Quotes by Authors - Page 131

RYLAN!"The yell comes out of nowhere and nearly gives me a heart attack. Tearing my eyes away, I watch as Babette comes crashing through the undergrowth. With no regard that I might be severely injured, she bounds over and grabs me in a bear hug."Rylan! Oh my God, Rylan," Babette whimpers. She gently rocks me like I'm five years old again. There are some more footsteps, and Aidan and Nadia soon appear. Relief fills both their faces, with Nadia crying happily on Aidan's shoulder.Just as I think she's going to crush me, Babette finally pulls back, her face shiny with tears. "Rylan, I thought I'd lost you. I thought I was never going to see you again. I—"I hold up a hand. "Babette, it's okay. I'm alive. Not perfect, but I'm alive." I gesture to my leg."Holy crap!" the twins say together, staring at my leg in horror and disgust. It only takes one glance for Nadia to really start sobbing. "Nadia! Nadia...don't cry," I murmur in an attempt to comfort her. Since she's such a happy person most of the time it hurts to see her like this. "It'll heal up. It's fine.""B-but it-it's horrible! You near-nearly drowned an-and now you're hurt!" Aidan pulls her into an awkward hug, trying to calm her down.
Colleen Boyd
Sam, I know you’re upset over what happened with you and Drake,” Astrid began.“Upset?” Sam echoed the word with an ironic smirk.“But that’s no excuse for you keeping secrets from us.”“Yeah,” Howard said, “Don’t you know only Astrid is allowed to keep secrets?”“Shut up, Howard,” Astrid snapped.“Yeah, we get to lie because we’re the smart ones,” Howard said. “Not like all those idiots out there.”Astrid turned her attention back to Sam. “This is not okay, Sam. The council has the responsibility. Not you alone.”Sam looked like he could not care less about what she was saying. He looked almost beyond reach, indifferent to what was going on around him.“Hey,” Astrid said. “We’re talking to you.”That did it. His jaw clenched. His head snapped up. His eyes blazed. “Don’t push me. That wasn’t you with your skin whipped off and covered in blood. That was me. That was me who went down into that mine shaft to try to fight the gaiaphage.”Astrid blinked. “No one is minimizing what you’ve done, Sam. You’re a hero. But at the same time—”Sam was on his feet. “At the same time? At the same time you were here in town. Edilio had a bullet in his chest. Dekka was torn to pieces. I was trying not to scream from the…You and Albert and Howard, you weren’t there, were you?”“I was busy standing up to Zil, trying to save Hunter’s life,” Astrid yelled.“But it wasn’t you and your big words, was it? It was Orc who stopped Zil. And he was there because I sent him to rescue you. Me!” He stabbed a finger at his own chest, actually making what looked like painful impact. “Me! Me and Brianna and Dekka and Edilio! And poor Duck.
Michael Grant
Yeah, let’s get John here. That way we can stall for a while longer. We can keep on doing nothing for just a little while longer.”Albert said, “Take it easy, Howard.”“Take it easy?” Howard jumped to his feet. “Yeah? Where were you last night, Albert? Huh? Because I didn’t see you out there on the street listening to kids screaming, seeing kids running around hurt and scared and choking, and Edilio and Orc struggling, and Dekka hacking up her lungs and Jack crying and…“You know who couldn’t even take it?” Howard raged. “You know who couldn’t even take what was happening? Orc. Orc, who’s not scared of anything. Orc, who everyone thinks is some kind of monster. He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t…but he did. And where were you, Albert? Counting your money? How about you, Astrid? Praying to Jesus?”Astrid’s throat tightened. She couldn’t breathe. For a moment panic threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to run from the room, run away and never look back.Edilio got to his feet and put an arm around Howard. Howard allowed it, and then he did something Astrid never thought she would see. Howard buried his face in Edilio’s shoulder and cried, racking sobs.“We’re falling apart,” Astrid whispered for herself alone.But there was no easy escape. Everything Howard had said was true. She could see the truth reflected in Albert’s stunned expression. The two of them, the smart ones, the clever ones, the great defenders of truth and fairness and justice, had done nothing while others had worked themselves to exhaustion.
