Stacia Kane

“Sure. Focused. Let's totally ignore any possible other avenues and just tunnel-vision our way along. Maybe we'll get lucky and blunder into a Lamaru hangout, right?”

“She stayed out there, staring into the snow until the chevelle's engine noise faded into the distance. He was gone, and she was alone up there, alone and apart from the city so peaceful under it's snowy blanket. The buildings spreading from the edge of her roof were full of people, full of lives. Inside them lovers huddled together against the cold. Inside them families laughed or fought or whatever it was families did together. And here she stood, invisible, trapped, alone. And for the first she can remember alone didn't feel very good. And that was the scariest thing of all.”

“He kissed her, slow and tender, like she mattered. Because she did, at least to him. And she thought she might even be able to believe it.”

“Love was full of secrets. Love masked so many evils. Love controlled people, it liked to them, it made them believe things that weren’t true and it hid the truth from them. People said love was blind, but what they meant was that love blinded them. It made them more vulnerable than anything else could. And it felt so fucking good.”

“Yes, Lex was her friend. Yes, she wanted to help him out. But Terrible … he wasn’t her friend, he was her life.”

“And the living prayed to their gods and begged for rescue from the armies of the dead, and there was no answer. For there are no gods.”

“Thou mutters, Miss Putnam. Speak up.”Like she couldn’t hear. She’d hear Chess if Chess ran to the other end of the room, covered her mouth with her hands, and whispered “Fuck you,” but she couldn’t hear Chess standing four feet away from her.”

“Terrible was... He was a miracle in a world without miracles, and she couldn't believe her luck. And there was nothing, absolutely fucking nothing, that she wouldn't do to keep him in her life. Because without him it wouldn't be a life at all.”

“Give you whatany you want, Chessiebomb. Anything.”

“Just thinking about him made her smile, sent a cheerful little shiver up her spine. Love was terrifying and weird, and sometimes uncomfortable. But it was so fucking sweet”

“Yeah, I lied and I shouldn’t have and it was lousy of me and I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you, I never wanted that, and I wish so bad I could take it all back, okay? But we both know which one of us is lying now and it’s not me. So you call me when you want to actually talk to me and not just yell at me or tell me what a shitty person I am. I already…yeah, I already know that, okay?”

“She was alive, and she was stuck in this fucking tunnel, and she had just broken a fuck of a hex ward, and now she was going to have to walk through the toad-door into who-the-fuck-knew-what with someone who touched her only under duress. Some days it just didn’t pay to get out of bed.”

“Oh, who was she kidding? She wasn’t fucking lucky. But hope sprang eternal, for whatever stupid reason.”

“Terrible’s eyes narrowed; he gave Chess the kind of look most people reserved for ax murderers. Ax murderers who killed children. And kittens.”

“His hand touched the back of her neck, gave a gentle squeeze. "Takes a many of them make one almost as good as you.”

“Fuck. This was bad. It had happened, hadn't it? The thing she thought would never happen, the thing she was always so careful not to have happen. She'd lost count, she'd lost track of what exactly she'd taken, and it had happened.”

“But she'd forgotten. She'd forgotten because she'd been so busy thinking of her own fucking feelings. As if she fucking mattered.”

“Devil drew his fist back, ready to hit Terrible one final time while he lay defenseless. Hot bright hatred raged through Chess's body. She still had her knife; if he hit Terrible again, if he killed Terrible, she was going to slice that motherfucker's throat all by herself and dance in his blood.”

“Instead of more money she ended up with more drugs. Something told her that was probably not healthy. Something else in her didn’t give a shit. And the rest of her was realistic enough to know it didn’t matter.”

“She was here, and she was stronger than this, harder than this. They could make her hate herself, make her doubt herself, but they couldn’t take away her deepest instinct. Not just the need to survive, but the need to survive long enough and strong enough to tell them to go fuck themselves.”

“Shit. I want you, Chess. Make no mistake on that one, dig? Want you bad. So bad I ain’t even can think of any else sometimes, ’cept gettin you under me. Ain’t give a fuck what pills you swallow get you through the day or what happens you ain’t got em, aye? Still want you.”

“That was the problem with love, though, wasn't it. It couldn't be helped, couldn't be controlled. It just roared in and took whatever it wanted, destroyed whatever it wanted; the most dangerous addiction of all, because nobody survived it intact. But an addiction that was impossible to let go.”

“Like electricity running through her body or the thick velvet of magic making everything tingle; she was hot and cold and shivering from both, her sense in total overload. - City of Ghosts”

“Love you, Chessie,” he murmured. “Ain’t never … Fuckin love you, more’n anything.”

