James Patterson

“Fang (sarcasticaly): Go pick out a tree and I'll carve our initials in it.Max: (screams and goes in the bathroom)”

“So there you have it, the extent of my charms: brown hair and eyes like unbarfed chocolate. I'm a lucky girl." -Max”

“There is one bright side to this," said Fang.Yeah? What's that?" The new and improved Erasers would mutilate us before they killed us?He grinned at me so unexpectedly I forgot to flap for a second and dropped several feet. "You looove me," he crooned smugly. Holding his arms out wide he added, "You love me this much."My shriek of appalled rage could probably be heard in California, or maybe Hawaii.”

“How could you stop loving me?”

“Reading is not work, not a chore, not a drudgery; reading is the most joyful thing, yet, in the world.”

“Are you fangalicious? -Jess, a random bloggerI could never be as fangalicious as you'd want me to be.-Fang”

“Im a girl who has been tamping down her emotions and keeping them tightly guarded her whole life. And that works really well for me... And now I felt like my shell had a dangerous crack in it. Without much more effort on his part, it would split wide open and my enormous river of emotions would gush out - the bad and the good. It was pretty much the scariest thing I'd ever thought of." - Maximum Ride.”

“What kind of thoughtless creep would burn a book?”

“They aren't the brightest crayons in the box-Max(saving the world and other extreme sports)”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I need to help you because fair is fair? Try, ‘I need you to help me so I won’t rip out your spine and beat you with it.’ I might respond to that. Maybe.”

“Plus her mom was so awesome. She was strict about some things—don’t leave your socks lying around—but so not strict about other things, like calling the cops about my bullet wound.”

“She didn't flirt with him, but they hung out together a lot, and every time I saw their heads bent over a computer screen or map, it made my stomach clench. And my teeth. And my fists.”

“This is my brain: OThis is my brain after making out with Fang: *It's very sad.”

“It's for upset stomachs,' Dylan said, trying to hide a smile. He pointed to the words in the box. 'It's to reduce gas in your digestive system, not to create more gas to make explosions.'Gazzy's face fell as Iggy said. 'Really? Gazzy take it! Take the whole box!''I second that emotion!' said Total.”

“We try not to encourage demonstrations of his mastery of the gaseous arts.”

“I had a question. 'Why does the name Pearl Harbor sound so familiar?'The lieutenant colonel's eyes narrowed. 'Pearl Harbor is the most famous U.S. military base in the world,' he said crisply. 'It's the only place on U.S. soil that has been attacked in a wars, since the Revolutionary War.'None of this was ringing a bell, but you already know I'm totally uneducated. Gazzy leaned over to whisper, 'It was a movie with Ben Affleck.'Ah. Now I remembered.”

“Yes. I owed my life, Angel's life, and my mother's life to a mutant's ability to create industrial-strength snot.”

“Steve turned to us again, looking so dang enthusastic that I wondered how much coffee he'd had this morning. "So, you kids want to be big stars, eh?"God, no!" I said spewing crumbs. "No way!"Oddly, this seemed to throw a petite wrench into the convo.”

“Please, sit down," Sharon said with another hair toss. I made a mental note to practice doing that in a mirror the next time I saw one. it seemed a useful skill, right up there with roundhouse kicks.”

“Max-I'm not going to die today.”

“Max-Dogs, dogs, go away, let me live another day.”

“It gets so tiring, this strong-picking-on-the-weak stuff. It was the story of my life -literally- and it seemed to be a big part of the outside world too. I was sick of it, sick of guys like these, stupid and bullying.”

“Yeah, and so Max and Dylan are supposed to, like, go to Germany and have kids together," I heard Gazzy say. My eyes popped open and I bolted upright."What?" Fang said, his voice icy."Gazzy!" I yelled.Wide blue eyes looked at me in surprise, then back at Fang's stoic face. "Oh. Was I not supposed to say anything?" Gazzy asked.”

“You really are a scary man,no really! If I had boots I would be quaking in them.”

“We'll all go out together when we go.Yes, we'll all go out together when we go.Oh, how the world will dieFrom great fire in the sky.Yes, we'll all go out together when we go."(Total) Call me old fashioned but I'll take 'She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain' any day.”

“Gazzy sniffed the air. "That's explosives. It smells like Christmas!"Okay, so we've had somewhat untraditional Christmases. With explosives.”

“The act of laughing releases some nice chemical into your brain, you feel good and it's free.”

“Listen, street punk. You're a guy, and you're a couple inches taller, and maybe forty pounds heavier, and ooh, you're in a gang. But I've survived ten years of Catholic school, and I will cut you off at your knees without a blink. Do you understand?”

“I had to give him props, but how annoying of him to be a hero when I was trying so hard to dislike him. It was downright selfish.”

“Bombs are good. I love bombs."--Iggy”

“And Flock Rule Number Two is, Don't argue with Max or you'll live to regret it." I spun and stomped out to the clearing, turning back for one last jab at Dylan. "And by the way, you clearly DON'T know me better than Fang does. Do you see Fang arguing with me? No, you do not."Fang rolled his eyes.”

