Quotes from Malorie Blackman

If you'd slapped me or punched me or even stabbed me, sooner or later it would have stopped hurting.

Sometimes I wish there was just you and me and no one else in the whole world.

Sephy, d'you ever dream of just … escaping? Hopping on the first boat or plane you come across and just letting it take you away.' There

That's just the point,' Callum said with sudden bitterness. 'This place is like the whole world and the whole world is like this place. So where could I go?

Funny how my status seemed to change depending on the eyes of the beholder. To Drew I was a Nought and would never be anything else. Lucas called me a Cross. Where did that leave me? On one side or the other or stuck somewhere in the middle? 'Lucas,

Mr Corsa threatened that he was going to send a letter home to my mum and e-mail my dad.

Because we were friends. We were family. We had each other. And, more important than all that, we had love.

Everyone knows they all belong to the Liberation Militia and all they do is cause trouble and commit crimes and stuff like that …

Why was it that when noughts committed criminal acts, the fact that they were noughts was always pointed out?

Ladies and gentlemen, for your delectation and delight, another performance of 'You're a nought and don't you ever forget it, blanker boy.

What did Noughts see when they looked at me – a light-skinned Cross? What did Crosses see when they looked at me – a dark-skinned Nought? I had to stop seeing myself through anyone's eyes but my own. But

People are people. We'll always find a way to mess up, doesn't matter who's in charge.

I didn't want to blame her for the way the police treated me and every other nought I knew. I didn't want to hold her responsible for the way security guards and store detectives followed me around every time I entered a department store.

those glossy magazines with impossibly beautiful women on the cover and inside. Women with polished mahogany skin who looked like they'd never had a pimple in their lives – nor a decent meal either come to that. Women with teeth which shone like fresh snow in sunshine.

Only one person cared if I lived or died. He'd done so much for me in the past and now it was my turn to do something for him.

Or if we can't blame the main opposition, find a new scapegoat – a section of society with no power, no voice. Blame the travellers or the noughts or the immigrants. Cheap, gutter politics to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

The truth doesn't stop being the truth just because you don't want to talk about it or won't face it.

NLM is a peaceful protest group made up of Noughts, Crosses and all right-minded citizens worldwide who despise bigotry and injustice. We

What is right, what is morally just, cannot be silenced or kept in the shadows. There is no stronger spotlight than the truth.

I miss him. With every breath and every heartbeat, I miss him.

everyone else got lumped into the WAME category like we were all one big, homogenous mass and not worthy of distinct categorization.

She was like an oasis in this scorching hot desert.

She treated me like a real person. She didn't see me as just a colour

And in a world desperate to pigeon-hole and categorize and stereotype, she may feel forced to come down on one side or the other. And the truth is, she's both. And the truth is, she's neither.