Quotes from Barry Lyga

Nice is the white bread of the English language adjective breadbox. It's tasteless, bland, and forgettable.

He had to do it in secret. He didn't want people to think he was buying forgiveness or understanding. Those two things should not be for sale, at any price.

He realized he'd spent his life trying to understand Billy. But had never really understood himself.

I was going to bake you a cake with a hacksaw in it," he said without preamble, " but-" "But you realized it wouldn't work." "Well, no. I realized I don't know how to bake.

Billy always survived. Like a cockroach. The world's smartest, meanest, craziest cockroach.

I won't let myself be used or manipulated. I won't let myself be a hypocrite. I am foe me. I am not weak. For anyone.

I'm still not ready to believe time heals wounds, but I think maybe something else does. We heal wounds. Not time. Us.

We all do stupid things, Conscience. If they don't kill us, they weren't stupid enough, I guess.

He didn't dislike New York with the simple diffidence of a small-town kid or the tragic ignorance of a yokel--he hated it with what he hoped was his soul.

Luck, though, as Billy had said it so many times, was like lightning--it struck sinners and saints in equal measure, and it did to on its time-table, not yours.

him jump a little inside whenever they roamed his way. Her hair—off-limits to touch, but not to his other senses—entranced him, jet black, shoulder-length, tightly coiled like powerful springs, smelling slightly of chemicals and cinnamon, the beads at the end of each braid clicking together as she walked.

Violence suits you.

That last voice in his head. It hadn't been Billy's. It was his own.

Zik spits into the dirt in from of home plate, his own little ritual. He digs in and grits his teeth, snarling at the Heat. Psychology. Baseball's all about psychology.

It's just a base hit, people. It means nothing unless we put a string of them together.

Oh, that was smooth. I'm as subtle as a fart.

Dr. Kennedy talked me out of killing myself--for now--without saying a single words or even knowing what was going on. Which, I've decided, is the mark of a totally kick-ass therapist.

O)ur lives are the sum of our mistakes as well as our triumphs...

You know the expression 'As a crow flies,' don't you? People use it to mean a straight line. And that's very important. Because the way a capital-c Crow flies is a straight line. It may appear jagged to some, but the Crow flies in a straight line to its goal.

Yes, pain meant life. But life did not mean pain.

For a fat guy, G. William sure could sustain a long burst of screaming and yelling.

I usually tug my helmet's brim once, then push it back up into position, but I'm not wearing a helmet. I'm embarrassed to find myself miming the action through sheer muscle memory.

My heart went into triple time, like that burst you get when you realize the ball is going over the heads of all the outfielders.

Disappointment is part of parenthood, Jasper. The trick is learnin' to love your kids even when they disappoint you.