Libba Bray
The rules of magic, my dear, are best not discusses. For once we understand the illusion, we no longer believe it.Collection: Believe
Everyone seems to want more form me. I am a thoroughly disappointing girl around. I shall wear a scarlet 'D' upon my bosom for all to see so that they will know not to raise their expectations.Collection: Girl
Travel opens your mind as few other things do.Collection: Mind
Ain't that a sight? With all the things we know and learn, we still ain't touched the big mysteries -- where we come from, where we go next, why we even her. And when something truly miraculous happens, we run and hide in our caves. We deny.Collection: Running
- 'Music opens your soul, makes you ready.' - 'Ready for what?' - He smiles big. 'Exactly.Collection: Soul
To live is to love, to love is to live.Collection: Love Is
Reality is a state of mind. To the banker, the money in his ledger book is all very real, though he doesn't actually see it or touch it. But to the Brahma, it simply doesn't exist the way the air and the earth, pain and loss do. To him, the banker's reality is folly. To the banker, the Brahma's ideas are as inconsequential as dust.Collection: Pain
Goodbye," I whisper at last, when it no longer matters and there is no one to hear it but the window.Collection: Goodbye
I'd like to thank readers. Every time you open a book, it is a strike against ignorance. Unless you're reading Sarah Palin.Collection: Book
- So my own sister will not promote me? Speaking of which, weren't you supposed to find me a beautiful future wife with a small fortune? Have you had any success on that front? - Yes - I have warned them all.Collection: Beautiful
...because really, sometimes the irony gods just get drunk.Collection: Drunk
The uncertainty of our future is nothing more than a fog of breath on a windowpane.Collection: Fog
How do people stay in love, anyway? Is it a choice? Or is it like those plants we studied in biology that mutate into something new and totally different but are still part of the same plant family?Collection: People
The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage.Collection: World
Look, I know this seems a little half-assed...' 'No, dude. I'd be thrilled if this plan were half-assed. This is, like, no-assed.' 'You're right. It's the most no-assed thing I've ever done in my life.Collection: Done
Think: who has vans, huh? Soccer moms and serial killers.Collection: Soccer
Beggin' your pardon, miss, but I was told you be the one to help me cross on to the next world." "Who told you this?" His eyes widen. "A fearsome creature with a head full of snakes!" "You musn't fear her," I say, taking the man's hand and leading his toward the river. "She's as tame as a pussycat. She'd probably lick your hand given the chance." "Didn't seem harmless," he whispers, shuddering. "Yes, well, things are not always as they appear, sir, and we must learn to judge for ourselves.Collection: Eye
Time has no meaning. I feel as if I have been left in the desert to die and am eagerly awaiting the vultures to begin their work and end my misery.Collection: Desert
Perhaps this is how girls fall -- not in some crime of enchantment at the hands of a wicked ne'er-do-well, a grand before and after in which they are innocent victims who have no say in the matter. Perhaps they simply are kissed and want to kiss back. Perhaps they even kiss first. And why should they not?Collection: Girl
Taylor clapped three times for attention. "Ladies! Ladies! My stars! That's enough. Now. We all know Miss Arkansas's girls are fake, Miss Ohio's easier than making cereal, and Miss Montana's dress is something my blind meemaw would wear to bingo night." - "Beauty QueensCollection: Girl
Chin held high, Miss Ohio beamed at an imagined crowd. "I want to be a motivational speaker." "What are you going to motivate people to do?" Smile still in place, she cut her eyes at Adina. "You know. Motivational ... stuff.Collection: Eye
You are unique, and this is a beautiful, beautiful thing, grasshopper.Collection: Beautiful
My platform's called Don't Even Think About It. I go to schools and I say, 'Whatever bad thing it is you're thinking of doing, don't even think about it. 'Cause I can see into your soul, and I will hide in your closet and come for you in the night, and the last sound you ever hear will be my sharp teeth popping through the flesh of my gums, ready to eat you.' Their eyes get all big. It's awesome. I love little kids, man. They're the cutestCollection: Eye
This is going to make such a great story: How I nursed a pirate back to health and my love saved him," Miss Ohio said with a contented sigh. "And then we can have our own reality show about our relationship." - "Beauty QueensCollection: Queens
What --- you don't believe in true love?" Petra asked. "The kind that can then be parlayed into awesome merchandising opportunities?" - "Beauty QueensCollection: Queens
