The next best thing to being clever

Scott Westerfeld

2010-10-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

"Gravity was something you could beat; all it took was hydrogen, hot air, or even a pit of rope. But being a girl was a miserable, never-ending struggle."
Behemoth, 247

Piper Kerman

2010-09-22T13:01:00.001-07:00

"July dawned with a sour flavor. The entire Camp facility seemed to groan in the heat, overtaxed. The phones stopped working. The washing machines broke, a horror show. Suddenly all the hair dryers disappeared. Two hundred women, no phones, no washing machines, no hair dryers—it was like Lord of the Flies on estrogen. I sure as [heck]wasn’t going to be Piggy."
Orange Is the New Black (174)

Marc Gonsalves

2010-09-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

I've been reading quite a bit of nonfiction lately, so I think I'll call this month "Non-fiction Month." Here's the first entry, from a book by three men who were, as the title suggests, held captive for quite some time:

"We were all a bit surprised that we’d taken such satisfaction in Rogelio’s [one of their captors] death. It disturbed me. . . . Perhaps some very small part of my soul died along with Rogelio. Perhaps his treatment of us had afflicted me in such a way that I’d lost some of my humanity. Perhaps I had to add my conscience to our casualty list."
Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle, 291

Helen Simonson

2010-08-30T16:55:00.001-07:00

“But I must ask you, do you really understand what it means to be in love with an unsuitable woman?”
“My dear boy,” said the Major. “Is there really any other kind?”
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, 203

She hurried down the driveway and as she disappeared, blue dress into deep night, he knew he was a fool. Yet at that moment, he could not find a way to be a different man.
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, 266

Eoin Colfer

2010-08-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

In honor of the new Artemis Fowl book, The Atlantis Complex, that came out this week, here are a few quotes from previous books. Taken all together, I noticed they are very character driven, so if you haven't read the books, they might not do much for you. But I think they're dang funny!

From Artemis Fowl:
“Whatever was coming, it would be bad. He was certain. He was absolutely right.” 221-22
“Juliet was safe for the moment, but Holly had taken her place on the endangered-individuals list.” 228

From AF: The Arctic Incident:
“The manservant tried to look innocent, but his facial muscles couldn’t quite pull it off.” 104
“Commander Root was smarter than he looked. Then again, it would be almost impossible not to be.” 211

From AF: The Lost Colony:
“Mulch checked the vehicle’s cooler and was delighted to find sim-chicken and nettle beer. He liberated both.” 37
“On his face, a smile looked like the first symptom of a disease.” 260

From AF: The Eternity Code:
“The sarcasm made a slight whistling noise as if flew over Loafer’s head.” 131

From AF: The Time Paradox:
"This was a face that only a mother could love, and then perhaps only if her sight were failing." 112
"One moment he was in control, enjoying the smugness that comes with being the smartest person in the metaphorical room. The next he was crashing back to earth, having sacrificed his queen for a rook, realizing he was up against somebody just as smart as he was, only twice as ruthless [his younger self]." 216
"There were still people who deserved to be stolen from, or exposed, or dropped in the deep jungle with only flip-flops and a spoon." 355

Cameron Dokey

2010-07-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

“The expression on his face was flat and blank, as if he was trying to give away nothing of what he might be feeling, particularly if that thing was fear. This I instantly understood, for I knew that to show fear was to give
your opponent an advantage you frequently could not afford.”
Golden, 18

Candy Arkell

2010-07-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

"I gave the princess a look and she gave me a look, and that look meant the same thing: we were never going to be best of friends. We were already well on our way to being mortal enemeies, and we'd managed that without exchanging a single word."
Because of a Ring, 166 (give or take)

Sarah DeFord Willams

2010-07-15T14:04:00.000-07:00

"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"We don't know. Sherrie doesn't want to spoil the surprise."
"Hmm," said Bella. "I think it would still be surprising to have a whole person come out of your body whether you knew what it was or not, but that's just me."
Palace Beautiful, 67
Couldn't agree more!

Candy Arkell

2010-06-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

"I gasped, spun around, and adjusted my dress, and then I just stood there, praying he’d leave, or I’d disappear, or something would catch fire, and we’d both be distracted and forget this had ever happened. But of course there’s never a real emergency when you want one, so I pulled myself together, trying to pretend I was composed like Mama, which was impossible really, because Mama would never have been caught half-dressed—twice!—by anyone, so there was really no basis for comparison."
Because of a Ring, 229 (or thereabout)

Orson Scott Card

2010-05-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

“It’s the young who have the gift of believing. We older ones, we lose faith and think that makes us wise.”
Saints, 323

Richard Castle

2010-04-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

So he's not a real author. So it's not great literature. I loved it anyway: the concept, the comebacks, the chemistry . . . ah, the chemistry!

