Gordon Korman Quotes

We're all proud of you, Donnie. Your mother and me, Katie - " "Right," I snorted. "She said I'm dumber than her bladder-challenged dog.

It's cat food - it's for people like you!" Saladin

The key to the city of Florence was about two feet long, and painted a garish gold.
Hamilton was fascinated by it. "Wow! How big is the lock?"
Jonah laughed. "There is no lock, cuz. It's an honorary gig. Back in my crib in LA, I've got a whole shed full of keys from different cities. Want to know the kicker? I can't get at them. The gardener lost the key to the shed.

Amy turned to Nellie. "Can you create a diversion to draw the clerk outside?"
The au pair was wary. "What kind of diversion?"
"You could pretend to be lost," Dan proposed. "The guy comes out to give you directions, and we slip inside."
"That's the most sexist idea I've ever heard," Nellie said harshly. "I'm female, so I have to be clueless. He's male, so he's got a great sense of direction."
"Maybe you're from out of town," Dan suggested. "Wait–you are from out of town."
Nellie stashed their bags under a bench and set Saladin on the seat with a stern "You're the watchcat. Anybody touches those bags, unleash your inner tiger."
The Egyptian Mau surveyed the street uncertainly. "Mrrp."
Nellie sighed. "Lucky for us there's no one around. Okay, I'm going in there. Be ready."
The clerk said something to her–probably May I help you? She smiled apologetically. "I don't speak Italian."
"Ah–you are American." His accent was heavy, but he seemed eager to please. "I will assist you." He took in her black nail polish and nose ring. "Punk, perhaps, is your enjoyment?"
"More like a punk/reggae fusion," Nellie replied thoughtfully. "With a country feel. And operatic vocals."
The clerk stared in perplexity.
Nellie began to tour the aisles, pulling out CDs left and right. "Ah–Artic Monkeys–that's what I'm talking about. And some Bad Brains–from the eighties. Foo Fighters–I'll need a couple from those guys. And don't forget Linkin Par

Don't have to see," the pilot grunted. "Olga knows the way."
"Funny name for an aircraft," Grace commented. "Is it after your wife?"
"My gun."
Grace stared at him. "You named your plane after a gun?"
"It was a very good gun.

I hate France. It's like the whole country's on a diet

The Bombyx mori caterpillar," her brother supplied, thinking of snack time at the Shaolin Temple. "It tastes like chicken.

I've taken care of it," I said My father looked at me, shocked. Then I realized "taken care of" had a very specific meaning in his line of work. "No, no, I mean he's gone.

Don't think of it as losing a boyfriend. Think of it as gaining a stalker.
-Dan Cahill

I'm starving. When we check into our hotel, let's ask the desk clerk where we can find one of those vast pizzas."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your guidebook says Florence is a city of vast pizzas. Look it up yourself."
"Those are vast piazzas, not pizzas! It means public squares!"
Dan's face fell. "Oh."
Amy sighed. "I honestly thought the clue hunt took the dweeb out of you. No such luck.

Be the Ambulance. Make toast.

Desperately, Phoenix attempted to maneuver both tips of the instrument around the bullet. He knew that each move caused Nellie unimaginable pain, but he could not grasp the target. "It's no use," he sobbed. "And my hand is going numb."
In a frenzy, Nellie shouted something into the gag, but no one could understand her.
"I beg your pardon, child?" queried Alistair.
Nellie spat out the rag and rasped, "Get the Kabra chick!"
"Natalie?" Fiske exclaimed. "She's fallen completely to pieces."
"Get her!" Nellie demanded. "Anybody with eyebrows plucked like that knows how to use a tweezers!"
Reagan bounded across the room and came back with a shivering, mewling Natalie.
"I can't!" she wheezed.
Fiske poured alchohol over the girl's beautifully manicured fingers. "You must."
Still protesting, her eyes tightly shut, she took over the instrument from Phoenix. "I can't do it! You can't make me - oh!" She said in sudden surprise. "This?" And when she pulled the tweezers out of the wound, the tips were firmly grasping a flattened, blood-slimed bullet.
Nellie laughed - and promptly fainted.

What did Romeo and Juliet do?"
They died," I remind her gently. "Some mix-up with the poison-

Where's Amy?" Ian put in. "Will you please get her to call that Evan character? He rings here twenty times a day. He's either the most mule-headed person who ever lived, or he really likes your sister. She has to have mercy on him–on all of us!

