Jenn Bennett Quotes

Distichiasis. Your eyelashes. A genetic mutation that causes double rows of lashes

There was only so much worrying you could do before you just had to accept what life throws at you and move on, because some things were going to be out of your control, and others can't be fixed or changed.

Asking for help isn't a weakness."

"It's more a matter of trust. Not just trust in someone else, but in myself.

Earth to Beatrix: This was the night bus, not a Journey song. Two strangers were not on a midnight train going anywhere. I was going home, and he was probably going to knock over a liquor store. When

My brother was right about one thing: I didn't really know how to be bad

I like the way bones and skin move, and I like seeing how all of the chambers of the heart fit together

Her mind made great, panicked leaps between the mundane - He smells pleasantly of soap and witch hazel - and the practical: How could another human being weigh so much? Is he filled with rocks?

Let's go eat some pie and solve a mystery.

How did he know my dad helped get me this job? Did someone in the office tell him? I mean, it's not like I'm some spoiled, incompetent rich kid with zero work experience and mega connections. My dad's just aCPA! But I'm not going to bother explaining that or anything else. Because right now, I'm halfway convinced a hole in my skull has blown right off and my brains are flowing out like molten lava. I think I might well and truly hate Porter Roth.

"You know nothing about me or my family. And you're a goddamn dickbag, you know that?" I say, so enraged that I don't even care that a family of four is walking up to my window. I should have. And I should have noticed that I left the green switch turned on from the last pair of tickets I sold. But the family's wide-eyed faces clue me in now.

They've heard every nasty word.

For one terrible moment, the booth spins around me. I apologize profusely, but the parents aren't happy. At all. Why should they be? Oh God, is the wife wearing a crucifix pendant? What if these people are fundamentalists? Are these kids homeschooled? Did I just ruin them for life? Jesus fu - I mean, fiddlesticks. Are they going to ask to speak to Mr. Cavadini? Am I going to be fired? On my first day? What is my dad going to say?

We are goddamn amazing. We're a rocket ship filled with potential. Either we die in a fiery blaze before we leave the Earth's atmosphere, or we make it through and orbit the moon."
"If you're trying to seduce me with space stuff, it's totally working."
His smile is divine. "Yeah?"
"Yeah.

I'm so ready.
I am Mink. Hear me roar.

I don't want my mistakes to affect everyone else in the room," I said after a moment. "I want to keep to myself and do as little damage as possible.

When he makes mistakes, he's so focused on righting the wrong, and so overconfident about his ability to fix it all, that he loses sight of the big picture and ends up making things worse.

She's got the strength of a tater tot

The entire time they're talking, I can't tear my eyes away from Porter. What I'm feeling for him now is like drowning and floating at the same time.

Mom says you should never ask for advice you aren't willing to take. I wasn't sure I agreed. Having an unbiased pair of eyes point out a sensible solution was helpful. But the sensible thing and the right thing weren't always the same choice, and no one but you could truly understand the difference.

Porter grins at me and rubs his hands together excitedly. "This looks super weird. I'm so in. Let's play.

Why is the vegetarian Buddhist dressed like a jewel thief?

Churros are like long Mexican doughnut sticks that have been fried and dipped in cinnamon or, as the sign tells me, strawberry sugar. They smell like God's footprints. I've never had a real churro, but halfway down the promenade, I make a decision to give up on everything: finding Alex, finding another job, the meaning of life. Just give me that sweet fried dough.

It's weird being alone in the museum. It's dark and eerily quiet: Only the after-hours lights are on - just enough to illuminate the hallways and stop you from tripping over your own feet - and the background music that normally plays all the time is shut off.

I quickly organize the flashlights and check their batteries, and when I don't hear Porter walking around, I stare at the phone sitting at the information desk. How many chances come along like this? I pick up the receiver, press the little red button next to the word ALL, and speak into the phone in a low voice. "Paging Porter Roth to the information desk," I say formally, my voice crackling through the entire lobby and echoing down the corridors. Then I press the button again and add, "While you're at it, check your shoes to make sure they're a match, you bastard. By the way, I still haven't quite forgiven you for humiliating me. It's going to take a lot more than a kiss and a cookie to make me forget both that and the time you provoked me in the Hotbox."

