Libba Cotten Quotes

His hand was a claw, sharp enough to open her. She would be like all the others - Ruta Badowski, in her broken dancing shoes. Tommy Duffy, still with the dirt of his last baseball game under his nails. Gabriel Johnson, taken on the best day of his life. Or even Mary White, holding out for a future that never arrived. She'd be like all those beautiful, shining boys marching off to war, rifles at their hips and promises on their lips to their best girls that they'd be home in time for Christmas, the excitement of the game showing in their bright faces. They'd come home men, heroes with adventures to tell about, how they'd walloped the enemy and put the world right side up again, funneled it into neat lines of yes and no. Black and white. Right and wrong. Here and there. Us and them. Instead, they had died tangled in barbed wire in Flanders, hollowed by influenza along the Western Front, blown apart in no-man's-land, writhing in trenches with those smiles still in place, courtesy of the phosgene, chlorine, or mustard gas. Some had come home shell-shocked and blinking, hands shaking, mumbling to themselves, following orders in some private war still taking place in their minds. Or, like James, they'd simply vanished, relegated to history books no one bothered to read, medals put in cupboards kept closed. Just a bunch of chess pieces moved about by unseen hands in a universe bored with itself. ~ Libba Bray

I can't help feeling humiliated for Ithal. He stands at the wall and watches us go, and when we reach the turnoff for the school, he's still there with the mangled flower in his hands, far behind us a small, dying star fading out of our constellation. ~ Libba Bray

Why do I feel this response makes Kartik much like governesses who tell their charges grisly fairy tales before bed and then expect them to sleep peacefully through the night? ~ Libba Bray

I took Advanced PowerPoint last semester. You guys are always misunderestimating me. I'm totally ready to handle the big stuff. ~ Libba Bray

It wasn't my doing. It is the drink and the laudanum and the opium and that bloody refusal to live. That selfish grief. I thought I could change it with magic, but I can't. People will be who they are, and there is not enough magic in any world to change that. ~ Libba Bray

It's just too bad they have to die. They're totally bangable, you know?" "Bangable," Taylor mouthed in disgust. She wanted to show this boy another meaning for the word bang, and it involved his head against a steel door. ~ Libba Bray

J.T Woodland, known as "the cute one" in The Corporation's seventh-grade boy band, Boyz Will B Boyz. Due to the success of their triple-platinum hit, "Let Me Shave Your Legs Tonight, Girl," Boyz Will B Boyz ruled the charts for a solid eleven months before hitting puberty and losing ground to Hot Vampire Boyz. ~ Libba Bray

It occurs to me that cricket is not the true sport in London - gossip is. ~ Libba Bray

Could you look again, please?" the woman asked in a clipped, slightly British accent. "It was sent parcel post two weeks ago from Miss Felicity Worthington and addressed to Mrs. Rao, Mrs. Gemma Doyle Rao. ~ Libba Bray

What
you don't believe in true love?" Petra asked. "The kind that can then be parlayed into awesome merchandising opportunities?"
- "Beauty Queens ~ Libba Bray

Cash or check?" he said cheekily. Even the dullest Ohio girls knew that bit of lingo: Kiss now or kiss later?
"Bank's closed, pal. ~ Libba Bray

The night's chilly breath tickles up my neck and finds my ear, whispering secrets only the wind knows. ~ Libba Bray

You've influenced the world not because you wanted to hug it and cuddle it and call it sweet thing, but because one day you wanted to beat the crap out of somebody but you didn't. You made a painting instead. ~ Libba Bray

Libraries are a force for good. They wear capes. They fight evil. They don't get upset when you don't send them a card on their birthdays. (Though they will charge you if you're late returning a book.) They serve communities. The town without a library is a town without a soul. The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experiences, the hopes and dreams and strivings of ALL human beings, and it is this passport that opens our eyes and hearts to the world beyond our front doors, that is one of our best hopes against tyranny, xenophobia, hopelessness, despair, anarchy, and ignorance. Libraries are the torch of the world, illuminating the path when it feels too dark to see. We mustn't allow that torch to be extinguished. ~ Libba Bray

Why does anyone do anything? Belief. A belief that they are doing right and just in their actions. ~ Libba Bray

I'll try to communicate, Taylor said. She spoke slowly and deliberately. Hello! We need help. Is your village close?
My village is Denver. And I think it's a long way from here. I'm Nicole Ade. Miss Colorado.
We have a Colorado where we're from too! Tiara said. She swiveled her hips, spread her arms wide, then brought her hands together prayer-style and bowed. Kipa aloha.
Nicole stared. I speak English. I'm American. Also, did you learn those moves from Barbie's Hawaiian Vacation DVD?
Ohmigosh, yes! Do your people have that, too? ~ Libba Bray

