Claire LaZebnik Quotes

No one's family is normal. Normalcy is a lie invented by advertising agencies to make the rest of us feel inferior.

Alex touches her arm. "You look nice."
"Nice?" she repeats. "Try harder, Alex."
He flushes adorably. "Really nice," he says.
"Next time, try this," Harry says. He reaches for my hand. "Franny, I didn't know what beauty was until I saw you walking toward us a minute ago.
"I like this better," I say, pulling away. "At least he sounded like he meant it."
"I meant it," Harry says, almost irritably.

They're checking IDs," he says, craning his neck to see what's holding us up.
I pull mine out of my pocket, and he tilts his head to see the picture on it. "You look different."
"It's two years old." I start to lower my arm, and he puts his hand on mine to stop me.
"That's how you used to wear your hair," he says, still examining it, holding my wrist to keep it where he can see it. "The bangs . . . I always liked the bangs. I was surprised you didn't have them anymore."
I flush. "I grew them out a couple of summers ago."
He releases my arm. "Did you get a good essay out of it? 'What I Did Last Summer'?"
"I'm saving it for my college essay. 'How Growing Out My Bangs Taught Me Compassion.'"
"Work a third-world country in there somehow," he says. "Colleges like to see some global awareness."
The line takes us through the front door.
"Progress," Finn says.
"Look." I point to a kid who's clutching some beads and murmuring to himself. "Is he actually praying right now?"
"There are no atheists in the SAT line."
"Remind me to ask him in a few weeks if it helped."
"I'm guessing the success of his prayers will correspond to the number of hours he spent studying.

"And then we played Ping-Pong - "
"Not pool? I always assumed he was a billiards man - I mean, it's so handy the way he keeps a stick up his -

Franny stepped on a piece of glass," Alex explains.
James makes a little clucking noise of sympathy.
Julia says, "What are you guys doing here?"
"I decided a day at the beach sounded like fun, so James drove us here to meet up with you guys." Marie turns to Harry. "I don't see [i] you [/i] helping out with this operation."
"I'm providing moral support," he says airily. "It's a very challenging job."
"You trying to be moral? I'm sure it is," she counters archly.

He can't ground her if he's already killed her," I pointed out when Juliana quoted this to me. "Well, he can, but it wouldn't have the same impact.

He smiled down into her eyes and she looked right at him and she knew him. When hadn't she known him? With a little sigh of acceptance, she moved into his arms, meeting his eager kiss with a mouth that was just as greedy as him

Lawrence says, "I have an old maiden aunt too, and her place smells just like this. What [i] is [/i] that smell, anyway?"
"Age and desperation?" I suggest.
"Bitterness and despair?" Vanessa says.
"Baked fish?" says Harry.
"She does like tilapia," I admit.

[Ava] had always thought the main relationship in the family was the one between Nancy and her daughters. To have a family, you needed a father, of course, and Jimmy had played that role perfectly well, if you were okay with an old-fashioned interpretation of the job. But the Nickerson family was all about the women and their noisy, bickering, gossiping, interfering relationships with one another.
And now it seemed that maybe she ahd been looking at it all wrong. Maybe she and Lauren were just the icing, and the basic, underlying cake of the family was the couple in front of her who had a shared history she knew very little about.

I want a tutor," Layla said. "It would make doing homework so much easier."
"Me too," said Kaitlyn. "If Layla gets one, I get one."
"No daughter of mine will ever have a tutor," Dad said.
"What if we're failing a course?" asked Layla.
His graying eyebrows drew together. "If you fail a single course, young lady, we will pull you out of school and get you a job scrubbing toilets for the rest of your life.

Basically, the world is a giant shithole. But some of us are capable of imagining something better.

Well I'm not going to hope that you get hurt, but if you do, remember that you're my damsel in distress, and no one is allowed to carry you."

"I don't remember signing a contract."

"All the more reason to promise me now."

"What if you're not around when I get hurt?"

"Send word, I`ll come running."

"How big an injury does it have to be? Because sometimes I do this thing when I stand up too quickly and my ankle kind of twists a little---"

"Sounds serious. You don't want to put any weight on that. I`d better carry you the next time that happens."

"What if I skin my knee?"

"I`ll carry you."

"Charley horse?"

"I`ll carry you."

"Chipped toenail?"

"Not worth taking a risk. I`ll carry you."

