Quotes from Maureen Johnson

This was England. There was always rain in the future.

Is that going to work? she said. We have to try. She nodded. She got that. You have to try. Trying is the first step to whatever comes next.

No shoe should be judged by its footprint, for the foot has a print of its own.

He was usually her companion in avoiding things, but tonight he was letting her down. His fingers hadn't stopped moving all night.

This is about real people, not figures from fiction. I know this crime is popular—that crime itself is popular. But crime has a human face. If you're going to study crime, you have to remember the people involved.

Where does this arrogant fantasy come from?

Do guys really believe that if they are the only male in the area that girls will suddenly crawl on top of them? Like we scavenge for lone survivors and reward them with group make-out sessions?

Most high school students have hobbies. Some play music. Some play sports. Some write , or draw or make things. Stephanie ( Stevie ) Bell solves CRIME

The full truth was a little too much to throw at a stranger.

I have never, ever been so happy to see a house.

The expression is: a boy's best friend is his mother. It's not: a boy's best pimp is his mother. It is that way for a reason.

It's two thousand pages and nothing happens. It's all terrible. I wrote the first book and then I forgot how to write. It used to be that I would sit and write and I would go into some other world—I could see it all. I was totally in another place. But the second it became something I had to do, something in me broke. It's like I used to know the way to some magical land and I lost the map.

Stevie packed like someone who just heard that reports of the monster were true, and it was headed toward the city.

Writing is a lot of sitting down... It's a lot of trying things out and screwing up... It's either amazing or it's the worst thing in the world. Sometimes it goes well, and it's all you think about, and then, it's gone. It's like you're taking a ride down a river really fast, and then all of a sudden, there's no water. You're just sitting in a raft, trying to push it along in the mud. And then you've become me.

The words seemed to come from a place deep inside me, far beyond the place where I stored them, past the ideas.

Hayes had a smile like a hammock—just get in, go to sleep, forget your troubles and cares.

one of the worst things is when witnesses start talking to each other. As soon as you start talking to someone else, the story you have in your head changes. Human memory is rewritten like computer memory. You just get the most updated file.

The thing about looking just a little bit means it's really easy to look a little bit more.

But when we live, we believe that we have a right to everything in the universe - that everything is ours to touch.

Kaz was always enthusiastic. His special interest was the environment, and he spent a lot of time getting Ellingham to convert to composting toilets. Kaz cared a lot about composting toilets.

When the darkness came for Dottie, it was quick and it was total.

It is unclear what I bring to the table here, but I thank you for having me. -Acknowledgements

It's everyone's dream... Come to Ellingham Academy, move a ramp out of a hole in the dark. - Nate

Murderers aren't a type. They're anyone.