Christina Henry Quotes

Why is it that assholes just go on and on, even when the world would be a better place if they just dropped dead?"
"Because their assholery protects them. They're so full of bile that the virus can't get a toehold," Adam said.

I am not a pyromaniac," I said. "I only set things on fire because it's expedient

All children grow up, or they die, or both. All children, except one.

Just how many soldiers do you think I can fight on my own?" Alice asked.
"As many as necessary," Hatcher said. "I believe in you, Alice."
She felt for the first time that she wanted to kiss him, that she wanted to know what it was like when she chose it. So she did.

If you let the grief in, it might consume you.

But you can't escape from shadows or pain. You only find new ones. It's better, I think, not to try to escape them at all but to accept that they will be there, and to remember that good things happen, too, even if you can't always see them.

One thing Red had learned from years of reading and movie watching was that people were far scarier than any disease or zombie or alien or face-eating monster.

Humans often valued what they should not, she reflected, and most often they did not value what was right before their eyes.

This was not Hatch, her constant companion through the mouse hole. Nor was this the man who had methodically rescued her from a burning building. This was Hatcher, the murderer with the axe, the man who had been found covered in blood and surrounded by bodies.

Just because I'm mad doesn't mean I'm not right.

The ocean has a rhythm, but it has no heart.

She must start believing in impossible things, for impossible things kept appearing before her eyes.

Occasionally it seemed that her body was actively working against her progress.

She was exhausted, and had spent some time breathing smoke and poison.

Things that are worth nothing are easy to come by.

She remembered a story one of her governesses told her, about a little girl who went into a house that wasn't hers. She sat in three chairs and tasted three bowls of porridge and rolled in three beds. And for being too curious (and, Alice thought, very rude) the little girl was eaten up by the bears who lived there.

All she'd found was that women spent a great deal of time saying they were please when they were not, similing when they were not happy, and pretending their anger and frustation did not exist

She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that doesn't look anything like the one she grew up in, the one that was perfectly sane and normal and boring until three months ago.

It made Alice realize how much of life was full of empty stuff, objects longed for because the hope of them made your small life seem bigger, better, brighter.

She would never comprehend the need to hurt those who never hurt her, the need to hate for the sake of hating. She never wanted to rule over others in fear. No, she would never understand the Jabberwocky.

Cheshire's fingers, cold and slightly damp, stroked down the scar on her cheek. She swallowed the shudder of revulsion at his touch.

"Yes," Cheshire said. "He marked you so that he would know you again, and know that you belong to him."

"I belong to no one," Alice said.

No man in the New City could love her as Hatcher did - of that Alice was certain. It was deep and all-consuming but somehow never suffocating. It was unselfish. It did not ask for anything and yet he made no secret of his need. There was no one in the world like Hatcher, and if she hadn't been mad, there would be no Hatcher for her.

You mean murder and eat," Alice said.
"No, I mean eat and murder," the rat said. "I'd rather it the other way around, wouldn't you?"
"I'd rather it not all all," Alice said.

It's easy to forget the good things.' Hatcher said

What about Alice? Did she have a happy ending?

In the Old City there were very few ways for women to stay alive, and all of them involved a man.

Where's home, my Alice?" Hatcher said. "Where's home? We don't have a home, you and I.

They all thought they were special, but only I was. I was first and none of them could take that from me. I was first and best and last and always.

We were still children, for all that we thought we weren't. We were in that in-between place, the twilight between childish things and grown-up things.

She didn't have to be Cheshire's ideal of a Magician or Hatcher's ideal of a lover or her parents' ideal of a daughter. She could be Alice.

He'd been around the island for a while, and I'm sorry to say that being bashed around in Battle and at raids had done nothing very good for his brains.

The world is full of innocent creatures," Hatcher snapped, drawing close to her ear so no one would overhear them. "You were one yourself once, and no one saved you.

If you go chasing your freedom your fate will only follow you there and force you back.

Women who did what they liked instead of what other people wished were often accused of witchcraft, because only a witch would be so defiant, or so it was thought.

He was haunted, same as she was, except he didn't know the name of his ghost.

He won't be safe," Hatcher repeated. "For I will find him and I will strip the flesh from his bones piece by piece. There is no place the Rabbit can hide, no hole he can disappear into. I will not sleep again until I have heard him scream for mercy he will never receive.

Everything else is the past or the future. Don't think about them. Be here with me, right now.

I don't belong to you ... You thought if I married you that I would, but I don't. I don't belong to any man ... I only belong to myself. But belonging to myself doesn't mean I don't love you or that I don't want to stand beside you.

Thorns pricked at her skin everywhere, poked at her face

You're only a mouse if you let them make you one.

You seem very confident in him all of a sudden," Alice said.

"He was very gentle with that girl," he said.

That, Alice realized, carried more weight with Hatcher than the rabbit's brutal disassembly of the Walrus. And that was why she loved him.

Alice remembered who she was before. She just couldn't recall what had happened to that girl to make her this girl.

Men generally don't recognize the authority of women", Levi said very gently. "It's the way of the world, Amelia. I'm sorry it distress you."
"The world", Amelia said, "is wrong about so many things.

There's nothing worse than having a fit and no one giving you the proper attention for it.

Most men give a girl a ring, you know, not threaten them with murder." Hatcher

Until I became human, nobody ever told me there was something wrong with my body.

I huffed out a deep breath. "It's something huge, isn't it?" Beezle nodded. "Yup."
There was a sound of several limbs splashing in the water. "Is it all squishy and tentacly?"
"Yup."
"I hate my life," I said, and as I turned I conjured a ball of nightfire and threw it.

