Jordan Castillo Price

“You don’t have to be psychic to end up knowing things you were a lot happier not knowing.”

“Or you can fake your own death," Bill suggested."Because really, that's the most cathartic resolution—if all your friends and family think you're dead. Everyone cries, they have a little rant about all your potential going to waste, they put on a memorial service and you can hide and see who bothers to come—and if you're really lucky, they bury an empty coffin. When they couldn't even be bothered to spot you a twenty 'til payday. You know how much booze you could buy for the cost of a single coffin?”

“We stick together from now on.” He spoke quietly, but he stared me right in the eye as he said it. Be still, my beating heart.”

“The perfect quote sprang to mind, but I resisted saying it under my breath, since Jonathan would hear. I couldn’t even mouth the words, since for all I knew, he’d hear my lips moving. So I conjured up a vision of the Tin Man and let him say it for me in my head. “Now I know I’ve got a heart. I can feel it breaking.”

“Now I knew how women felt when they thought they were going to get a diamond ring and ended up with an onion ring”

“When people die,” I said, “and you’ll be able to verify this for yourself—most of ’em move on. A few of ’em stick around. But the ones who stick around are usually messed-up. Murders and suicides, or people with unfinished business. As for accidents and illness—at the very worst, they leave a little residue. A repeater. A psychic impression of the final moments, like a moving snapshot. I think the spirits of those repeaters, they’re fine. They go wherever it is people…go. When they die.”

“You shot heroin in the bathroom while I was disinfecting the kitchen. Didn’t you?”“Of course not.” He pulled on his gloves and led the way into the building. “I hatched from a pod and hid the real Jonathan under the floorboards.”“You’re much less creepy when you’re pensive and focused. Just so you know.”

“Gee, I wasn't as up on my Native American traditions as the chick who used to call herself Faun fucking Windsong even though she was fifteen sixteenths as lily-white as me. Imagine that.”

“And besides, my back feels naked without Jacob curled against it.”

“You've been really hard on my clothes lately", I said. I pushed him away just enough to slip out of my T-shirt and drop it on the floor before he turned it into a stretched-out rag."I've been really hard...and your clothes are in my way.”

“He was nuts. He'd scammed the quarterly mental health exam and was certifiably insane.Not that that's ever stopped me from sleeping with anyone.”

“Victor, back there in that basement, when the zombies were… were… moving around on those tables…. Twitching? And dead? You didn’t even blink.This is nothing like those zombies.No shit. Because this time, you’re scared—beyond scared. You’re terrified. And whatever’s got you scared? I don’t want any part of it.”

“‎"Your heart is in your chest. It supplies the blood to your cells. Even if you don't think about it, your heart is always pumping. The heart is the most important organ in the body. Without it, you will die."'What grade are you teaching these days?' Joel asked. ' Because either this is really sad...or really profound.”

“If everything were anything," Chance said softly, "the barriers would break down, and we'd all lose ourselves to chaos. And then there would be no cotton candy.”

“Those wire baskets where you leave your paperwork to die...”

“I'd like to think that we're not just sacks of biological goo careening through a random universe.”

“Queer. And not in the way I like.”

“No wonder I worried about talking dirty; talking in general seemed to escape me.”

“What the fuck happened to you? [...] You look like you lost a fight with a lamprey. Hickey, hickey...bruise, bruise, bruise...bite. I thought that thing on your neck the other day was just a fluke. I guess not--looks like you get off on picking up a few souvenirs when you...get off. ~Crash”

“Renfield, my ass. What I had on my hands was a Van Helsing.”

“Although Ryan hardly knew the person whose breath was playing over his cheek any better than he had mere seconds before, the simple exchange of names—or initials—had raised the bar for the encounter from anonymously seedy to merely impulsive. He’d always admired impulsiveness, though he’d never successfully cultivated the tendency in himself. Impulsive people seemed to get what they wanted. And if not, they looked like they had a lot of fun trying.”

“I'd blow someone for a valium," I said in Jacob's ear."Maybe he's got one... but try offering a hand-job first so you retain some leverage.”

“My waking life probably gave my subconscious an inferiority complex.”

“A psycho murderer who lubed. How considerate.”

“I really hate threesomes when one of the participants is dead.”