“I choose you," he said very softly, "Max."Then his hard, rough hand tenderly cuppoed my chin, and suddenly his mouth was on mine, and every synapse in my brain shorted out.We had kissed a couple of times before, but this was different. This time, I squelched my immediate, overwhelming desire to run away screaming. I closed my eyes and put my arms around him despite my fear. Then somehow we slid sideways so we were lying in the cool sand. I was holding him fiercely, and he was kissing me fiercely, and it was...just so, so intensely good. Once I got past my usual, gut-wrenching terror, there was a long, sweet slide into mindlessness, when all I felt was Fang, and all I heard was his breathing, and all I could think was "Oh, God, I want to do this all the time.”

“Walking over to Iggy, he poked him with his shoe. "Does anysing on you vork properly?"Iggy rubbed his forehead with one hand. "Well, I have a highly developed sense of irony."Ter Borcht tsked. "You are a liability to your group. I assume you alvays hold onto someone's shirt, yes? Following dem closely?""Only when I'm trying to steal their dessert," Iggy said truthfully.”

“De tall, dark vun--dere's nothing special about him at all," ter Borcht said dismissively of Fang, who hadn't moved since the doctor had come in.Well, he's a snappy dresser," I offered. One side of Fang's mouth quirked.”

“You don't speak much, do you?" ter Borcht said, circling him slowly.Fittingly, Fang said nothing.Vhy do you let a girl be de leader?" ter Borcht asked, a calculating look in his eye.She's the tough one," Fang said.Dang right, I thought proudly.Is dere anysing special about you?" asked ter Borcht. "Anysing vorth saving?"Fang pretended to think, gazing up at the ceiling. "Besides my fashion sense? I play a mean harmonica.”

“We would be outnumbered a couple hundred to two, by something worse than Erasers. I had no idea if the rest of the Flock would be able to help.It was pretty much a suicide mission.Again.'There is one bright side to this,' said Fang.'Yeah? What's that?' The new and improved Erasers would mutilate us before they killed us?He grinned at me so unexpectedly that I forgot to flap for a second and dropped several feet. 'You looove me,' he crooned smugly. Holding his arms out wide, he added, 'You love me this much.'My shriek of appalled rage could probably be heard in California, or maybe Hawaii.”

“Gazzy: "Just Ten?"Angel: "No."Gazzy: "Five?"Angel: "No.”

“Tell me again what we're doing here," I said, running a continuous scan of our surroundings. Fang popped some Cracker Jack into his mouth. "We're here to watch manly men do manly things."I followed Fang's line of sight: He was watching the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, who were not doing manly things, by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Sometimes when you're at your most certain, that's when everything you know is wrong.”

“Sometimes a happy delusion is better than grim reality.”

“Lots of women are gifting themselves with diamonds for their right hand.”

“When your own romantic life is falling apart, everyone else's looks fabulous.”

“You are an endless project...changing, evolving, surprising.”

“Some kids get called 'bundles of joy' or 'slices of heaven' or 'dreams come true.' We got 'the fifty-fourth generation of DNA experiments.' Doesn't have the same warm and fuzzy feel. But maybe I'm oversensitive.”

“Who, last time I'd checked, was still on our official archenemy list. (Yes, we have to keep a list. It's kind of sad.)”

“I looked around. As flock leader, everyone was expecting me to make a decision. Jeb's presence here would bring uncertainty, chaos, probably danger.It would perk up my day.”

“Yeah, you're sitting in a tree because you're fine. That's easy to see. I can't believe this is Maximum Ride, destroyer of despots, warrior hottie, leader of the flock! All you need now to make yourself more pathetic is a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream!”

“He could totally be your boyfriend," [Angel] went on with annoying persistance. "You guys could get married. I could be like a junior bridesmaid. Total could be your flower dog.""I'm only a kid!" I shrieked. "I can't get married!""You could in New Hampshire."My mouth dropped open. How does she know this stuff? "Forget it! No one's getting married!" I hissed. "Not in New Hampshire or anywhere else! Not in a box, not with a fox! Now go to sleep, before I kill you!”

“The guys were totally skuzzy, grinning horribly, showing holes where teeth should be. “Boys, God doesn’t like you,” Fang intoned behind them. Whaaat? I thought, dumbfounded. “Wha!” they said, whirling. At that moment, Fang snapped out his huge wings and shone the penlight under his chin so it raked his cheekbones and eyes. My mouth dropped open. He looked like the angel of death. His dark wings filled the hallway almost to the ceiling, and he moved them up and down. “God doesn’t like bad people,” he said, using a really weird, deep voice. “What the heck?” one of the squatters murmured shallowly, his mouth slack, his eyes bugging out of his head. I whipped my own wings open. Fun, anyway. “This was a test,” I said, using my best spooky voice. “And guess what? You both failed.” The bums stopped dead, looks of horror and amazement on their faces. Then Fang growled, “Rowr!” He stepped forward, sweeping his wings up and down: the avenging demon. I almost cracked up. “Rowr!” I said myself, shaking my wings out. “Ahhhhh!” the guys yelled, backpedaling fast. Unfortunately, they were standing at the top of the staircase. They fell awkwardly, trying to grab each other, and rolled down two flights like lumpy bags of potatoes, shrieking the whole way. Fang and I slapped each other a quick high five—and we were out of there, jack.”

“I took a bite of cookie and chewed. “Hmmm,” I said, trying not to spit crumbs. “Clear vanilla notes, too-sweet chocolate chips, distinct flavor of brown sugar. A decent cookie, not spectacular. Still, a good-hearted cookie, not pretentious.” I turned to Fang. “What say you?” “It’s fine.” Some people just don’t have what it takes to appreciate a cookie.”