I still think very visually when I write. -- Libba Bray

Every mornin', every evenin', ain't we got fun? -- Libba Bray

If you would understand the present, you must come to know the past. -- Libba Bray

Sometimes I see things, I think. Out of the corner of my eye, taunting me, and then it's gone. And dreams. Such horrible dreams. What if something terrible happened to me? What if I am damaged?"
The rain is a cool kiss on my sleeve as I link my arm with hers. "We're all damaged somehow. -- Libba Bray

I'm whining. It's unattractive, but I find I'm powerless to stop -- Libba Bray

I'm like everyone else in this stupid, bloody, amazing world. I'm flawed. Impossibly so. But hopeful. I'm still me. -- Libba Bray

Because the pure girls get rescued."
Mary Lou felt something she didn't let herself feel often. She was well and truly pissed off. "Why do girls have to be all pure and innocent and good? Why don't guys have to be? -- Libba Bray

i salute your spunk, but question your sanity. -- Libba Bray

He frowns. A dance with the carnivorous Felicity? Why? Has she eaten all the other available gentlemen? -- Libba Bray

We've barley stepped into the bright glow of the realms when everything goes dark ... -- Libba Bray

Can we talk about the miracle that is the Small World ride? It's like an acid trip drag show. -- Libba Bray

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

We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds. -- Libba Bray

The key holds the truth -- Libba Bray

There's an -or- in -whore- because you always have a choice to respect your body and say no. -- Libba Bray

This is how the fire starts. This is how we burn. -- Libba Bray

Dammit!" "What?" Gonzo sounds panicked. "We're out of gas." "You're Shithenging me." "I Shithenge you not. -- Libba Bray

Look, I know this seems a little half-assed ... ' 'No, dude. I'd be thrilled if this plan were half-assed. This is, like, no-assed.' 'You're right. It's the most no-assed thing I've ever done in my life. -- Libba Bray

I'm a librarian, not an oracle. -- Libba Bray

My mom's al like sparkle sparkle sparkle and I'm all like sparkle yourself -- Libba Bray

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

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

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

If there was one truth Evie had learned in her short life, it was that forgiveness was easier to seek than permission. She didn't plan to ask for either one. -- Libba Bray

I change the world and the world changes me -- Libba Bray

So, now I've been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs. -- Libba Bray

We are made by what we are asked to bear, Ling Chan," he'd said. -- Libba Bray

How can my ankles and arms be obscene? -- Libba Bray

He took her face into his hands and his kiss blotted out the sky -- Libba Bray

I don't know how to accomplish such a look. I find myself with a new fear: that I shall never, ever be this lovely. -- Libba Bray

He wanted to hit something or someone. He wanted to burn up the whole world, heal it, and burn it down again. -- Libba Bray

I'd like to thank readers. Every time you open a book, it is a strike against ignorance. Unless you're reading Sarah Palin. -- Libba Bray

I'm related to Davy Crockett on my mom's side. Honest. -- Libba Bray

But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

You try standing up to my mom. She's a force of nature. -- Libba Bray

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

There's a lot about discovering who you are and how difficult that is. And it never stops. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

My stomach aches a new. blasted inconvenience. What do young men have to mark their entry into adulthood? Trousers, that's what. Fine, new trousers. I despise absolutely everyone just now. -- Libba Bray

So. Tell me," Marlowe tried gamely, "what do you think is man's greatest invention?"
Jericho turned his head just slightly toward Marlowe, looking him straight in the eye. "God. -- Libba Bray

We are English, and I expect you to behave as such. No more crying. -- Libba Bray

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

It was hard to feel safe in the world when you were a girl. -- Libba Bray

Evie was so nervous that she downed her cocktail in two stiff swigs, then refilled her glass.
Henry arched an eyebrow. "A pro, I see."
"What else is there to do in Ohio? -- Libba Bray

I think about dying every day, because I can't stop thinking about living. -- Libba Bray

Please do not strain yourself, Miss Doyle. I won't have my girls going cross-eyed in the name of art. -- Libba Bray

In a world like this one, only the random makes sense. -- Libba Bray

What do you feel? I've never been asked this question once. None of us has. We aren't supposed to feel. We're British. -- Libba Bray

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

Dreams were dreams and reality was reality and she felt people were better off understanding the difference. -- Libba Bray

No one can steal our dream. -- Libba Bray

We're comfortable with women in certain roles but not comfortable with women expressing anger or fully accepting their power. The most daring question a woman can ask is, 'What do I want?' -- Libba Bray

Any librarian or scholar will tell you: Close is not the same as accurate. -- Libba Bray

The desperation meeting the silence with its unmasked wish. -- Libba Bray

Free the snow globes! -- Libba Bray

Sam's mother used to say that inside everyone was the chance to change the world. It sat like a seed eager to grow into greatness. The professor could have his ghosts. Ordinary people were capable of extraordinary bravery. That was the only magic Sam knew or trusted. -- Libba Bray

What fresh hell is this?" Adina muttered. -- Libba Bray

Sitting in my favorite coffeehouse with a new notebook and a hot cup of java is my idea of Heaven. -- Libba Bray

I invited myself. Thought this table needed some class. -- Libba Bray

My family traditions are alcoholism and dysfunction," Jennifer said. "Oh, and anything you can make from government cheese. -- Libba Bray

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

I know I've done the right thing but I couldn't feel worse about it, and I suppose that is part of what it is to lead. -- Libba Bray

Instead, I try to adjust to the dawn, letting the tears fall where they may, because it is morning; it is morning and there is so much to see. -- Libba Bray

Truth casts a spell of its own. -- Libba Bray

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

All things are possible. -- Libba Bray

What you want can be yours. But you must first know what it is you want. -- Libba Bray

Why must we die when everything within us was born to live? -- Libba Bray

Whatever is without question is most vulnerable. -- Libba Bray

The trouble with morning is that it comes well before noon. -- Libba Bray

Only ninnies go to Penny's. -- Libba Bray

These words have been sanitized for your protection. An adjective and a noun, respectively. -- Libba Bray

Come on, Father. Stop me. Tell me to behave, to go to hell, something, anything. -- Libba Bray

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. -- Libba Bray

The photographer had caught her midlaugh, and the defiance of her bared teeth and wide lips gave her face a hint of mischief and forthrightness. The girl in this photograph bet the house. -- Libba Bray

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

Jericho didn't seem to know life beyond the pages of a musty old book, and he didn't seem interested in knowing anything beyond that, either. -- Libba Bray

Life don't come to you, Memphis. You gotta take it. We have to take it. Because ain't nobody handing it to us. -- Libba Bray

Write like it matters, and it will. -- Libba Bray

We create the illusions we need to go on. -- Libba Bray

I wish to live for myself. I should never want to be trapped. -- Libba Bray

People see what they want to see when they need to. -- Libba Bray