Quotes from Libba Bray

I'm not really sure what I am at all anymore. We're not just sashes and states, Nicole said on a sigh. Or gender, Petra murmured. Or bodies. I'm sort of everything all at once, Nicole whispered. And then they were silent, lost to dreaming.

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

Like, it's so much pressure all the time and if you get upset or angry, people say, 'Are you on the rag or something?' And it's like I want to say, 'No. I'm just pissed off right now. Can't I just be pissed off? How come that's not okay for me?

Sometimes I just want to burn down all the rules and start over

People you loved could be gone in a breath. So why didn't knowing that make it any easier to be vulnerable? To tell people that you loved them, that you were hurting, that you were afraid, or that, sometimes, at five in the morning, you were so alone in your skin that you watched the weak light play across the ceiling, willing it toward dawn?

she told Mary Lou about the curse that had plagued the women in her family for generations. Wild girls, they were called. Temptresses. Witches. Girls of fearless sexual appetite, who needed to run wild under the moon. The world feared them. They had to hide their desires behind a veneer of respectability.

There was rarely a moment when she wasn't having to work around the limitations of her body. Discomfort was a daily fact of life. Sometimes the ache was a nuisance. Other times, it was a storm that clawed and pulled and made it hard to concentrate on anything else. Mostly, Ling resented pain because it kept her from thinking, and thinking was what Ling did best.

But why on earth?" "When the world moves forward too fast for some people, they try to pull us all back with their fear

Ling loved Alma, but when she thought of making that love sexual, it was like a wire that didn't quite connect to a battery. It was more theoretical than actual. She liked kissing and cuddling, but she knew that alone wasn't sufficient for Alma.

I change the world and the world changes me

I've never understood this obsession with where we are from that we Americans seem to have. We are from here, are we not? Sometimes I find this clannishness, these ties to old homelands, ancient traditions, and familial bloodlines, to be nothing more than fear—the same fear that keeps us praying to an absent God.

feel very deeply. Even romantically. But those feelings live inside my heart and my head. I can't translate them to the rest of me.

Now listen: if the fires badly, don't you dare come back and haunt me.

feel very deeply. Even romantically. But those feelings live inside my heart and my head. I can't translate them to the rest of me." Ling said "the rest of me" quickly and quietly. "I don't know if I want to be touched in that way. I don't know if my love is a physical love.

I feel very deeply. Even romantically. But those feelings live inside my heart and my head. I can't translate them to the rest of me." Ling said "the rest of me" quickly and quietly. "I don't know if I want to be touched in that way. I don't know if my love is a physical love.

This country is founded on a certain tension." He pressed his fists against each other. "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—and, as I've said, spirits are attracted to energy.

She didn't really understand. Few people did. Sex sold everything. It was in every advertisement, song, and Hollywood movie. Who was the freak who didn't want to make love?

As a scientist, Ling had to keep an open and curious mind, to explore all sorts of permutations. It seemed to her that there were endless variations for love, too, if only people would allow their minds to consider them. Ling opened her eyes again. "Why…?" Ling stopped, afraid to say this aloud. "Why can't we be something new?

Well, now, you see, I have a firm religion that I never drink hot cocoa by myself. It's against my religion. You have a religion? Ling sniffled. Well, no. Not really. But if I did, that would be the first commandment.

What if our love is like a new species, something with no classification yet? What if what we have together doesn't fit neatly into any labeled drawer? That doesn't mean it isn't real.

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.

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.

Aww, Sheba. So you're working for Evie. Honestly, who isn't working for himself in this meshuga world? Some people just hide it better than others.

Octavia might've believed that it was the Devil's business, not the Lord's, but it seemed to Memphis that if there was a God, it would be downright cruel of him to bestow people with certain talents and then expect them not to use those talents. People had to be who they were.