Quotes from Maureen Johnson

For anyone who has ever dreamed of finding a body in the library. - Dedication of Truly Devious

People say depression lies. Anxiety is just stupid. It's unable to tell the difference between things that are actually scary (being buried alive, for example) and things that are not scary at all (being in bed under the covers). It hits all the same buttons. Stop. Go. Up. Down. It's all the same to anxiety.

You don't get things past librarians.

when something happens to me - good, bad, boring it doesn't matter - I have to tell someone to make it count. There's no point in anything happening if you can't talk about it.

Probably some period thing. I go completely mental too. Period fever. It's the worst. This effectively killed all conversation for a while. ...Fixed that, she said. You told him I had period fever , I replied. There's no such thing as period fever. No such thing as ghosts either. No, there is really no such thing as period fever. There's a difference between being a guy and being an idiot .

Prefects. I had learned this one. Student council types, but with superpowers. They who must be obeyed.

He's been in love with Miss Gina since high school, but he doesn't really know how to talk to girls, so he's just been...staying around her since then. He just tends to go where she goes. Isn't that stalking? Jazza said. Legally, no, I replied. I asked my parents this when I was little. What he does is creepy and socially awkward, but it's not actually stalking.

I still have a whopping bad case of what you call scag magnetism. I thought i had gotten rid of it there, but it looks like scary guys still materialize from thin air in my presence. They are drawn to me. I am the North Pole, and they are the explorers of love.

She looks like a jumper to me. Jumpers do that a lot, stand on the edge and stare out. Never kill yourself in a Tube station. Tip number one. You might end up down here forever, staring at the wall. Stephen coughed a little. Just giving advice, Callum said.

I dumped out the bag and found what had been inside was a bunched-up police uniform, complete with the vest. Where did you get this? Boo asked. It's Callum's, he said. What's he wearing? At the moment, not much of anything. Put it on. I noticed Book perk up a bit at this piece of information.

We heard her come halfway up the stairs, where she must have seen the bedroom light on. Again, the normal parent reaction would have been to say something like, You had better come out this moment or I am releasing the tiger! But Debbie was not a normal parent, so we heard her gigle and creep away, saying, Shhh! Rachel! Come with Mommy! Stuart is busy!

Vitamin D," Stevie said. "You need it." "You don't know that," he said. "I want to eat my meat in my room with the lights off." "As a writer, are those really the words you want to use?" Stevie asked.

What do you do when the devil turns up in your living room and offers you everything you want?

We learn that many great thinkers were convinced that the Bible contained the Ancient Mysteries, but not in the literal words—that the words on the pages were codes, and that the Bible is comprised of heavy-handed and useless story covering up something much more important and interesting. I get the feeling that [Dan Brown] is trying to tell me something, but I am not biting, reader.

Nate, she is back - what are you doing? Janelle said. She's back! Janelle bounced on the balls of her feet a bit. I'm hugging you with my mind, he replied. I'm awkwardly accepting your hug in my mind, Stevie said.

Can I tell you something you really don't want to hear? He's going to break up with you. - Stuart

Well, what now? You have no job. I have no job. Wanna play Jenga?

I feel warm and reassured, I whispered. He's like Santa.

I could pretend, at least, and if I pretended long enough, maybe I could make it into a reality.

Fun fact, Stevie said, trying to lighten the mood in the vast, gloomy space. This fireplace? Henry the Eighth had one just like it, in Hampton Court. Albert Ellingham had an exact copy made. Fun fact, Nate replied, Henry the Eighth killed two of his wives. Who wants a murderer's fireplace? I'm not sure, but that's the name of my new game show.

The kidney was removed with great skill. We have an image of the kidney taken from that broadcast. Viewers are advised that the following image is quite graphic, and- I am getting so sick of looking at this kidney, I said. It's a farce, Jazza replied. They act like they're shocked and horrified, and then they show it off twenty times a day. Have you seen the singing kidney video? I asked. Ugh. No. It's really funny. You should watch it.

It wasn't ass-screaming Beaker, though. It was fourteen girls in matching, form fitting sweats, all of which read RIDGE CHEERLEADING on the butt. (A form of ass-screaming, I suppose.) Each had her name on the back of her sleek warm-up fleece. They clustered around the snack bar, yelling at the top of their lungs. I really hoped and prayed that they wouldn't all say Oh my God! at once, but my prayers were not heard, maybe because God was busy listening to all of them.

All right. Normal rules apply. Right. The man walked off, leaving us. What are the normal rules? I asked. He walks away and has a tea break and doesn't ask any questions.

A pause while my mother made high-pitched sisterly devotions of gratitude.