Quotes from Maureen Johnson

Even though she had been warned, she tripped over the bike. She probably tripped because she'd been warned and was telling herself not to trip over the bike. She did that sometimes. It was often easier not to know what obstacles were in the way.

Nothing was quite like it was supposed to be.

The whole weak in the knees thing,which she always thought was just some idiotic expression back from the golden age of idiotic expressions,was real. -Suite Scarlett

Were you playing with Stuart? she asked. The question was loaded. I was a filthy, filthy woman, and even the five-year-old knew it.

Why Paris? Paris needs no reason. Paris is its own reason.

Who runs a combination cat shelter and hostel ? Keith asked. With the cat shelter being the primary function? Only people who want to kill you with an axe and then put you in the garden and build a shed on you, that's who.

Proximity doesn't breed familiarity.

Do you ever sing in the car? Generally not. But I am driving a police car. I think people would like a singing policeman. Makes life seem more like a musical. Like Foot-tastic. You can talk for a long time about nothing. I certainly can, you charming man!

You could wear the same outfit every single day and no guy - who isn't gay - will notice.

So much of anxiety was anxiety about having anxiety.

It could have been like a fairy tale. But fairy tales aren't real. Things don't work like that. There's a price for everything.

I guess life is full of maybes.

It was like she had been punched in the gut. Stevie said stuff like that all the time and was told she was wrong. David said it once and got a nod and a compliment. Oh, the magic of dudes. If only they bottled it.

Albert Ellingham said knowledge was his religion and libraries were his church, so he built a church.

The wonderful thing about reality is that it is highly flexible. One minute, all is doom; the next, everything is abloom with possibility.

Sometimes artist like to catch themselves looking out, let the world see them for once. It's a signature. This one is a very bold one. But this is also a witnessing. We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That's why we paint.

Anxiety does not ask your permission. Anxiety does not come when expected. It's very rude. It barges in at the strangest moments, stopping all activity, focusing everything on itself It sucks the air our of your lungs and scrambles the world.

It was fine, I said stiffly. We played Mouse Trap. Is that what they're calling it these days? she asked, throwing me a terrible grin. I have to go give Rachel a quick bath. Feel free to make yourself some cocoa or whatever you like! She stopped short of adding ...future child-bride of my only son.

It took a lot of women like that, a lot of women who said I'm not going to do what you expect me to do, because you have no idea what I'm capable of. I'm going to get dirty and use tools and live the way I want to move the world forward.

Maybe this was what Aunt Peg meant all along - returning was a weird thing. You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe our what came before.

Stuart's a wizard with those kinds of things, she said. What kinds of things? Oh, he can find anything online. Debbie was obviously one of those parents who still hadn't quite grasped that using the Internet was not exactly wizardry, and that we could all find anything online. I didn't say this, because you don't want people to feel that they've missed something really obvious, even when they have.

Life is always going to be a series of ouch-making moments, and the question was, was I going to go all fetal position, or was I going to woman up? I went into fetal position on the bed to think about this. Fetal position turned out to be very comfortable.

Braiiinnnnssss, we said in unison. It's both sad and incredibly impressive that you were all ready with that one.

I remember how, at first, I had felt the tension in his lips, as if he was trying to make a barrier between us - then they had relaxed, parted slightly. And that's when I had known he wanted to kiss me, wanted to give in. That little parting of the lips, the little sigh that came out... I would hear that sigh forever. That little, little sound when the whole world seemed to open up.