Maureen Johnson

“The day was ridiculous.In fact, the situation was so serious I thought they had to be joking - like maybe they staged a special first day to psych people out. I had one class in the morning, the mysteriously named "Further Maths." It was two hours long and so deeply frightening that I think I went into a trance.”

“What she didn't display, I noticed, was a boxful of swimming medals."Holy crap," I said, when she set them on the desk. "You're like a fish.""Oh. Um. Well, I swim, you see."I saw.”

“I feel warm and reassured," I whispered. "He's like Santa.”

“Dr. Everest, got up and gave us a little pep talk. Mostly it boiled down to the fact that it was autumn, and everyone was back, and while that was a great thing, people better not get cocky or misbehave or he'd personally kill us all. He didn't actually say those words, but that was the subtext.”

“You don't know me yet," I said."Rory was telling me she lives in a swamp," Charlotte said."That's right," I said, turning up my accent a little. "These are the very first shoes I've ever owned. They sure do pinch my feet."Jerome gave a little snort.”

“Prefects. I had learned this one. Student council types, but with superpowers. They who must be obeyed.”

“She called, "Aurora!" in a penetrating voice that could cause a small bird to fall dead out of the sky.”

“Something about her suggested that her leisure activities included wrestling large woodland animals and banging bricks together.”

“Probably some period thing. I go completely mental too. Period fever. It's the worst."This effectively killed all conversation for a while...."Fixed that," she said."You told him I had period fever," I replied. "There's no such thing as period fever.""No such thing as ghosts either.""No, there is really no such thing as period fever. There's a difference between being a guy and being an idiot.”

“...but somehow when it's real, when it's your life... that person can feel even farther off and more unobtainable than an actual celebrity. Proximity doesn't breed familiarity”

“One of them hung a pink bra from our lighting fixture. I left it there. It was a nice bra”

“People were freaked out, but they showed it in weird ways. Back home, people would have been weeping and doing a lot of very public group hugs. At Wexford people just aggressively pretended nothing had happened.”

“I don't think I've ever seen you without braids. I thought your hair just grew that way.”

“Proximity doesn't breed familiarity.”

“Kissing is something that makes up for a lot of other crap you have to put up with...It can be confusing and weird and awkward, but sometimes it just makes you melt and forget everything that is going on.”

“With that, I splashed some water on my face, fixed on a smile, and stepped out. I would find Jerome. I would make him explain to me what I was missing. We would laugh, then we would kiss with tongue, and all would be well.”

“She introduced herself to my parents with one of her mighty, bunny-crushing handshakes. (I'd never seen Claudia crush a bunny, to be fair, but that's the approximate level of pressure.)”

“Before I take you into the beating heart of the story, let’s get one thing out of the way. I know from experience that when it comes up later, it will distract you so much that you won’t be able to concentrate on anything else I will tell you. My name is Jubilee Dougal. Take a moment and let it sink in.”

“Perhaps it sounds like a wonderful thing to be born and raised in a small hotel in New York City. Lots of things sound fun until they are subjected to closer inspection. If you lived on a cruise ship, for example, you would have to do the Macarena every night of your life. Think about that.”

“The cast of Hamlet had not moved much. They had that haunted yet hopeful look in their eyes, like the ones you see in photographs of people crammed into steerage compartments, traveling to some new, unknown land.”

“It's this or a short hospital stay," she said, greeting Scarlett with a raised glass of a deep red liquid with a celery stalk sticking out of the top. "Bloody Marys are one of the truly medicinal cocktails. The only way I can beat this jet lag is by staying up all day, and this is going to keep me alive. And who is this?"This was directed at Marlene, who was stalking along behind Scarlett like a wet cat.”

“We Deveauxs preferred to talk you to death, rather than face you in physical combat.”

“I knew it was beautiful, but knowing something is beautiful and caring about it are two very different things, and I didn't care.”

“Can I tell you something you really don't want to hear? He's going to break up with you. - Stuart”

“It was almost funny. Life seemed downright accidental in its brevity, and death a punch line to a lousy joke.”