Michael Grant
Where’s Dekka?” Astrid asked.“In the basement,” Edilio said. “She kept going for a long time. Her and Orc and Jack. But she’s sick. Tired and sick. And she got a bad burn on one hand. That was it for her. I made her go to Dahra. Lana will…you know, when she’s done with…Man, I’m sorry,” he said as he began crying again. “I can’t be digging graves. Someone else has to do that, okay? I can’t do that anymore.
Michael Grant
Brianna! Is Sam okay?” Astrid cried.“No. Drake tore him up.” She wanted to sound tough, but the sobs came bubbling up and overtook her. “Oh, God, Astrid, he’s hurt so bad.”Astrid gasped and covered her hand with her mouth. Brianna put her arms around Astrid and sobbed into her hair.“Is he going to die?” Astrid asked, voice wobbly.“No, I don’t think so,” Brianna said. She stood back and wiped her tears. “I gave him something for the pain. But he’s messed up, Astrid.
Michael Grant
Mother Mary wants to draft two more kids,” Astrid told Sam.“Okay. Approved.”“Dahra says we’re running low on kids’ Tylenol and kids’ Advil, she wants to make sure it’s okay to start giving them split adult pills.”Sam spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “What?”“We’re running low on kid pills, Dahra wants to split adult pills.”Sam rocked back in the leather chair designed for a grown man. “Okay. Whatever. Approved.” He took a sip of water from a bottle. The wrapper on the bottle said “Dasani” but it was tap water. The dishes from dinner—horrible homemade split-pea soup that smelled burned, and a quarter cabbage each—had been pushed aside onto the sideboard where in the old days the mayor of Perdido Beach had kept framed pictures of his family. It was one of the better meals Sam had had lately. The fresh cabbage tasted surprisingly good.There was little more than smears on the plates: the era of kids not eating everything was over.Astrid puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “Kids are asking why Lana isn’t around when they need her.”“I can only ask Lana to heal big things. I can’t demand she be around 24/7 to handle every boo-boo.”Astrid looked at the list she had compiled on her laptop. “Actually, I think this involved a stubbed toe that ‘hurted.’”“How much more is on the list?” Sam asked.“Three hundred and five items,” Astrid said. When Sam’s face went pale, she relented. “Okay, it’s actually just thirty-two. Now, don’t you feel relieved it’s not really three hundred?”“This is crazy,” Sam said.“Next up: the Judsons and the McHanrahans are fighting because they share a dog, so both families are feeding her—they still have a big bag of dry dog food—but the Judsons are calling her Sweetie and the McHanrahans are calling her BooBoo.”“You’re kidding.”“I’m not kidding,” Astrid said.“What is that noise?” Sam demanded.Astrid shrugged. “I guess someone has their stereo cranked up.”“This is not going to work, Astrid.”“The music?”“This. This thing where every day I have a hundred stupid questions I have to decide. Like I’m everyone’s parent now. I’m sitting here listening to how little kids are complaining because their older sisters make them take a bath, and stepping into fights over who owns which Build-A-Bear outfit, and now over dog names. Dog names?”“They’re all still just little kids,” Astrid said.“Some of these kids are developing powers that scare me,” Sam grumbled. “But they can’t decide who gets to have which special towel? Or whether to watch The Little Mermaid or Shrek Three?”“No,” Astrid said. “They can’t. They need a parent. That’s you.
Michael Grant
Don’t want no more rock,” Orc repeated.The bleeding stopped almost immediately.“Does it hurt?” Lana asked. “I mean the rock. I know the hole hurts.”“No. It don’t hurt.” Orc slammed his fist against his opposite arm, hard enough that any human arm would have been shattered. “I barely feel it. Even Drake’s whip, when we was fighting, I barely felt it.”Suddenly he was weeping. Tears rolled from human eyes onto cheeks of flesh and pebbles.“I don’t feel nothing except…” He pointed a thick stone finger at the flesh of his face.“Yeah,” Lana said. Her irritation was gone. Her burden was smaller, maybe, than Orc’s.