I'm only teasing, which I hope he knows. I feel a little drunk on all my megaphone power, so I page one more thing:

"PS - You look totally hot in those tight-fitting security guard pants tonight, and I plan to get very handsy with you at the movies, so we better sit in the back row."

I hang up the phone and cover my mouth, silently laughing at myself. Two seconds later, Porter's footfalls pound down Jay's corridor - Boom! B

I like all my things to go right."
"That's not how the world works."
"It's how it should work," I say. I like plans that go smoothly. That's the beauty I believe in. Nothing is better than when things go exactly how I expect."
"I know that's what you like," he says, eyes squinting out the sun to peer down at me. "And there's comfort in that, sure. But there's comfort in knowing that when your plans fall apart, you can survive. That the worst thing imaginable can happen, but you can get through it. That's why I like to read horror fiction. It's not about the monsters. It's about the hero surviving them and living to tell the tale.

It's being a capable human being, which is something I think a lot of people have forgotten how to do.

He looks toward the ocean, dark purple with the last rays of light. "My mom says we're all connected--people and plants and animals. We all know one another on the inside. It's what's on the outside that distracts. Our clothes, our words, our actions. Shark attacks. Gunshots. We spend our lives trying to find other people. Sometimes we get confused and turned around by the distractions." He smiles at me. "But we didn't.

Frankly, I was just thrilled to be going out into the real world again and would have been satisfied with a trip to the grocery store.

Spontaneity is overrated. Movies and television shows would like us to believe that life is better for party goers who dare to jump into pools with their clothes on. But behind the scenes, it's all carefully scripted. The water is the right temperature. Lighting and angles are carefully considered. Dialogue is memorized. And that's why it's so appealing - because someone carefully planned it all. Once you realize this, life gets a whole lot simpler.

I brush off my skirt and notice that a small trail of blood runs from a nasty scrape on my knee. I don't even care. I'm still on an oh-so-sweet adrenaline high.

Porter grins, eyebrows high. "Damn, Bailey. You took him downtown. Full-on atomic drop body slam. I had no idea you had it in you."

Me neither, to be honest. "No one steals from Sam Spade and gets away with it," I say.

He holds his hand up, and I slap it

He squints at me and sort of chuckles, as if he's not sure how to take that remark. We glare at each other for several long seconds, and suddenly I'm extremely uncomfortable. I'm also regretting I said anything to him. None of this is me. At all. I don't argue with strangers. Why is this guy getting under my skin and making me say this stuff? It's like he's provoking me on purpose. Maybe he does this with everyone. Well, not me, buddy. Find someone else to pick on. I will evade the crap out of you.

I love you, damn it.

Yeah. I guess I'm a color-inside-the-lines girl. Worse, really - I'd rather shade inside the lines with a nice, light 4H pencil. Something dark like a 5B or 6B? That's me going nuts. He laughed, stretching out his long legs

Feeling alive is always worth the risk.

But there's comfort in knowing that when your plans fall apart, you can survive. That the worst thing imaginable can happen, but you can get through it.

Sometimes you have to endure painful things to realize that you're a whole lot stronger than you think.

Feeling alive is merely a rush of adrenaline.

Panic is the best aphrodisiac

Oh! Do you have a pocketknife?"
He narrowed his eyes at me. "Pocketknife?"
"Don't men your age always have pocketknives?" I asked in a high-pitched voice.
"My age? I'm not a fucking grandfather," he snapped.

He gathered me closer, kissed my neck, then spoke in a low voice next to my ear. I figure, see, if you find yourself getting more attached to the two of us than you planned, maybe you won't think about picking up and leaving to start another life somewhere else.

This was the night bus, not a Journey song. Two strangers were not on a midnight train going anywhere. I was going home, and he was probably going to knock over a liquor store.

