Quotes from Maureen Johnson

And I think something is beautiful if it reveals something important about what it means to be alive.

She wasn't only gay, she was a gay elf.

The critical scene of the mystery is when the detective enters. The action shifts to Sherlock's sitting room. The little Belgian man with the waxed moustache appears in the lobby of the grand hotel. The gentle old woman with a bag of knitting comes to visit her niece when the poison pen letters start going around the village. The private detective comes back to the office after a night of drinking and finds the woman with the cigarette and the veiled hat this is when things will change.

English rain feels obligatory, like paperwork. It dampens already damn days and slicks the stones.

Spicy food and I have a close relationship—an obsessive one, in fact. If it's spicy, I want it. I want to sweat and shake and go half blind from the searing pain . . . which, now that I put it that way, seems really suggestive. But spicy stuff is addictive. That's a known fact of science.

People were freaked out, but they showed it in weird ways. Back home, people would have been weeping and doing a lot of very public group hugs. At Wexford people just aggressively pretended nothing had happened.

Want to make it a date, haircut?' she asked. 'As soon as I can scrape together the cash for the train ticket?' What's with the haircut, kiddo ?' he asked. 'I thought we were past that.' We'll never be past that,' she said.

You don't know me yet, I said. Rory was telling me she lives in a swamp, Charlotte said. That's right, I said, turning up my accent a little. These are the very first shoes I've ever owned. They sure do pinch my feet. Jerome gave a little snort.

I'm still going to eat a lot of tacos," Nate said. "But I'm going to do it judgmentally

Irony is the word I forget the meaning of immediately after I look it up, but I kind of feel like I live in a constant state of it.

What are you? I asked. I'm the Ghost of the Night Before Exams. And how long did it take you to come up with that? Jazza asked. I'm a busy man, he replied.

Oh, the ongoing love affair between hair and mouths. Hair always goes for the mouth. The mouth opens, and hair says, I'm going in! I'm going in! like a manic cave diver.

but somehow when it's real, when it's your life... that person can feel even farther off and more unobtainable than an actual celebrity. Proximity doesn't breed familiarity

Anxiety, her therapist had told her many times, never killed anyone. It felt like death, but it was an illusion. A terrible illusion that inhabited your body and tried to make it its puppet. It told you nothing mattered because everything was made of fear.

Something about this boat screamed, I am a very popular model in the world's oil-bearing regions. I cost more than your soul!

Sometimes I even felt like he dated me as part of his plan, like they were going to have a checklist on the application, and one of the things to tick off was going to be, Do you have a reasonably intelligent girlfriend who shares your aspirations, and who is fully prepared to accept your limited availability?

Although it was very cold, he wore no coat. I think some English people think coats are for the weak.

One of them hung a pink bra from our lighting fixture. I left it there. It was a nice bra

Anxiety is very accommodating. Minutes ago, Stevie's anxiety was all about failure. It neatly converted itself into worry about places called Bounce Houses and not having hot water or air-conditioning. It was perfectly ready to bring the snakes to the party. It's a big tent. All problems are welcome.

The truth was that she had managed to betray everyone by doing nothing. No one in history had ever done less and yet been so wrong. Not cheating on a non-boyfriend with the non-boyfriend of a friend. The pressure of thinking that one through made her swollen body ache.

Which is both gross and breathtakingly romantic. He could always have just gone upstairs and brushed his teeth, but he stayed and lurked by the fish for me.

She didn't even notice right away that a small animal had come out from behind a nearby car and was slowly making its way toward the trash can she was standing near. She flipped through some old files in her mind, trying to come up with what this thing might be, and after a few seconds decided that--impossible as it seemed--it was a fox.

Did I just kill someone? You can't kill a dead person, Callum said. Makes no sense.

It's us, Stephen said. Oh, thank God, said a voice. Callum emerged from behind the Dumpster. Even with all that was going on, it was hard not to take notice of this: he wore only his underpants and his socks and shoes. ...I don't think I hid my staring very well either. Go ahead and change, Stephen said, handing me the bag. I'll go and get the car. Please be quick, Callum added. This is not as fun as it appears.