They swoon over Tom, who preens for them, bowing, which sets them to blushing and giggling.
God help us all. ~ Libba Bray

Helloooo." Miss Ohio rolled her eyes. "I'm from the Buckeye State. We are serious about our tailgating parties. I can turn anything into a grill. ~ Libba Bray

People are…" Mabel wheezed. "Mostly good, you…" Wheeze. "Know? Mostly." She tried to take a breath. It was hard. Like breathing through layers of gauze. Where were her parents? She loved them so. "Mostly. I believe that with…" A bloody cough tore through Mabel's lungs. "… With all my… all my heart. ~ Libba Bray

She never utters a sound even when she's crying, and that makes me a little sad. Doesn't seem right. When you cry, people should hear you. The world should stop. ~ Libba Bray

In this life, you have to work with people you dislike. You find compromises. But sometimes you find that a person's beliefs are so harmful that you must speak against them. You can't let such harmful statements stand without challenge. They have a tendency to grow into tumors. ~ Libba Bray

We're all damaged, somehow. ~ Libba Bray

I have met the devil, and her name is Cecily Temple ~ Libba Bray

Around us the night creatures have their say. We are surrounded by a symphony of crickets and frogs. Neither of us feels the need to speak, and I suppose that is one of the qualities I find comforting in Kartik. We can be alone together. ~ Libba Bray

The ladies pass the timee with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom- gime and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or even correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the gallows on my own strength. ~ Libba Bray

Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize. ~ Libba Bray

Ain't that the way of the world, now? Good luck turns bad. Bad luck turns good. Just a big rolling craps game played between this world and the next, and we the dice getting tossed around. ~ Libba Bray

Stories were power. And whoever controlled the story controlled everything. A story could bring people together, or it could tear them apart. It could spread like a sickness, infecting people. It could lead them into battle or shake them into seeing what they had refused to see before. ~ Libba Bray

People can live with only so much honesty. And sometimes, people can surprise you. ~ Libba Bray

Naming my favorite books feels like naming a favorite child - impossible. ~ Libba Bray

It seemed odd to Sosie that she had to make some hard-and-fast decision about such an arbitrary, individual thing as attraction, like having to declare an orientation major: I am straight with a minor in gay. ~ Libba Bray

My personal motto is: WWWWD?: What Would Wonder Woman Do? ~ Libba Bray

I'm sorry, Gemma. But we can't live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the dark with you. ~ Libba Bray

Oh, hello," Dr. M says, shaking Balder's hand. "Wonderful costume. I'm a bit of a role player myself on the weekends. Tell me, where did you get the helmet?"
It was forged in the North, blessed by the hands of Odin, given to me by my mother, Frigg," Balder answers.
Lovely. I got mine on the Internet. ~ Libba Bray

I think sometimes in literature we kind of police ourselves. I know a lot of people talked about Twilight, and they would say, oh, but the heroine, she lets this man make her decisions. And I thought, that may not be the particular fantasy or trope that works for me.
But listen man, I read Wuthering Heights. I wanted me a little Heathcliff action. I mean, why can't we indulge that fantasy and also be like, And now I would like the ERA passed, please. Also, this lipstick is fuckin' killer. ~ Libba Bray

I hate high heels. Walking in high heels for eight hours a day should be forbidden by the Geneva Convention. ~ Libba Bray

We create the illusions we need to go on. ~ Libba Bray

I can be whatever. You can be whatever. We can be whatever. Whatever, together. ~ Libba Bray

The truth was, she was afraid that when she fell hard for a boy, she'd lose herself along the way. She'd seen it happen to lots of girls. They'd go from drinking gin, driving fast cars, and boldly shimmying in speakeasies to these passive creatures who couldn't make a move without asking their beaus if it would be okay. Evie had no intention of fading behind any man. She didn't want to slide into ordinary and wake up to find that she'd become a housewife in Ohio with a bitter face and an embalmed spirit. Besides, things you loved deeply could be lost in a second, and then there was no filling the hole left inside you. So she lived in the moment, as if her life were one long party that never had to stop as long as she kept the good times going.
But right now, in this moment, she felt a strong connection to Sam, as if they were the only two people in the world. She wanted to hold on to both him and the beautiful moment and not let go. ~ Libba Bray

Goodbye, I whisper at last, when it no longer matters and there is no one to hear it but the window. ~ Libba Bray