Michael Grant
Help me,” the girl pleaded softly.Sam knelt beside her. He recoiled in shock. “Bette?”The left side of Bouncing Bette’s face was covered in blood. There was a gash above her temple. She was panting, gasping, like she had collapsed after a marathon and was trying with her last ounce of energy to crawl across the finish line.“Bette, what happened?”“They’re trying to get me,” Bette cried, and clutched at Sam’s arm.The three dark figures advanced to the edge of the circle of light. One was clearly Orc. No one else was that big. Edilio and Quinn moved into the garage doorway.Sam disengaged from Bette and took up a position beside Edilio.“You want me to beat on you guys, I will!” Orc yelled.“What’s going on here?” Sam demanded. He narrowed his eyes and recognized the other two boys, a kid named Karl, a seventh grader from school, and Chaz, one of the Coates eighth graders. All three were armed with aluminum bats.“This isn’t your business,” Chaz said. “We’re dealing with something here.”“Dealing with what? Orc, did you hit Bette?”“She was breaking the rules,” Orc said.“You hit a girl, man?” Edilio said, outraged.“Shut up, wetback,” Orc said.“Where’s Howard?” Sam asked, just to stall while he tried to figure out what to do. He’d lost one fight to Orc already.Orc took the question as an insult. “I don’t need Howard to handle you, Sam.”Orc marched right up to Sam, stopped a foot away, and put his bat on his shoulder like he was ready to swing for a home run. Like a batter ready for the next fastball. Only this was closer to T-ball: Sam’s head was impossible to miss.“Move, Sam,” Orc ordered.“Okay, I’m not doing this again,” Quinn said. “Let him have her, Sam.”“Ain’t no ‘let me,’” Orc said. “I do what I want.”Sam noticed movement behind Orc. There were people coming down the street, twenty or more kids. Orc noticed it too, and glanced behind him.“They aren’t going to save you,” Orc said, and swung the bat hard.Sam ducked. The bat whooshed past his head, and Orc rotated halfway around, carried forward by the momentum.Sam was thrown off balance, but Edilio was ready. He let loose a roar and plowed headfirst into Orc. Edilio was maybe half Orc’s size, but Orc was knocked off his feet. He sprawled out on the concrete.Chaz went after Edilio, trying to pull him off Orc.The crowd of kids who had come running down the street surged forward. There were angry voices and threats, all aimed at Orc.They yelled, Sam noted, but no one exactly jumped into the unequal fight.
Michael Grant
Drake's whip hand spun Diana like a top.She cried out. That sound, her cry, pierced Caine like an arrow.Diana staggered and almost righted herself, but Drake was too quick, too ready.His second strike yanked her through the air. She flew and then fell.“Catch her!” Caine was yelling to himself. Seeing her arc as she fell. Seeing where she would hit. His hands came up, he could use his power, he could catch her, save her. But too slow.Diana fell. Her head smashed against a jutting point of rock. She made a sound like a dropped pumpkin.Caine froze.The fuel rod, forgotten, fell from the air with a shattering crash.It fell within ten feet of the mine shaft opening. It landed atop a boulder shaped like the prow of a ship.It bent, cracked, rolled off the boulder, and crashed heavily in the dirt.Drake ran straight at Caine, his whip snapping. But Jack stumbled in between them, yelling, “The uranium! The uranium!”The radiation meter in his pocket was counting clicks so fast, it became a scream.Drake piled into Jack, and the two of them went tumbling.Caine stood, staring in horror at Diana. Diana did not move. Did not move. No snarky remark. No smart-ass joke.“No!” Caine cried.“No!”Drake was up, disentangling himself with an angry curse from Jack.“Diana,” Caine sobbed.Drake didn’t rely on his whip hand now, too far away to use it before Caine could take him down. He raised his gun. The barrel shot flame and slugs, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.Inaccurate, but on full automatic, Drake had time. He swung the gun to his right and the bullets swooped toward where Caine stood like he was made of stone.Then the muzzle flash disappeared in an explosion of green-white light that turned night into day. The shaft of light missed its target. But it was close enough that the muzzle of Drake’s gun wilted and drooped and the rocks behind Drake cracked from the blast of heat.Drake dropped the gun. And now it was Drake’s turn to stare in stark amazement. “You!”Sam wobbled atop the rise. Quinn caught him as he staggered.Now Caine snapped back to the present, seeing his brother, seeing the killing light.“No,” Caine said. “No, Sam: He’s mine.”He raised a hand, and Sam went flying backward along with Quinn.“The fuel rod!” Jack was yelling, over and over. “It’s going to kill us all. Oh, God, we may already be dead!”Drake rushed at Caine. His eyes were wide with fear. Knowing he wouldn’t make it. Knowing he was not fast enough.Caine raised his hand, and the fuel rod seemed to jump off the ground.A javelin.A spear. He held it poised. Pointed straight at Drake.Caine reached with his other hand, extending the telekinetic power to hold Drake immobilized.Drake held up his human hand, a placating gesture. “Caine…you don’t want to…not over some girl. She was a witch, she was…”Drake, unable to run, a human target. The fuel rod aimed at him like a Spartan’s spear.Caine threw the fuel rod. Tons of steel and lead and uranium.Straight at Drake.
