School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense and common decency. It doesn't take a reasonably bright boy long to discover that most of what is rammed into him is nonsense, and that no one really cares very much whether he learns it or not.
Tell him he's wrong. Tell him that even if he's right about waiting, he's right for the wrong reasons, and that makes him all the way wrong.
Jake went in, aware that he had, for the first time in three weeks, opened a door without hoping madly to find another world on the other side. A bell jingled overhead. The mild, spicy smell of old books hit him, and the smell was somehow like coming home.
You love tests?' 'Well, yeah. There are questions and answers. True or false, multiple choice, essay. What's not to love?
In the center lay the exploded carcass of a lonely sperm whale that hadn't lived long enough to be disappointed with its lot.
Very deep. You should send that in to the Reader's Digest. They've got a page for people like you.
If miracles had chemical equations then everyone would believe.
Freedom comes when you see the built-in contradiction of trying to manipulate something that is going right to begin with.... Stop trying to steer the river.
I do not fight battles that cannot be won. Do not confuse that with cowardice.
It was one of those moments that would have had dramatic music if my life were a movie, but instead I got a radio jingle for some kind of submarine sandwich place blaring over the store's ambient stereo. The movie of my life must be really low-budget.
The problem with surviving was that you ended up with the ghosts of everyone you'd ever left behind riding on your shoulders.
Without war there are no heroes. What harm would that be? Oh, Lavinia, what a woman's question that is.
Oh, never and forever aren't for mortals, love. But we won't be parted till I know it's right that we part.
When you were alone in the rising ocean, you grabbed whatever raft passed by.
Humans were built to look back; that's why we have that swivel joint in our necks
But then, that was the problem with pretty toy stitches. When real life got hold of them, they always tore out.
No one else noticed, or cared. It was just something they did. Taking other people's livestock. Other people's lives. She watched the soldiers, hating them. They were different in so many ways, white and black, yellow and brown, skinny, short, tall, small, but they were all the same. Didn't matter if they wore finger-bone necklaces, or baby teeth on bracelets, or tattoos on their chests to ward off bullets. In the end, they were all mangled with battle scars and their eyes were all dead.
She'd survived the Drowned Cities because she wasn't anything like Mouse. When the bullets started flying and warlords started making examples of peacekeeper collaborators, Mahlia had kept her head down, instead of standing up like Mouse. She'd looked out for herself, first. And because of that, she'd survived.
Some things, it was better not to think about. It just made you mad and angry.
They'd blame a castoff just for breathing. You could be good as gold and they'd still blame you.