“So you forgot. I accept your apology.”
“I didn’t forget, and I didn’t hear any apology. At least not from me.”
“I kind of inferred it. You radiate subtext.”
Heat Wave, 3

Claire Cook

2010-04-28T11:25:00.001-07:00

“And I’m never going to have plastic surgery either, so don’t even bring that up. Somebody has to look old, you know?”
The Wildwater Walking Club, 40

You go first.

Lisa Lutz

2010-04-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

Stole this one from Lucinda, but I liked it, too!

"The lighting was dim for lunch, and with the candlelight and Meyers holding the chair for me and all, it felt oddly like a date. Except that Captain Meyers had no interest in me. Once again, oddly like a date."
The Spellman Files, 213

Candy Arkell

2010-04-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

For my monthly shameless plug highlighting myself, here's the sentence I ended up sending to the agent (thanks to all of you who helped me decide!):

"He’d always had a cocky, irrepressible air about him, as if he were up to something; now he just seemed shattered, as if he’d been broken into a thousand little pieces and most of them had been lost, and what was left was not enough to add up to an entire person."
Because of a Ring, 155 (give or take)

Melissa Kantor

2010-04-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

I just have to quote this for a friend of mine (and yes, I'm talking to YOU, Susan):

“Clearly they’d decided trouble is like a pie—the bigger my piece, the smaller theirs.”
If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where’s My Prince?, 240

Julie Berry

2010-04-19T13:00:00.001-07:00

Wow, I have some serious blogging block going down here. Let's try this again:

“Under his broad-brimmed hat, his features were so noble and fine, he looked like he’d swallowed the sun for breakfast.”
The Amaranth Enchantment, 10

Meg Rosoff

2010-04-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

Gosh, I haven't blogged in FOREVER. Which makes this quote all the more poignant:

"I don’t get nearly enough credit in life for the things I manage not to say."
How I Live Now, 97

Eva Ibbotson

2010-03-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

“You cannot stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair.”
The Dragonfly Pool, 279

Bill Bryson

2010-03-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

“I think because I mentioned that I had done a bit of hiking in England, he assumed some measure of competence on my part. I didn’t wish to alarm or disappoint him, so when he asked me questions like ‘What’s your view on carbon fiber stays?’ I would shake my head with a rueful chuckle, in recognition of the famous variability of views on this perennially thorny issue, and say, ‘You know, Dave, I’ve never been able to make up my mind of that one—what do you think?’”
A Walk in the Woods, 9

Kathryn Stockett

2010-03-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

"Stuart needs 'space' and 'time,' as if this were physics and not a human relationship."
The Help, 445

Ally Carter

2010-03-12T15:15:00.000-08:00

“I wasn’t searching for compliments, like when skinny girls say they look fat, or when girls with gorgeous curly hair say how they hate humidity. . . . I swear I wasn’t silently begging Bex to roll her eyes, and say, ‘Whatever! That guy should be so lucky.’ But she did, and I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make it better.”
I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You, 117

Rachel Simon

2010-03-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

“I don’t need [to yell]. I’ve outsourced all the yelling to you.”
Building a Home with My Husband, 34

Candy Arkell

2010-03-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

I don't know why this has never occurred to me before, but as this is my blog, I can quote myself! So once a month (so as not to indulge myself too much), I believe I shall. (Ralph Waldo would be so proud.) Here we go:

"Other than the books, there was nothing to show what Arthur had been like, and I realized that this was all that was left of him, words scribbled in the margin of books, which made me so sad that I tried to read some of the notes, in respect of his memory if nothing else. But it was getting dark, and I had no light, and when I shut the final book, the only thing I really understood about him was that from the time he was nine until he died, his handwriting had improved a great deal."
Because of a Ring, page 155 (or thereabouts)

Jodie Lynn Anderson

2010-03-02T08:51:00.001-08:00

“She had used to think hell was being in a room full of people she didn’t know. But now she realized hell was actually being in a small car with Murphy and Leeda, two people she knew better than anyone.”
Peaches, 277

Adam Rex

2010-03-01T16:11:00.000-08:00

“We left the motel with armfuls of towels and little soaps, as was the custom.”
The True Meaning of Smekday, 85

Scott Westerfeld

2010-02-28T13:02:00.000-08:00

"As Alek glared at the newspaper man one last time, an unsettling realization overtook him. He spoke French, English, and Hungarian fluently, and always impressed his tutors in Latin and Greek. But Prince Aleksandar of Hohenberg could barely manage the daily language of his own people well enough to buy a newspaper."
Leviathan, 125

Robin Benway

2010-02-27T18:18:00.000-08:00

“We read What to Expect When You’re Expecting, all right? Believe me, this is not what we were expecting!”
Audrey, Wait! 153