You want to know what pain is? Try running out of Advil when you've got a Category Five period. I've had cramps that would make grown men beg for a bullet between the eyes." - Jennifer, "Beauty QueensCollection: Running
I've had so many bikini waxes, I cry every time I see a Popsicle stick.Collection: Girl
I'll try to communicate, Taylor said. She spoke slowly and deliberately. Hello! We need help. Is your village close? My village is Denver. And I think it's a long way from here. I'm Nicole Ade. Miss Colorado. We have a Colorado where we're from too! Tiara said. She swiveled her hips, spread her arms wide, then brought her hands together prayer-style and bowed. Kipa aloha. Nicole stared. I speak English. I'm American. Also, did you learn those moves from Barbie's Hawaiian Vacation DVD? Ohmigosh, yes! Do your people have that, too?Collection: Prayer
Ahem. Dear Jesus," Taylor intoned more fervently. "We just want to thank you for gettin' us here safe ---" There was a loud, gurgling groan. Somebody shouted, "Oh my gosh! Miss Delaware just died!" "--- for gettin some of us here safe," Taylor continued. "And we pray that, as we are fine, upstandin', law-abidin' girls who represent the best of the best, you will protect us from harm and keep us safe until we are rescued and can tell our story to People magazine. Amen." - "Beauty QueensCollection: Girl
I have done what they expected of me. I have curtsied for my Queen and made my debut. This is what I have anticipated eagerly for years. So why do I feel so unsatisfied? Everyone is merry. They haven't a care in the world. And perhaps that is it. How terrible it is to have no cares, no longings. I do not fit. I feel too deeply and want too much.Collection: Queens
Everything is randomly connected.Collection: Connected
Why does everyone want to own me?" Pippa mumbles. She's got her head in her hands. "Why do they all want to control my life -- how I look, whom I see, what I do or don't do? Why can't they just let me alone?" "Because you're beautiful," Ann answers, watching the fire lick her palm. "People always think they can own beautiful things.Collection: Beautiful
Did they find something wanting in you, Gemma, at the party? You didn’t speak too freely or behave…strangely?” I grew claws and bayed at the moon. I confessed that I eat the hearts of small children. I told them I like the French.Collection: Children
People see what they want to see when they need to.Collection: People
I'm like everyone else in this stupid, bloody, amazing world. I'm flawed. Impossibly so. But hopeful. I'm still me.Collection: Stupid
In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice... No one can live in the light all the time.Collection: Art
Peace is not happenstance. It is a living fire that must be fed constantly. It must be tended to with vigilance, else it dies out.Collection: Life
The world expected girls to pluck and primp and put on heels. Meanwhile, boys dressed in rumpled T-shirts and baggy pants and misplace their combs, and yet you were suppose to fall at their feet? Unacceptable.Collection: Girl
Who the heck is Don Quick-oats?Collection: Oats
Careful there, Poet. I might start to believe you.Collection: Believe
So, now I've been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.Collection: Drug
Everyone's dying. A little, every day. Make it count.Collection: Dying
Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's is watching them so they can be who they really areCollection: Girl
There is a hideous invention called the Dewey Decimal System. And you have to look up your topic in books and newspapers. Pages upon pages upon pages…” Uncle Will frowned. “Didn’t they teach you how to go about research in that school of yours?” “No. But I can recite ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ while making martinis.” “I weep for the future.” “There’s where the martinis come in.Collection: Uncles
To each his own magic.Collection: Magic
We create the illusions we need to go on.Collection: Needs
Gemma, you see how it is. They've planned our entire lives, from what we shall wear to whom we shall marry and where we shall live. It's one lump of sugar in your tea whether you like it or not and you'd best smile even if you're dying deep inside. We're like pretty horses, and just as on horses, they mean to put blinders on us so we can't look left or right but only straight ahead where they would lead. Please, please, please, Gemma, let's not die inside before we have to.Collection: Horse
We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.Collection: Regret
Beneath the skin, there is fear. Pain. Remorse. Yearning. Desire. A fierce longing for power. All of this. We are joined. It is as if we live in the center of a great storm. Around us the world of the realms revolves like a giant kaleidoscope, images refracted again and again. So many worlds! So much to know.Collection: Pain