Coconut," I say. "You always smell coconut-y." Then, because it's dark in the van, and because I'm wiped out from all the panic and my guard is down, I add, "You always smell good."

"Sex Wax."

"What?" I sit up a little straighter.

He reaches down to the floorboard and tosses me what looks like a plastic-wrapped bar of soap. I hold it up to the window to see the label in the streetlight. "Mr. Zog's Sex Wax," I read.

"You rub it on the deck of your board," he explains. "For traction. You know, so you don't slip off while you're surfing." I sniff it. That's the stuff, all right.

"I bet your feet smell heavenly."

"You don't have a foot fetish thing, do you?" he asks, voice playful.

"I didn't before, but now? Who knows."

The tires of the van veer off the road onto the gravelly shoulder, and he cuts the wheel sharply to steer back onto the pavement. "Oops."

We chuckle, both embarrassed.

I toss the wax onto the floorboard. "Well, another mystery solved

It wasn't the first time I'd run across sex spells: they
were just as common as electricity-kindled spells. They just
aren't convenient for your average on-the-go magical
needs.
"Do all the memory spells require that?" I asked.
"I don't think so. I just noticed it on the last couple of
retrieval ones."
"Uh, maybe I could just get myself, you know, privately
... ?" I suggested. I regretted it immediately, and felt my face
flush with warmth. What the hell was I going to do? Ask Lon
if he had any porn I could borrow and hole up in his library's
washroom?

You've both got that sweet Hotbox sheen. Looks better on the two of you than the last pair. By the way, one of them is . . ." He swipes his thumb across his throat, indicating that the kid quit, and not that he actually offed himself. I hope.

"Another one?" Grace murmurs.

He leans back against the door, one foot propped up, scrolling through his phone. The propped-up foot puts his knee in my space, mere centimeters from mine. It's like he's purposely trying to crowd me. "This job weeds out the weak, Gracie. They should flash their photos over the teepees in the fake starry sky in Jay's Wing.

When I looked up at the stars, I saw us. You were the stars and I was the dark sky behind you"
"Without dark sky you couldn't see the stars"
"I knew I was useful" he says
"You're essential

My old therapist warned me that avoidance is a dysfunctional way to interact with people you care about, but now I'm starting to understand what he meant when he said it could hurt them, too. Maybe it's time I figure out a better way to deal with my problems. Maybe Artful Dodger isn't working so well for me anymore.

Just because I'm quiet doesn't mean I'm aloof. Maybe I just want to be alone. Maybe I'm not good at conversation. We all can't be cool and gregarious and Hey, bro what up? like he apparently is. Some of us aren't wired for that.

Planning can't save you from everything. Change is inevitable and uncertainty is a given. And if you plan so much that you can't function without one, life's no fun. All the calendars, journals, and lists in the world won't save you when the sky falls. And maybe, just maybe, I've been using planning less as a coping mechanism and more as an excuse to avoid anything I couldn't control.
But that doesn't mean preparation is altogether bad. Planning can be useful when you've come out on the wrong side of a cave and need to figure out a new way to get back on route.
When all you can do is put one foot in front of the other and push forward.

You're like ten prismacolors all at once.

He was kissing me like we were both on fire and he was trying to put the flames out, and I kissed him back like an arsonist with a pocketful of matches.

It's actually happening. It's good, and a little awkward, and sometimes funny, because wow, human bodies are weird. But it's also more than I expected - than I ever hoped.
It's all of him and all of me, and most of all, it's us, it's us, it's us

Can't command respect unless you act like you deserve it.

I'm not one of those cool, creative kids in my art class who make skirts out of trash bags and paint in crazy colours.

Bind Merrimoth," he finally said, "and I'll do that think you like later."
"It's not like my power reacts to the reward system," I said, then added, "What thing?"
The corner of his mouth quirked. "On the chair."
"You mean the thing you like?"
"We both like," he corrected. "Win-win.

One man's deviance is other man's lunch break.

You trusted me.'
'You drugged me!'
He grinned. 'Yeah, I did.

