Kathe Koja

“Gone as usual in the morning, and me left behind and naked, inner thighs lightly scaled with the dried spoor of our lovemaking: she liked to stay on top afterward and let the juice run down, and I liked whatever she liked. Imagining in the shower that I could smell her still, the angular scent of those secret bones, had she always smelled so fierce and so good? Recalling those gone times, old memories lit by the fire of the new, I did not this time wonder how long it would last; I was too smart for that now. Take what you get, and don’t think. Of course it could never be that easy, but there were moments, like now, that I could successfully pretend that it was, and I had no inclination to try to peer past those moments. I’m not one who wants to know the future: at the best it spoils the present, with longing or dismay, and at the worst, well. Who really wants to find out how tight the sling is, for your own very personal ass, who wants to know how deep the shit will really be? Not you. Not me either. Because it’s rarely bliss saved up, is it, when you finally get there. I’ll take my now, waking with a lover’s scent on me, around me, take my hopes before they’re maybe tragedy; a good morning is still a good morning, even if it leads to apocalypse at night.”

“The verge, he likes to say. That's where we want them, the utter, utter verge.”

“If there is any God in this world, He lives in a theatre.”

“The stage is not only a world apart, it is a myriad of worlds, and in those worlds a man can have anything he fancies, if only he believes in what he sees.”

“You see, that hunger inside us, that ambition, or whatever you may choose to call it, is a compass really, a compass of true desire. And if you will be happy, you must follow that desire, no matter which way the needle points.”

“In history, in a movie, in a book, you can always tell who the heroes are; they're the ones rushing into a burning building, giving crucial testimony inthe courtroom, refusing to step to the back of the bus. They're the ones whoact the way you hope you would, if the moment came to you.But the movies and the history books never tell you how they felt, thoseheroes, if they were angry or uncertain or afraid, if they had to think along time before they did the right thing, if they even knew what the rightthing was or just made a headlong guess, just leaped and hoped they landedinstead of falling. They never tell you what it's like to stand on thebrink, wishing you were somewhere--or someone--else, wishing the choice hadnever come your way and you could just go back to your safe, ordinary,everyday life.Because you know what else the books never say? Nobody, hero or not, reallywants to rush into a fire. Because fire burns.”

“Do you know the concept of karma? It’s kind of like a circle, or cause-and-effect, like a slow-tolling bell you rang maybe a year ago, five years ago, maybe in another lifetime if you believe in that. Karma means that what you do today, and why you do it, makes you who you are forever: as if you were clay, and every thought and action left a mark in that clay, bent it, shaped it, even ruined it… but with karma there are no excuses, no explanations, no I-didn’t-really-mean-it-so-can-I-have-some-more-clay. Karma takes everything you do very, very seriously.”

“I used to send my characters into a fire that necessarily consumed them, but I have learned, a little, how to send them through the fire to a new place. The characters who do not change — most notably Nakota in Cipher, Bibi in Skin, and Lena in Kink — are motivated by an essential selfishness or self-centeredness, an unwillingness to relinquish control to the process, a refusal to become.”

“[Lindsay] But I don't want to think about all that now, Boring Blake and his broken heart which is really his deflated dick, that's all he cares about anyway...”

“I knew that change was coming, the way you know things you can't see, by feeling them; by instinct. The way the bees know everything they know.”

“She opened my closet door just the tiniest crack. So I could breathe.”

“I'm just going to jump and say:hey Mom, Dad, I'm gay, What's for dessert?”

“Recalling those gone times, old memories lit by the fire of the new, I did not this time wonder how long it would last; I was too smart for that now. Take what you get, and don't think. Of course it could never be that easy, but there were moments, like now, that I could successfully pretend that it was, and I had no inclination to try to peer past those moments. I'm not one who wants to know the future: at the best it spoils the present, with longing or dismay, and at the worst, well. Who really wants to find out how tight the sling is, for your own very personal ass, who wants to know how deep the shit will really be. Not you. Not me either. Because it's rarely bliss saved up, is it, when you finally get there. I'll take my now, waking with a lover's scent on me, around me, take my hopes before they're maybe tragedy; a good morning is a good morning, even if it leads to apocalypse at night.”

“To work and work and never mind why; if you kept looking for the why behind everything you might never work again, you might never bother to breathe again.”