According to the mate, there were three main jobs that needed to be done to ensure their survival.

Registration Day' by Gavin Gunhold (1899 - )
Toronto Review of Poetry, 1947

On registration day at taxidermy school
I distinctly saw the eyes of the stuffed moose
Move.

That's the most sexist idea I've ever heard," Nellie said harshly. "I'm female, so I have to be clueless. He's male, so he's got a great sense of direction.

If it isn't on YouTube, it might as well have never happened.

You know what punk is? a bunch of no-talent guys who really, really want to be in a band. Nobody reads music, nobody plays the mandolin, and you're too dumb to write songs about mythology or Middle-earth. So what's your style? Three chords, cranked out fast and loud and distorted because your instruments are crap and you can't play them worth a damn. And you scream your lungs out to cover up the fact that you can't sing. It should suck, but here's the thing - it doesn't. Rock and roll can be so full of itself, but not this. It's simple and angry and raw.

Global warming doesn't care what's in your bank account.
-Sinead Starling

The dog always dies. Go to the library and pick out a book with an award sticker and a dog on the cover. Trust me, that dog is going down.

After so many reversals of fortune today, they half expected a meteorite to hurtle from the sky and vaporize them if they dared to move. Finally,

As rich Cahill superstars went, Fidelio Racco was definitely on the B-list. Maybe even the D-list. Google had heard of him, but a search for his surname placed him below Racco Auto Body in Toronto and Trattoria Racco in Florence, and only slightly ahead of the Rack O'Lamb Irish Chop House in Des Moines.

I have a percription ferret. I'm not a good judge of weird.

Fiske spoke sharply to the four walls. "We need medical attention immediately. We have a gunshot wound that requires treatment."
"You're not going to get through to them by talking like an English professor," scoffed Reagan. "Hey!" she bawled. "Get a doctor down here! She's in pain, thanks to you! What are you going to do about it?

Nellie's brow furrowed. "The great Mr. Hip-Hop Mogul standing in line with the common peasants? How do you figure that?"
Dan grinned. "I'm starting to dig this 'no cars' thing. It's a great equalizer.

Check it out."
Jonah removed the bubble wrap and held up the picture for his three cousins.
Dan took a step backward. The shock was almost as powerful as it had been the day before at the Uffizi. "It's perfect! It's every bit as disgusting as the real one!"
Amy nodded. "And so fast. We only called you yesterday."
Jonah shrugged. "Even the Janus take a short cut every now and then. You can do a lot with digitization these days. You break the picture down to squares and reproduce them one at a time. The other two are just as fly."
"You mean, hog ugly," Hamilton amended.
"The serpents don't help," Dan put in critically. "Live fat spaghetti. Lady, if you're thinking of a modeling career, forget it!"
The rapper clucked sympathetically. "You guys just don't appreciate the power of the visual image. The Wiz used to be like that–until Gangsta Kronikles. When you're in film industry, you understand the whole picture's-worth-a-thousand-words deal."
Hamilton rolled his eyes. "Here we go again.

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It was no place for a Kabra, not even a poor one living in exile with a psychopathic cat.
He approached the counter and rand the bell with authority. The clerk turned around.
Evan Tolliver.
"You're Amy's cousin!"
"Yes, I am," Ian confirmed. "I have here a list of items–"
"Have you heard from her?" Evan interrupted. "Is she okay?"
"Her health is excellent."
"No, I mean–"
Ian sighed. "Why should you care? She promises to phone you, and she doesn't. You were nearly arrested, thanks to her. There's a message in there somewhere, don't you agree?"
Evan nodded sadly. "I kind of think so, too. But we were awesome together. She's smart, fun to be with, and not immature like most of the girls in our school. It's as if she has an automatic switch for when it's time to be serious–she can almost be old beyond her years at times. Where do you learn something like that?"
"I have no earthly idea," Ian lied.

Nobody got me out," Nellie replied. "They just let me go. They think I'm a deranged Jonah Wizard fan. Apparently, the hotel's full of them. A couple of idiots actually jumped off the front balcony. Can you picture that?"
"In Technicolor," Amy said bitterly.
"That low-down KGB reject!" Dan fumed. "I can't believe she cheated me–right when I was in the middle of cheating her!

you-know-who." Amy

You want me to stop and give the Wizards a chance to do it?" he shot back. Dead

Amy was profoundly shocked. "A little over an hour ago, our bus was attacked by three men in ski masks. They definitely knew me, and probably Dan, too. We fought them off, but it could've gone either way."
"Like if they'd used a cookie truck instead of a gas tanker," Dan added. "Nobody's scared of Oreos.