And not after, when we're clinging to each other like the world just fell apart and is slowly clicking back together, piece by piece, breath by breath . . . heartbeat by beautiful heartbeat.

Before, my anxiety was singing solo. Now all this weird anticipation and jumbled excitement has added some strange harmonies into the mix. I'm a barbershop quartet basket case.

And you're apparently made of mountain. Are you sure you're an engineer and not a lumberjack?

I will fix it for you. Hand on my heart, Bex Adams, I will fix it

But we'll get through it. Bad times don't last. You just have to hang on until they pass.

I just want somebody I can have a decent conversation with over dinner." - Tom Hanks, Sleepless in Seattle (1993) 11

I mean learning how to spot danger and avoid it in a responsible, careful way. You have to understand your environment. Respect it.

I was only curious. What do I care? At least he's not Salvadoran.

A massive shudder goes through me and I freak out a little. My head's suddenly filled with all the things he's said about being eighteen and sexual freedom, and there is no doubt in my mind that he's exercised his rights with other girls - which is fine, whatever. No judgment. It's just that I have . . . not, and all this super-filthy kissing makes me more than aware of the experience gap between us. Which worries me. And thrills me. And worries me.

(And thrills me.)

Dear God: Save me from myself.

Someone stop them!" I yell.

No one does.

I think about Porter surrounded by people that horrible day on the beach years ago, when no one would help him save his dad from the shark. If strangers won't help when someone is dying, they're definitely not going to stop two kids from running out of a museum.

Pulse swishing in my temples, I race around the information booth, pumping my arms, and watch them split up again. Polo is heading for the easy way out: the main exit, where there's (1) only a set of doors to go through, and (2) Hector, the laziest employee on staff.

But Backpack is headed for the ticketing booth and the connecting turnstiles. Freddy should be there, but no one's entering the museum, so he's instead chatting it up with Hector. The turnstiles are unmanned.

Like a pro hustler who's never paid a subway fare, Backpack hurdles over the turnstiles in one leap. Impressive. Or it would have been, had his backpack not slipped off his shoulder and the strap not caught on one of the turnstile arms. While he struggles to free it, I take the easier route and make for the wheelchair access gate.

I unhitch the latch.

He frees the strap.

I slip through the gate, and just as he's turning to run, I lurch forward and -

I jump on his back.

We hit the ground together. The air whooshes out of my lungs and my knee slams into tile. He cries out. I don't.

I freaking

Oh, really? Is that why he's hot and bothered for Arcadia here?" Kar Yee tossed an accusatory glance my way. She was well aware that honesty wasn't one of my strong suits. "Probably," Jupe confirmed. "My dad says he likes her so much that if she kicked him in the balls, he'd just thank her.

For the love of rocks

Everything we do in life affects someone else.

You were loud." "Oh God." She tried to hide her face, but he wouldn't let her. "I knew you would be - when I imagined us together. I hoped you would be." His hand smoothed over the skin down her back. "You were loud, too," she pointed out. Almost alarmingly so. "Mmm-hmm. You made me feel wild. Are you proud? You should be." "Not proud, no. Just happy.

Doing nothing can cause as much damage as doing something.

Well, imagine that. She didn't shrivel up and die at the feel of his lips on hers - or, rather, she might, but it wasn't him in particular. And instead of just telling him never to try it again, she confessed her secret - partly, anyway.
It almost felt like a challenge. At least, that's how his ever-optimistic brain interpreted it, as if she were saying: You want this? Good luck. You're going to have to work for it.

If you don't pay attention to things, they wander off.

It's a shame I'm going to be forced to commit severe testicular trauma upon that boy

Hey." Lon said to Kar Yee, towering over her. "Hanging in there?"
"This? Pfft. It's nothing." Kar Yee said with a silly grin. "How's my favorite pirate captain? Did you come to give me something nice to look at? A little pirate booty?" She snorted a laugh at her own joke.

But you know, sometimes people smile when they're sad. And sometimes girls who look sad are really smiling

You're my favorite person, you know ... you're my favorite person, too.