Quotes from Maureen Johnson

Department of Pain and the Processing Thereof

Office of Confusion and Panic

They're English," David said, sitting on the bed. "That keep calm and carry on thing is real. You know. Don't talk about stuff that's bad. Talk about tennis! That's how they are.

If he hadn't dragged me, I would never have made it up the hill.

By this point, I was hungry – maybe hungrier than I'd ever been in my life.

The more I looked, the more Christmasy it got.

It all feels so fake that it seems okay.

Felt the world swirling with snow

Hate it when I wake up to find that people have been creeping around me and have seen me asleep. Unfortunately, it happens to me a lot. I can sleep like a champion.

You can only spend so long in a bathroom without arousing suspicion. Over a half an hour, and people are staring at the door, wondering about you.

Fine, he said. Anything is better than what I'm supposed to be doing.

Let it snow and snow and bury me. Very funny, Life.

He looked up. His eyes were red, like he had not slept, and there was shade around his jawline. His curly hair stood on end. He looked tumbled and . . . attractive.

Some guys surprise you like that.

This realization burned.

Yeah," Nate said. "I guess it would be like that if I could go somewhere in a book. I always wanted stories to be real, so I started writing my own. That seemed to make it more real.

England and Britain and the United Kingdom are not the same thing. England is the country. Britain is the island containing England, Scotland, and Wales. The United Kingdom is the formal designation of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as a political entity. If you mess this up, you will be corrected. Repeatedly.

Nate exhaled long through his nose. 'Fine,' he said. 'Anything is better than doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

Never get stabbed- it makes everything awkward.

I kind of love it," Nate said, looking around. "It looks like the moisture farm that Luke Skywalker lives on.

My entrance brought a little light to his eyes.

Back in Pittsburgh, if someone had infiltrated the library with fifty squirrels, that person would have been hailed as a hero. But Ellingham was full of library lovers, and there was the feeling in the air that this was, perhaps, a bridge too far. You could be naked, you could scream and hang out on the roof, but you do not mess with the place with the books.

Sometimes you have to leave the fucking Shire, Frodo.

Stevie swept her light around, steering it away from a terrifying crack in the side, and then aimed it squarely forward. I'm going to the end, she said. Seriously? Nate said. This is what I came here for. My dragons are down there. Stevie, I wouldn't ... You're not me, Stevie said. If I die, avenge me. She was joking, but not totally. She had to go, and it also felt like a possible mistake. Some mistakes you have to make.