What does it feel like to get shot?"
"I don't recommend it," said Nellie in a controlled voice. "Chocolate is definitely better.

They crested a rise, and there it was, in the hollow between rolling hills - a low, square building, ghostly gray in the moonlight.
"Is that it?" asked Hamilton.
"It probably isn't the local opera house," groaned Ian.

The thing about a cavity search is this: it has nothing to do with the dentist.

Here's some more stuff we're going to need."

1 pair coveralls
1 extension ladder (30 foot)
1 glass cutter
1 artist's portfolio (large)
1 water pistol
1 bottle india ink
1 portable trampoline (collapsible)
1 bicycle w/basket
4 pizza boxes

Jonah whistled. "I hope you've got some crazy evil-genius strategy, 'cause–straight up–I don't get it.

Never trust a Cahill." They

the yard. When Ben knocked on Griffin's door the next morning on his way to school, he was surprised when the door was answered by Mrs.

Ask me. I'm a cow expert.

What's a starbuck?

It's like living your whole life without ever looking in a mirror, Amy thought, and suddenly you see your reflection, and you're a monster.

Amy, since when do you have a boyfriend?

Free food!" mumbled Hamilton, his mouth full. "No wonder you're rich. You don't have to pay for anything."
"Since when is it free?" Jonah demanded. "If I don't leave a big tip, it'll be all over Europe that the Wiz is a cheapskate! They'll seat me behind the sound-man from the penguin movie at the Oscars!

Jonah peered critically up at the Renaissance masterpiece. "Man, those copies don't due it justice. This one's the truth!"
"Only a Janus," groaned Hamilton.

Who's Evan?" Ian asked.
"Amy's boyfriend!"
"Amy, since when do you have a boyfriend?" Ian probed.
"Since none of your business!

"Amy's boyfriend!"
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"Amy's boyfriend!"
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Who's that new guy with the snooty accent who came out and talked to the police?" Evan persisted. "He looks like some kind of male model."
"That's just my cousin Ian," Amy explained.
"Not much of a family resemblance," Evan noted sourly.
"He's like a twenty-fifth cousin, ten times removed."
Evan was not satisfied.

Nellie Gomez awoke to a splitting headache. Worse, she was still hungry.
"Where's my croissant?" she demanded of the person leaning over her.
"Dear child," came a strangely familiar voice.
"Don't 'dear child' me!" she snapped. The twenty-two-year-old punk rocker ran black-polished fingernails through black-and-orange-dyed hair, which did nothing to soothe the pounding behind her black-shaded eyes. "Give me my croissant or I'll–"
It was then that she suddenly realized she was threatening the venerable Alistair Oh. "Alistair, what are you doing here?

Jonah spoke what everyone was thinking. "Wouldn't it be Twilight Zone if the door was open, too?"
Hamilton tried the knob. It didn't budge.
Ian stepped forward and examined the lock. "Natalie's diary has better security than this." He produced a credit card and slipped it between the latch and the jamb. There was a click, and the door swung wide.

But here, two thousand miles from home, there was a real shipwreck, a real hope. A choice big enough to change our lives forever.

During construction, when a worker died, his body was built right into the Wall itself. No one knew how many corpses lay within the stone and mortar, but some estimates ran as high as three million souls.

Dear Mr. Weston,
Hello again. We were beginning to wonder what had happened to you. I guess things have been pretty quiet since the Salvation Army tried to take over the world.
We are sorry, but after much deliberation we have elected not to assign any men to Protect Trillium Air Base. We feel that the Forces can protect themselves, and if they can't, who is going to protect the country?
Also, thank you for sending us that shard of broken glass with the fingerprint on it. It was yours. Our mail clerk required four stitches and a tetanus shot.
Relay our condolences to your Mr. Waghorn. We have no idea what unfortunate circumstance (for him) drew him to your ever-watchful attention, but he has no criminal record and his face is not known to us. Yours Sincerely,
Bruce Hmmm, thought Sidney, Waghorn has no criminal record.
"Let me see one of those," said Tom.
"I'm sorry, Tom, but I can't show you the letters."
Tom muttered something about a lack of trust. He was extremely alarmed at the intensity of Sidney's expression. As Sidney himself would have put it, the investigation was progressing. That meant trouble. There was always trouble when his brother got to the letter-writing stage. Tom would have to stay on his toes.
Sidney opened the last letter. Dear Mr. Weston,
Please stop bothering us. Cordially yours,
The Ontario Provincial Police.

