Quotes from Libba Bray

The world is a lie...not you and me.

I don't know why I feel so wounded with Kartik's obvious infatuation with Pippa. There's no romance between us. There's nothing that tethers us but this dark secret neither of us wants. It's not Kartik's longing that hurts. It's my own. It's knowing that 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

No one can steal our dream.

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.

There was 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.

The vicar, whose name is Reverend Waite, leads us in prayers that all begin with 'O Lord' and end with our somehow not being worthy-sinners who have always been sinners and will forever more be sinners until we die. It isn't the most optimistic outlook I've ever heard but we're encouraged to keep trying anyway.

The colonizer writes the history, winning twice: A theft of land. A theft of witness.

How can my ankles and arms be obscene?

And when I wake, the room is white with the morning sun. The light is so bright it hurts my eyes. But I don't dare close them. I won't. 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.

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.

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.

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

Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villians... And magic itself is neither good nor bad; it is intent that makes it either.

This is how the fire starts. This is how we burn.

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.

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.

I'd say... Petra crossed her legs, tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. I'd say, I am too fucking fabulous for one gender. Oh, and can we please get rid of the cheesy dance numbers? It's like torture step-ball-change. I'd say I am not a race. I am an individual, Nicole said. Sosie moved her fingers gracefully, but no one understood. She waited for a moment. I would say, learn to hear me in my own voice. I'm hearing impaired, not invisible.

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

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.