Carla Speed McNeil

“...I can't answer that," replied the werewolf. "Like all good dogs, I'm a cynic, and therefore a little blind. I can only see things as they are, not as they ought to be...”

“Most of her contemporaries simply don't understand why she has all these paper books, or indeed all this paper.It's a hands-on craving. I can't remember anything unless I write it down or draw it. Many of our words for cognition are tactile words. We speak of "handling" a problem, "turning it over" in our minds, "grasping" an idea. A keyboard just doesn't do it for all of us.”

“If a thing is worth doing it's worth doing badly.”

“Excuse me.Nine hours ago, I broke off the single most pointlessly agonizing one-way relationship of my young life.It was a thin slice of hell, and now it is over.. He's not mine. He never will be mine, and I've thrown away three years of my life pining and hoping. Well, not anymore, and I need to get him out of my system. I've given the matter serious thought, and all I want right now is for some total stranger to nail me to a mattress for the next fourteen hours. I will almost certainly cry all over you and call you by his name, but I assure you that my sexual frustration has built to such a fever peak that I will fuck you dry. What do you say?""whine”

“Magic. I want magic. I want magic that works.THere is no doctor that can make the creature back into my daddy. No therapy that can make him into what he should have been.No going back to the beginning and rewriting. He is what he is and if I have to write what I know, I'm doomed, because I can never write about this, never.”

“The progression of minor keys...they're meant to represent imperfection..."I understand. But that is a philosophical conceit. All artists strive toward perfection or else lack fire."Imperfections make the gods draw near. They crave to fix things. Same way some people leap in to finish other people's sentences. God loves nothing better than to break perfect things.”

“They wept no animal's tears. They mourned in a great wickerwork of hard muscle and ragged breath. The hot smell of their coats, their black lips pulled back over ivory teeth, stiff sprays of white whiskers; their heavy hair plaited with silver and faience. Their thick hides shivered, as cattle will shiver away flies.I sweated and tried not to clear my throat.”

“The force of your gaze has a weight. Even sunlight resting on the ground weighs something. Your attention presses against its object, your eye projects it like a headlight.There's a flip side to it. Learn to go down inside yourself, dim the force of your presence. People's eyes will skate right over you.They'll see you; they just won'tnotice you. This works even if they're looking for you.”

“YOU! You're boring! You're not even good enough for a good insult! You're in the one place Where magic is always real! Part the seas if you want! Rain down ink and blood! Transform! Fly! You're not allowed to spend the rest of your life panicking! You've got to give something back if you want to get out of here!"What? What?? What do I give?"You've got stories in there, I know, I can smell 'em--"Stoppit, stoppit! I don't! I can't tell a story to save my life!"Funny you should put it that way.”