Sarah Rees Brennan

“Nick is driving us," Jamie informed him. "Nick has a car. Nick has TWO cars. Ha!”

“I'll drive both of you," Seb offered at once.Mae nodded at him with gratitude."No," Jamie said sternly. "I'm never getting into your horrible car. I promised myself that, because--it's horrible, and you're horrible. So take that!”

“Oh," Jamie offered in a bright voice. "I could cook some--""NO!" Mae, Annabel, and Nick all exclaimed as one.Annabel gave Nick a slightly startled look. He was too busy giving Jamie a forbidding look to notice. "Look, I am getting better," Jamie argued."I saw you put rice in a toaster once," said Mae. "I was there when you made that tin of beans explode.""It was faulty," Jamie protested, his eyes shifty. "I am sure of this.”

“Mae, he made me go out for a run," Jamie called out. "Tell him I don't run!" "Jamie and I are lilies of the field. We toil not, neither do we jog," Mae informed Nick.”

“Turns out he does run," Nick drawled. "Given an incentive. And he wouldn't be so out of breath if he hadn't kept shrieking.""That was not a shriek," Jamie said with dignity. "It was a husky masculine cry of terror.”

“And what are you doing here, Nicholas? Decided to watch me sleep?" "Yes," said Nick, and bowed is head over his sword again. He had tissues, oil, and sandpaper laid out on the windowsill in front of him, and a little stone block he was passing his sword up and down, very carefully. "I came to gaze upon your sleeping face. Only you had the blanket over your head, so I just had to gaze at a lump I thought was your sleeping face, and that turned out to be your shoulder. Which just wasn't as special." ~Nick and Mae”

“I don't imagine Sin gets that alot," Mae commented."What?""Boys not liking her," said Mae. "She's kind of amazing. And beautiful."She spoke almost absently, forehead pressed against the glass as she tried hard not to sleep. There was morning mist obscuring the fields on either side of the road, so dense and white it looked like there were mutant sheep lurking on all sides.It was possible that she was overtired."You're just as beautiful as she is," said Alan. That was a flat-out lie, like so much of what Alan said. Like so much of what Alan said, it sounded true. "And you read," he added."Uh, hot," said Mae, feeling quite a bit more awake. "Well," said Alan, faint color in his cheeks, "I think so." She wasn't the only one in the car feeling tense. There was a slight defensive posture to his shoulders now, as if admitting any sort of honest emotion, even something as simple as liking girls who read, was bound to get him hurt... "I'd rather be amazing than beautiful." "I think you are.”

“I didn't mean for you to take that the wrong way," He said abruptly. Mae stared at him in amazement. So, for that matter, did Jamie."What?""Demons don't touch anyone without a reason," Nick went on, his eyes shut again. "You can imagine what kind of reasons we usually have. I don't like--not anyone--I didn't mean anything by it.""Oh," said Jamie. "Oh, that's okay! That's fine. I understand. I am filled to the brim with understanding and, and acceptance! I'm very Zen like that.”

“Do you mean am I worried about people seeing me with my jeans off? Sure. Sometimes people are overcome. They fall down. They hit their heads. It's worrying.”

“You're barely even wearing a shirt! What are you going to do if a mugger jumps out at you, flash them?”

“Would it help if I stood around uselessly not knowing what to say?”

“Hey, Jamie,' said Seb. 'Want a lift?''Hey, Seb,' Jamie responded without missing a beat 'Drop dead.”

“She was kind of in love with him.”

“Fear's useless. Either something bad happens or it doesn't: If it doesn't, you've wasted time being afraid, and if it does, you've wasted time that you could have spent sharpening your weapons.”

“I'm told I have the body of a god.""A Greek god, or one of those gods with the horse heads or elephant's legs coming out of their chests?" Alan asked. "Next time someone tells you that, ask them to specify.”

“Well, speaking as a feminist, I'm glad that women can lead--uh, groups of unspeakable magical evil.""Yes," Alan said gravely. "It'd be shoking if the evil magicians were sexist. For one thing, that would mean they were stupid, and having stupid enemies would be a terrible blow to my manly pride.”