Ann B. Ross

2010-02-26T07:12:00.000-08:00

“And if permitting women to be officers in the church is what started us on the slippery slopes of sin, I’d like to know what mountaintop the church was sitting on for the two thousand years men had it to themselves.”
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind, 97

Tim Wynne-Jones

2010-02-25T12:10:00.001-08:00

"He sported a bit of fluff on his chin that didn’t look as if it would ever get a diploma as a full-fledged beard."
The Uninvited, 33

Jess Walter

2010-02-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

“And I wonder if we don’t live like water
seeking a level
a low bed
until one day we just go dry.
I wonder if a creek ever realizes
it has made its own grave.”
The Financial Lives of the Poets, 240

Laurie Halse Anderson

2010-02-23T08:41:00.000-08:00

“In the spring of fifth grade, the boob fairy arrived with her wand and smacked Cassie wicked hard.”
Wintergirls, 39

Madeleine L'Engle

2010-02-22T07:25:00.000-08:00

"Silence fell between them, as tangible as the dark tree shadows that fell across their laps and that now seemed to rest upon them as heavily as though they possessed a measurable weight of their own."
A Wrinkle in Time, 59

M. T. Anderson

2010-02-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

Oh, I don’t know about you, but I really hate chase scenes. It’s all just chase, chase, chase, up the staircase, down the staircase, bang, bang, bang, “Over this way,” “No—that way,” under the desk, over the chair, and you know that either they’re going to get caught or they’re not. So why prolong the agony?
I’ll just tell you.
They made it to an old laundry chute.
Whales on Stilts, 47

Janette Rallison

2010-02-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

“Esme gave me the impression of a vase full of cut roses. Beautiful. Elegant. But she was all for show and had absolutely no intention of ever growing again. And she had sharp thorns.”
Just One Wish, 83

Libba Bray

2010-02-19T11:16:00.000-08:00

"And when it comes, her kiss is like something not so much felt as found." Going Bovine, 411

Robert Ludlum

2010-02-11T09:41:00.000-08:00

“I think we live by stories. We organize our lives around stories. You ask me who I am, I tell you a story. But stories change. I told myself one story about my mother. When that story started to fall apart, I started to fall apart. You have a story about Jared Rinehart, about all he’s done for you—and that story makes it imperative that you rescue him even at the cost of you own life. There’s no experience outside of narrative.”
The Bancroft Strategy, 296

Brunonia Barry

2010-02-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

“But when the sixties finally did arrive in the old port of Salem, Ann Chase was one of the first to jump on board. And when that ship sailed away, Ann stayed behind waving from the beach. She had found her home port.”
The Lace Reader, 60

Daoud Hari

2010-02-05T18:14:00.000-08:00

The statements were “set before us slowly and quietly like tea. These slow stories were told with understatement that made my eyes and voice fill as I translated; for when people seem to have no emotion remaining for such stories, your own heart must supply it.”
The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur

Joseph Finder

2010-02-04T14:35:00.000-08:00

She “must have fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
Company Man, 28.

Matt Richtel

2010-02-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

“When I was with him, it always felt like it was Sunday afternoon. . . . Safe enough to nap.”
Hooked, 48

Harlan Coben

2010-01-30T10:56:00.000-08:00

“And then there are those moments when your life simply unravels. A loose thread pulled. A seam gives way. The change is slow at first, nearly imperceptible. For Grace Lawson, the unraveling began at the Photomat.” Just One Look, 1

Brandon Sanderson

2010-01-25T17:07:00.000-08:00

“The something hard I was lying on turned out to be the ground. And no, it didn’t want to be friends with me.”
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, 168

Sarah Addison Allen

2010-01-23T19:46:00.000-08:00

“Every smiley moon, without fail, Claire dreamed of her childhood.”
Garden Spells, 3
(Great first line!)

Shannon Hale

2010-01-21T19:50:00.001-08:00

“Now her barely realized dreams of becoming the princess emptied like tipped jars, and she felt as though she sat in the puddle.”
The Princess Academy, 226

Michael Zadoorian

2010-01-20T18:56:00.001-08:00

“This is a strange thing about people. We own something as children, then as adults we are willing to buy it again for about a hundred times the original cost. We think we’re buying back our youth or our innocence or something like that, but what we’re really buying back is our ignorance. We want to remember a time when we didn’t know so much.”
Second Hand, 41

Patrick Nothfuss

2010-01-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

“Then we sat on a stone, dandling our feet in the water and enjoying each other’s company as we rested. We shared an apple, passing it back and forth between bites, which is close to kissing, if you’ve never kissed before.”
The Name of the Wind, 524

Martin Luther King, Jr.

2010-01-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

As it is Martin Luther King Day, I'm giving him the honor of christening this blog:
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

The Next Best Thing to Being Clever

2010-01-18T09:43:00.000-08:00