Michael Grant
Sam, can you, you know, like burn that concrete off her hands?”“No. I can’t aim that precisely.”“I don’t even know what can be done,” Edilio said as he fed the girl another microscopic bite of food. “You try and break that stuff off with a sledge hammer or something, or even a hammer and a chisel, it’s going to really hurt. Probably break every bone in her hands, man.”“Who would have done this to her?” Lana wondered.“That’s a Coates Academy uniform,” Astrid answered. “We’re probably not far from there.
Michael Grant
This reminds me of old times,” he said, and his lashes lifted. As his gaze drifted over me, it was focused but all too brief, because he looked away, a muscle working along his jaw. “Kind of.”A flush raced across my cheeks as I switched out the ball for a new one. He was right—this was like all the other times I’d cleaned him up. Well, when I was younger, I tried to clean him up, but had no idea what I was doing, but as we grew older, and he got into fights defending me or for some other reason, this was our routine.Except I was pretty sure that when his gaze roamed over me just now, he’d checked out my breasts, and that was definitely something that hadn’t happened before.
Jennifer L. Armentrout
Purpose Erases Deep Hurts
Sunday Adelaja
If a man realizes who he is, he cannot be hurt, humiliated or offended
Sunday Adelaja
Enough tiny sharp jabs can cut as deeply as any knife.
Roshani Chokshi
I bet that guy was as obsessed with Sarah as I am with this other girl, and I bet he promised himself never to hurt her, just like I've been doin' - and look what he's done to her. He's left her a crumpled mess, lyin' on her bed all the time.
Markus Zusak
emotionless tone hurting as much as the news
Dan Brown
When someone you loved finds no flattery in the gift you gave them then you must ask yourself, "What was worth loving?
Shannon L. Alder
Unknowingly, he prepared me to survive the rest of my days with the way he shielded himself from emotional vulnerabilities that slowly destroy the rest of us.
Crystal Woods
I'd paralyze anyone who wanted to hurt me.
Toba Beta
I couldn't look at her. I'd been jealous and hurt, and I had dragged Liv into the middle of my own broken mess of a life. All because I thought Lena didn't love me anymore. But I was stupid, and I was wrong. Lena loved me so much, she was willing to risk everything to save me. I had given up on Lena, after she had refused to give up on me. I owed her my life. It was as simple as that.
Kami Garcia
Is that love, do you think?" he asks, sounding genuinely curious. "Being crazy about someone no matter how much they hurt you?
Stacey Jay
You have to accept all sides of yourself – there’s no point fighting them – just learn how to handle them, and return to the positive, balanced being you know you can be, once the winds have blown through.
Jay Woodman
Be sure that your praise songs are numbered higher than your sorrowful dirges and your utmost hope, firmer than your woeful regrets. Be positive.
Israelmore Ayivor
The energy you bring, positive or negative, dictates your perceptions, receptions and radiations.
T.F. Hodge
People with higher ratios of positive to negative emotions are more likely to flourish in life.