“Sometmes when you pull knives on people, they get this impression that you're going to hurt them, and then they're completely terrified. Crazy, I know!""Okay," said Nick. He turned to Jamie & popped his left wrist sheath again. "Look."Jamie backed up. "Which part of 'completely terrified' did you translate as 'show us your knives, Nick'? Don't show me your knives, Nick. I have no interest in your knives."Nick rolled his eyes. "This is a quillon dagger. That's a knife with a sword handle. I like it because it has a good grip for stabbing.""Why do you say these things?" Jamie inquired piteously. "Is it to make me sad?""I didn't have you cornered," Nick went on. "You could've run. And this dagger doesn't have an even weight distribution; it's absolute rubbish for throwing. If I had any intention of hurting you, I'd have used a knife I could throw."Jamie blinked. "I will remember those words always. I may try to forget them, but I sense that I won't be able to.”

“I am in full possession of the amazing power of being sarcastic.”

“You want useless, you have come to the right guy. I can be useless for hours at a time. Weeks even. I'm currently closing in on a month of being totally useless, which is by way of being a personal best.”

“Friends don't menace friends with giant terrifying swords, okay?”

“It was all right. Nick thought about this and decided that what Alan said was true. He'd never been helpless before, not since he could remember, but now he was and everything was all right. He did not have to speak, he was not able to move, all he could do was lie there and have his brother hold him, hunched over and shielding him from the world.”

“Lots of kids in books are only-child orphans, but I think it’s fun to have family as part of the adventure, to have familial love be as important as romantic love, and to show that love can go through fire and darkness - not unchanged, because experiences like that change everyone - but never faltering”

“Not really a party until someone brings the surprise zombies.”

“Sometimes I want to be human for you.”

“In two worlds," said Alan quietly, "there is nothing I love half as much as you.”

“Want me to flex my magic for you, baby?”

“Sometimes I feel better around you. I kind of like your face' -Nick”

“I don't want to seem ungrateful when you have given me this thoughtful, homemade and totally terrifying gift," Jamie told him. "But you can't imagine I'm going to use it.""Just to hold someone off. Just remember what I taught you," said Nick. "Just buy a little time so I can come get you. Jamie. I'll come get you.”

“I have changed my mind. You can help cook by standing in a corner and not touching anything. Do it carefully.-Nick to Jamie”

“He knew her now. She was the weird girl in the class above him, who dyed her hair pink and always wore a lot of pentragrams and crystals. Right now she was also wearing giant chandelier earings and a violent pink T-Shirt that bore the words ROMEO AND JULIET WOULDN'T HAVE LASTED.”

“I don’t know what I saw. It could’ve been a hallucination. You get those from sniffing glue.” “You’ve never sniffed glue!”“I’ve smelled glue,” Jamie said after a pause. “In art class.”

“I expected something a little more castle-shaped," said Jamie.Nothing lasts forever," Nick said. "Except demons, of course."Has anyone ever told you that you're a charming conversationalist?" Jamie asked.No," Nick replied honestly.I cannot tell you how much that surprises me," Jamie told him, and Nick gave him a half smile.”

“The drab brown front of the house made it look as if it had been built from rusty spare parts. Someone always put lace curtains in the windows of dreary houses, and Nick was unsurprised to see the curtains making their attempts in every window of this place. There was a china garden gnome on the doorstep, wearing a desperate, crazy smile."It's not so bad," Alan said."You never take me nice places anymore, baby." said Nick, and was mildly gratified by Alan's ring of laughter, like a living bell that had been caught by surprise when it was struck.”

“He only shot one person," Nick remarked. "But the night is young." . . . Forgive him, he has no manners."I get by on good looks," Nick said.”

“On the morning of the fourth day, Jamie tipped a switchblade out of his box of cornflakes.  “I think these promotional campaigns have really got out of hand,” he said, freezing with his hand on the milk carton. “One shiny free knife with every packet of cereal bought is not a good message to send out to the kiddies.”

“Get down,' he whispered.  'I’m way ahead of you,' Jamie said from the floor.”

“Real life is sometimes boring, rarely conclusive and boy, does the dialogue need work.”

“Once you start thinking about the lies people tell when they don't know they're telling them, the truths people reveal when they think they're lying, then you can start to build a world.”