Your pants didn't get smaller, Mommy," I assured her. "Your butt got bigger.

Hey, things like that happen at the Academy too," I insisted, almost triumphantly. "Last year the freezers failed so there was no ice for" - the wind went out of my sails as I realized how lame this was going to sound - "the sushi bar." He nodded sympathetically. "You guys should get T-shirts made. You know: I Survived the Sushi Crisis.

No fair! Those guys ripped off what we rightfully stole!

You two have to promise to be careful!" Sinead handed Amy a small plastic bag. "I made you a going-away present–a high-powered miniature smoke bomb. Could come in handy against the Vespers. It works with knockout gas, so I tossed in a couple of breathing filters."
"That's the Cahill equivalent of a Hallmark moment," Dan observed. "A smoke bomb. When you care enough to send the very best–explosives."
"I'm not a flowers-and-candy kind of girl," Sinead informed him.

Hypothesis: Brothers and sisters forge family bonds through a complex byplay of accusations and insults.

The test! It was as if they believed the test was an infallible superbeing that had descended to earth on a great space ark surrounded by thunderbolts of perfection.

Change of plan–," she called to Jonah. "Can you drop us off in Rome?"
"Yo, am I a movie star or a taxi service?" Jonah grumbled from the depths of the script pile.
"Technically, your neither," Hamilton puffed, lifting weights again. "I mean, you're a star and you've made movies...

Slime him, sis," Dan urged, "Make him a redcoat.

It's a shame that money has to enter into everything.

We didn't stow away!" Dan protested. "You sunk our boat and pulled us out of the canal!"
"Good point," Ian agreed. "Return them to the canal. Roughly, please.

For someone who'e smarter than a supercomputer, sometimes you're a real idiot.

In our family, you don't get a childhood. We're too busy trying to dominate the world.

Come on, who saw what happened?"
"I did," I volenteered.
"Well?"
"Buttwipe wanted to know what jerkface was looking at." I turned turned eyes on the bloody and dirt-smeared brawlers. "You were barely 3-inches apart. Couldn't you see that you were both looking at each other?"
The teacher's face reddened. "Who do you think you are? Jerry Seinfeld?"
"You must be confused with another student," I told him. "My name is Capricorn Anderson.

fact, it's just crazy enough to be the kind of thing that actually happens in your family. A regular hiding place isn't good enough for you Froot Loops; you have to use Mount Everest!

Wonderful. What's the point of throwing a hissy fit without friends and family on hand to hear it?
-Amy Cahill

You did a politics project on a government that got overthrown on the due date? Man, did anybody ever tell you you've got no luck?"
"I suspected it," said Raymond ironically.

The computer beeped as the upload completed. A moment later, Ian Kabra appeared on the screen.
Dan was surprised. "Hey, Ian, isn't it, like, two in the morning back there?"
"It's called jet lag," Ian informed him. "I'm still on London time. I don't suppose you savages have any tea in this mausoleum."
"There's a diet Snapple in the fridge."
Ian shuddered. "I thought not.

If the cake fits, eat it!

Wolfram," Dan mused, a far-off look in his eye. "I've heard of that from somewhere." Amy was skeptical. "Are you sure you're not thinking of Wolfgang?

When we lock things away," he said with conviction, "we're really imprisoning ourselves.

Challenge isn't going to come from any curriculum, no matter how hard they make it. It's going to come from life.

There's always a way," his sister lectured. "We'll need help, though."
"What help?"
Amy grinned. "Sometimes it doesn't hurt to be a part of the most powerful family in human history.

How you are in this place that has been sealed since the time of Caesar Augustus?" one of the archaeologists demanded in amazement.
"I was looking for my sister," Dan quipped.
"Your sister?"
"Oh - here she is." Dan reached through the opening and hauled out an equally grubby Amy.

You don't get Billie Joe Armstrong's autograph on your forehead without following your instincts.

They don't have regular time at school, you know. They have periods. All of a sudden an alarm goes off and you're supposed to drop what you're doing and rush off to a different room with a different teacher to do something completely different! How can anybody learn like that?