Ziad K. Abdelnour
Some people are so positive, that when they slip in dog poop, they pirouette
Josh Stern
The purpose of any healthy relationship is to find someone that will magnify your life's experiences, not tolerate it or become a spectator of it.
Shannon L. Alder
Be an example, be positive, be enthusiastic, be proactive--that is proactive leadership.
Debasish Mridha
It is a blessed gift to witness the beauty of each day.
Lailah Gifty Akita
What timeless resources, God provide to serve every need?
Lailah Gifty Akita
I am positive like a proton.........and just as acidic like the Hydrogen ion......
Ankala V Subbarao
It's only in Algebra that two negatives make a positive
Charmaine J.Forde
Positive and negative attitudes are both contagious but only one is helpful.
Ken Poirot
Being positive reckons the unexpected.
Toba Beta
Tears were frozen to the book theif's face.
Markus Zusak
You need that pride in yourself, as well as a sense, when you are sitting on Page 297 of a book, that the book is going to be read, that somebody is going to care. You can't ever be sure about that, but you need the sense that it's important, that it's not typing; it's writing.
Roger Kahn
I know who the real hero is, and it isn't me or brave Lanaya. It's an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won't let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing down things in a book no one will ever read.
Rodman Philbrick
Sometimes I look at you and I just can't believe you're mine
James Patterson
I can't believe I wrote that many words in a row.
Alex Rosa
Visiting any shop for the first time is exciting. There's always that buzz as you push open the door; that hope; that belief - that this is going to be the shop of all shops, which will bring you everything you ever wanted, at magically low prices.
Sophie Kinsella
I've read this same sentence about twenty times since you came in."Anybody else except Ackley would've taken the goddamn hint. Not him though..."What the hellya reading?""Goddamn book."He shoved my book back with his hand so that he could see the name on it. "Any good?" he said."This sentence I'm reading is terrific.
J.D. Salinger
…she was so exhausted and tired, so overwhelmed, that she needed a Red Bull, to calm down and fall asleep.
Haidji
On Twitter, people who had read my book followed me and I could see what else they were reading, why they'd liked what I'd written and by the by, more about them than I'd ever elicit from two minutes in a tent at a book festival, stuck behind a signing desk.
Sara Sheridan
Sometimes the best way is to get out of your own way.
Carew Papritz
A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it or offer your own version in return.
Salman Rushdie
Abt Draws from a trove of personal experience to create a vivid account of the people and place. Along the way, Abt addresses big questions such as economic reform and practical ones such as how to use e–commerce to achieve brand recognition in North Korea.
Jeff Baron
P.S. Please give my love to Tink, she always was such a funny little bug
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Aren't you two ever going to read Hogwarts, A History?""What's the point?" said Ron. "You know it by heart, we can just ask you.
J.K. Rowling
It seemed any young woman at odds with her place in life--be she a genteel lady or a serving girl--might find a happier home within the pages of a book.
Tessa Dare
I wrote this book to show you that a cure is entirely possible because I've seen it happen over and over again.
Chris Prentiss
Be great, read great books.
Lailah Gifty Akita
Books are a treasured friend, however it’s difficult to explain it to a non-reader.
Aman Jassal
Books are to the mind as the whetstone for the knives.
Aman Jassal
I always thought 'love at first sight' was silly and incredibly irresponsible. Then, you came along and you flipped it on me. I understand it now. I do! ~Sheriff Derrick Decker
Laney Smith
Like a forgotten old photograph, this dream will stay pressed, between the pages of a book you don’t feel like reading anymore.
Khadija Rupa
If books are your good friends, then a conscious life will be your best comrade all your life!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Writing is exposing yourself to strangers
Bangambiki Habyarimana
There's nothing like a printed book; the weight, the woody scent, the feel, the look.
E.A. Bucchianeri
It's a strange sensation to pick up a book you read and enjoyed just a few months ago and discover you don't remember it.
Daniel Keyes
After three years of English at Cambridge, being force-fed literary theory, I was almost convinced that literature was all coded messages about Marxism and the death of the self. I crawled out of the post-structuralist desert thirsty for heroines I could cry and laugh with. I was jaded. I craved trash.
Samantha Ellis