I want to rest, "Alice said, and she meant it with all her heart. "Once I lived in a cage, and before that a different kind of cage. I tried to break free from the first one and they put me in one that was much, much worse. All I want is to find a place I have dreamed of, a little cottage in a green field by a lake.

I didn't believe him at first, about the island, though."

"I didn't either,"I said. "I don't know that anyone does. It sounds like a fantastic lie."

"It is a fantastic lie," Sal said, and her face was very earnest. "This isn't a wonderful place for boys to play and have adventures and stay young for always. It's a killing place, and we're all just soldiers in Peter's war.

The world gobbles us and chews us and swallows us," Hatcher said, in that uncanny way he had of reading her thoughts. "I think happy endings must be accidents."
"But we hope for them all the same," Alice said. She looked sadly at the remains of those hopeful faces. Above all, we hope not to die in terror.

There were monsters in the night but there were monsters in the day too, and monsters inside people who smiled and showed you all their teeth like they were nice. There were monsters inside Alice, but they only had power if she gave it to them, and other things had power too, like the laughter of children enjoying a picnic together and like the love she had for this terrible, wonderful, imperfect man, this man who hid inside the body of a wolf because he thought that was where he belonged.

So she should not wish to undo the past but learn to accept its consequences, and remember that not all consequences were evil.

There was no light in their rooms save that of the silver moon through the bars, and the occasional passage of a lamp by the attendant walking the halls. She could not see the color of his eyes, only the wet gleam of them.

Was this, too, part of growing up? Was it facing the bad things you'd done as well as the good, and knowing all your mistakes had consequences? Peter made mistakes all the time - he was thoughtless; he hurt people. But it never troubled him, not for a moment. He forgot all about it in an instant. That was being a boy.

I was suddenly sorry I'd grown, even if it was only a little, and wished I could be similar again and that it was just Peter and me, running and climbing and laughing, back when the island was ours

It was Peter's island, Peter who'd brought us here, and in the back of every boy's mind was some form of the same thought - He could send me back, if he wanted.

There was comfort in ignorance, in thinking the world a certain way and not knowing any different.

They wanted the moon, but they hadn't realize it cost the earth.

It's not as easy as you'd think, burning a dead creature. Flesh and skin want to cook and crisp and char rather than ignite.

There's nowhere for us to go back to. We can go forward. We can find our way out.

Alice dreamed of blood. Blood on her hands and under her feet, blood in her mouth and pouring from her eyes. The room was filled with it.

You came, you saw, you burned everything to the ground.

Interesting' meant that you attracted the notice of men who would hurt you to possess whatever they found 'interesting' about you.

..."I think happy endings must be accidents."
"But we hope for them all the same," Alice said.

It's not such a wonderful thing, to be young," I said. "It's heartless, and selfish."

"But, oh, so free," Nod said sadly. "So free when you have no worries or cares.

Alice could not see his face as she crammed cake into her mouth, and the Rabbit laughed and stroked her braid with his white hands, saying, Pretty little Alice. We'll make you fine and plump, won't we, pretty girl? Pretty Alice.
Alice. Alice.
His hand on her braid, wrapping around it, pulling her head back so she could look into his eyes, his blue-green eyes so angry... eyes snapping, hand pulling her hair until she cried, his voice cracking like a whip, Where do you think you're off to, pretty Alice?
Alice. Alice.

That's what love is. When you love someone you're responsible for them, and they you.

The world was abruptly sharp and clear, too clear, and too alive. It was terrible beyond words. The

Girls like us, we have to save ourselves. Nobody else will get you home.

Lucifer's kingdom is metaphorical, not literal. The fallen are scattered throughout the world, maintaining different bases of power for him."
"And my father lives in Minneapolis," I repeated.
"Yes."
"And where does Lucifer live?"
"Los Angeles."
I let out a laugh at that. "Of course he does.

She heard a little popping noise then like something had broken in the space between them.

Cheshire frowned. "That was not very fun of you at all, Alice. I've so enjoyed your adventures."

"Yes, but they are my adventures," Alice said.

Sometimes at night, when the nightmare clung to me, I wondered if Peter's assurances that I would never grow up were only assurances that I would die before such a thing happened. I wondered if that were better, to die before I became something withered and grey and not wanted.

If she moved her head all the way up against the wall and tilted it to the left she could just see the edge of the moon through the bars. Just a silver sliver, almost close enough to eat. A sliver of cheese, a sliver of cake, a cup of tea to be polite. Someone had given her a cup of tea once, someone with blue-green eyes and long ears. Funny how she couldn't remember his face, though. All that part was hazy, her memory of him wrapped in smoke but for the eyes and ears. And the ears were long and furry.

can't save everybody. But we can save somebody.

Why is a girl less valuable than a boy?" Amelia asked. She'd heard this before and did not understand it. Did not women bear the next generation? Was not that power more profound than anything a man could do? "Men like to have sons to carry on their name," Charity said. "They aren't men otherwise.

She was thinking of the girls who'd escaped with Pipkin, and hoped that they ran in the grass with bare feet, laughing in the sun. She wanted a promise of joy for someone, even if she could not have it for herself.

But I'm coming with you. Until you catch the soul-sucking thing, I'm glue and you're ... something that needs to be glued

The faster she ran, the freer she was, fast and free and far away from everything that hurt.

Adults, Alice reflected, could learn something from the way children bounced back from horror like little rubber balls.

Was this, I wondered, what it felt like to be a grown-up? Did you always feel the weight of things on you, your cares pressing you down like a burden you could never shake? No wonder Peter could fly. He had no worries to weight him to the earth.