I grin at him [...] I have to admit -- he's funnier and smarter than I've given him credit for.

Thank you," she said. "That wasn't meant as a compliment," he said. "I was criticizing you." "That made the compliment all the more sincere," Lauren said. "You weren't trying to make one.

It occurs to me that, for all her flaws, my mother is a Very Nice Person. I go over to her and give her a hug.

"What's that for?" she asks.

"I don't know. Just felt like it.

Value people because of who they were deep down, not because of their names or their parents' clout.

Why are you asking me? I'm seventeen and don't know anything about what to do when you're autistic and gay.

He was wearing a plain white oxford unbuttoned over a T-shirt, but something about the way they fit made him look put together, like an Abercrombie model (well, like an Abercrombie model who had remembered to put on a shirt that morning).

He only invited me because of you and Chase.'
'Right,' she said, following me inside. 'He's never shown the slightest interest in you before. I mean, he's never stared at you like you're the only person in the room when we're all together. Or sulked around for days because you turned him down for a dance. Or touched the sleeve of your sweater when he thinks no one's looking-'
'He's never done any of that,' I said. Then, less confidently, 'Has he?

You know, if you're going to take me aside when I'm behaving badly, I may start behaving worse. Just to get some attention from you." His eyes briefly catch the light and glow gray-green for a moment. "Possibly even some admiration.

The world exploded into billions of atoms, and when it rearranged itself, it may have looked the same, but really, it was a Whole New World.

I was isolated but not ostracized, ignored but not abused.

He's never shown the slightest interest in you before. I mean, he's never stared at you like you're the only person in the room when we're al together. Or sulked around for days because you turned him down for a dance. Or touched the sleeve of your sweater when he thinks no one's looking -

I got lost in him, and it was the kind of lost that's exactly like being found.

I just called you corny and said you were wearing a green dress. That's, like, the least flirtatious thing anyone's ever said."
"I'm willing to believe it's the least flirtatious thing you've ever said."
"Why are you so hard on me when I'm so nice to you?"
"Why are you so nice to me when I'm so hard on you?

And Derek was ... what?
A pair of dark eyes that hid more than they revealed and some broad shoulders and a mouth that could be cold and thin and then suddenly widen into a generous grin just when you thought such a thing was impossible.

Should we tell your father I'm his date for the evening, or should I just surprise him?" She pulls out a piece of tomato, inspects it, scrapes something off it, then sticks it back on the hamburger.
"He won't notice," Hilary says. "He can't even tell me and Lily apart, and look at us. Just look at us."
"My dad never calls me by the right name," I say. "Only by my older sisters'. Sometimes he'll call me 'honey' really awkwardly. He's not the honey type, but it gets him out of having to remember my name."
Phoebe says, "All parents have trouble with names. I'm an only child, and my dad sometimes stops and says, 'Uh, you.

Isabella: "Why are you being so mean to me?"
Harry: "Because i love you"
Isabella: "Does that ever work?"
Harry: "On my mother it does."
Isabella: "I'm not your mother."
Harry: "I know that already, because I'm enjoying your company.

We were alone in the dark, even though the enormous theater was filled with probably a thousand people. We were a tiny island in a sea of other people who didn't matter, who had no meaning, who were so stupid, so oblivious, so stuck in their own boring lives that they didn't even notice the huge, momentous, life-shattering event that was taking place right there in row L, between seats 102 and 104.

You wouldn't think the touch of someone's hand could blow your mind. It's nothing, right? People don't right songs and poems about holding hands - they write them about kisses and sex and eternal love. I mean, when you're a little kid you hold hands with your parents to cross the street. Who's going to write an ode to that?
We were alone in the dark, even though the enormous theater was filled with probably a thousand people. We were a tiny island in a sea of other people who didn't matter, who had no meaning, who were so stupid, so oblivious, so stuck in their own boring lives that they didn't even notice the huge, momentous, life-shattering event that was taking place right there in row L, between seats 102 and 104.
Derek Edwards was holding my hand.

Juliana's a year older than me, but she sometimes seems younger - mostly because she's the opposite of cynical and I'm the opposite of the opposite of cynical.

Everyone at Coral Tree Prep was good-looking. Really. Everyone. I didn't see a single fat or ugly kid all morning. Maybe they just locked them up at registration and didn't let them out again until graduation.