“In my mind, I said the best things to Elton. I wrote countless excellent notes that I never sent. I came up with clever and highly detailed imaginary situations in which we were thrown together and it somehow made him realize that life without me was a hollow shell. But he didn't look like a hollow shell. He looked like he was back on the soccer team, all calf muscles and lean body.”

“You're...a demon hunter?''It's not as exciting as it sounds,' he said. 'There is a surprising amount of paperwork involved.”

“Many large corporations are actually modeled on hell,' Brother Frank added. 'The policies and organization are almost idential. Hell, of course, is much worse.”

“These houses had been plunked down with an alarming randomness -- unevenly spaced, on crooked lines, like whoever had designed the place had said, "We'll just follow this cat, and wherever he sits down, we'll build something.”

“Walk really, really carefully. It's not complicated, but if you mess up, you'll die, so pay attention.”

“Braiiinnnnssss," we said in unison."It's both sad and incredibly impressive that you were all ready with that one.”

“It was clearly one of those mornings when I was particularly American.”

“Keep calm and carry on. Also, stay in and hide because the Ripper is coming.”

“I had always assumed the weekend was a holy tradition, respected by good people everywhere. Not so at Wexford.”

“The English play hockey in any weather. Thunder, lightening, plague of locusts...nothing can stop the hockey. Do not fight the hockey, for the hockey will win.”

“Welsh is an actual, currently used language and our next-door neighbors Angela and Gaenor spoke it. It sounds like Wizard.”

“Ah," he said. "I had an . . . artistic disagreement with the director of the panto. As it happens, I take issue with the objectification of women in Cinderella, and the reliance on shoes as a means of identification. Surely you understand.”

“This kind of thing always amazed Ginny--people who just walked away from institutions. People who left school when they didn't see the point. Aunt Peg had done that. Ginny knew she never would. That either made her someone who worked hard and finished things, or someone who didn't have the guts to break away from the pack. Maybe both.”

“Boo: "Go talk to her."Callum: "About what?"Boo: "Anything."Callum: "You want me to walk up to her and say, 'Are you a ghost?'"Boo: "I do that."Callum: "I love it when you get it wrong.”

“Rory: "People are being serious."Jazza: "There's a serial killer out there. Of course people are being serious."Rory: "Yeah, but what are the chances?"Jazza: "I bet all of the victims thought that."Rory: "But still, what are the chances?"Jazza: "Well, I imagine they are several million to one."Jerome: "Not that high. You're only dealing with a small part of London. And while there might be a million or more people in that area, the Ripper is probably focusing on women, because all of the original victims were women. So halve that--"Jazza: "You really need another hobby.”

“I looked at the stained-glass image of the lamb in the window above me, but that only reminded me that lambs are famous for being led to slaughter, or sometimes hanging out with lions in ill-advised relationships.”

“A lot of teenagers write to me and say "I want to write a book. I want to get published." And those are two very different things. For the first one, that you want to write a book, I think is an excellent idea and you should totally do that because teenagers who want to write, you should be writing. You should be writing all the time like a maniac. Don't worry about the second bit, just yet because A. You need a lot of practice. You need to do it for, I'm not kidding, years. And then once you are published, it's a business. It's a job. Plus, every author I know was that teenager who sat in their room and read and wrote. That's who becomes an author, but that's what you have to do for a while before you become an author.”

“I like you because you were mad. And you're pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.”

“I had one class in the morning, the mysteriously named "Further Maths". It was two hours long and so deeply frightening that I think I went into a trance.”

“Maybe this was what Aunt Peg meant all along - returning was a weird thing. You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe our what came before.”

“I still have a whopping bad case of what you call scag magnetism. I thought i had gotten rid of it there, but it looks like scary guys still materialize from thin air in my presence. They are drawn to me. I am the North Pole, and they are the explorers of love.”

“I am a mass of contradictions.”

“Sometimes artist like to catch themselves looking out, let the world see them for once. It's a signature. This one is a very bold one. But this is also a witnessing. We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That's why we paint.”

“Her kung fu is that powerful.”

“i miss you so much it's giving me a pain in my pancreas.”