“How I can do that one, aye? Leave my Chessiebomb there without me.”

“Mine, Chessie." [...] "Aye? Fuckin--mine. Not his.”

“Ain’t ever been the type for lazin, aye?” His hands slid down over her hips. “Why we ain’t leave now, I show you—”

“Shit. You so fuckin pretty, Chessie. True thing. So … ain’t even can breathe sometimes.”

“Fuck, she was so sick of herself-herself and her fucking emotional retardation. How did people do this shit all the time, this wanting people, caring about them? How did they stand it, how did they ever get anything done? She was sick of being lost.”

“I ain't...Don't know how to say it up right. Never--Fuck, Chess. Thought you was dead once before, you recall? Never felt so bad in my life, not ever. Then on the other day, thought you was gone and just....I can't do it, bein without you.”

“Damn. Six feet four and everything in proportion, the quote went. It was true in this case.”

“If they were going to have the kind of discussion that ended with her feeling like the world's dumbest bitch, she'd like to at least have some pants on.”

“Smart to avoid being with anyone she might actually really feel something for, who might actually really feel something for her. Smart to avoid getting involved with people she knew she could -”

“Oh shit, she'd done that wrong, hadn't she? She'd said that wrong, he didn't understand what she meant. She'd thought he would know, that he'd be able to read between the lines and understand, but what if he hadn't? SHould she say more? But how much more?”

“HOw did you tell someone the truth when you weren't even sure what that was?”

“It was like digging for gold in a garbage pile. And if that little analogy didn't tell her something, she didn't know what could.”

“Fiction may be about lying – on the surface, anyway – but fiction is about hiding the truth behind those lies. It's about using those lies to say something true and real. It's about showing the reader something. It's about making them feel.And how we do that as authors is to put ourselves into our work, and make it mean something to us, so that it will mean something to the reader. That's what we should do. That's our job.”

“Well, lookee there. Be a fuck of a night, yay?”

“Ain’t got no shit to fuckin worry on, dig. Ladybird good enough to handle any all comes she fuckin way.”

“She’d really made the fuckup that kept on fucking up, hadn’t she?”

“Bump looked from one of them to the other. “What we fuckin got here, you playin a fuckin show-an-tell? I ought should go get me something for holding up, an join the fuck in?”

“She wasn’t going to lie and she wasn’t going to try to hide Terrible or who he was. She loved him and he was hers, and that made her so proud her chest hurt, and if anybody didn’t like it they could go fuck themselves.”

“Then again, she had-through a bizarre combination of skill, dumb luck and incredible misfortune-managed to build up a file any Debunker would envy.”

“He's my family," she said finally. Quietly. "He's everything.”

“NO reader has ANY obligation to an author, whether it be to leave a review or to write a "constructive" one. I put out a product. You are consumers of that product. Since when does that mean you have to kiss my ass? Hey, I like Pop-Tarts and eat them a few times a year; since when does that mean I'm obligated to support Kellogg's in any way except legally purchasing the Pop-Tarts before I eat them? I wasn't aware that purchasing and consuming a product meant I was under some sort of fucking thrall in which I'm only allowed to either praise the Pop-Tart (which to be honest isn't hard, especially the S'mores flavor) or, if I am going to criticize a flavor, offer a specific and detailed analysis as to why, phrased in as inoffensive and gentle a manner as possible so as not to upset the gentle people at Kellogg's."[Something in the Water? (blog post; January 9, 2012)]”

“it seems too easy.""some of the best things are," he said.”

“Readers have the right to say whatever the fuck they want about a book. Period. They have that right. If they hate the book because the MC says the word “delicious” and the reader believes it’s the Devil’s word and only evil people use it, they can shout from the rooftops “This book is shit and don’t read it” if they want. If they want to write a review entirely about how much they hate the cover, they can if they want. If they want to make their review all about how their dog Foot Foot especially loved to pee on that particular book, they can."[Blog entry, January 9, 2012]”

“Funny how addiction was socially acceptable—even a status symbol—when it made people extroverts rather than introverts”

“But then, anyone was capable of any manner of atrocities if they wanted something bad enough. People could justify anything to themselves if they wanted it bad enough. No one was immune to that.”

“His hands on the sides of her face, on her neck, holding her there. "Chessie...shit, Chessie, I love you so bad." His teeth on her throat, biting hard, his lips soothing the spot. "So fucking much, so...so bad.”