Libba Bray quotes
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“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.”
-- Libba BraySource : Libba Bray (2009). “The Sweet Far Thing”, p.300, Simon and Schuster
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“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 BraySource : Libba Bray (2015). “The Gemma Doyle Trilogy”, p.299, Delacorte Press
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“You can never really know someone completely. That’s why it’s the most terrifying thing in the world, really—taking someone on faith, hoping they’ll take you on faith too. It’s such a precarious balance, It’s a wonder we do it at all. And yet..”
-- Libba Bray -
“What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?”
-- Libba BraySource : Libba Bray (2010). “Rebel Angels”, p.197, Simon and Schuster
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“I know because I read...Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.”
-- Libba Bray -
“We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Because you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right.”
-- Libba Bray -
“May I suggest that you all read? And often. Believe me, it's nice to have something to talk about other than the weather and the Queen's health. Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on.”
-- Libba Bray -
“To those who will see, the world waits.”
-- Libba BraySource : Libba Bray (2010). “The Sweet Far Thing”, p.530, Simon and Schuster
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“Travel opens your mind as few other things do. It is its own form of hypnotism, and I am forever under its spell”
-- Libba Bray -
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“I've heard it said that God is in the details. It's the same with the truth. Leave out the details, the crucial heart, and you can damn someone with the bare bones of it.”
-- Libba Bray -
“I'm like everyone else in this stupid, bloody, amazing world. I'm flawed. Impossibly so. But hopeful. I'm still me.”
-- Libba BraySource : Libba Bray (2009). “The Sweet Far Thing”, p.493, Simon and Schuster
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“Jeez, someone needs to push the reset button on this planet.”
-- Libba BraySource : Libba Bray (2009). “Going Bovine”, p.105, Delacorte Books for Young Readers
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“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.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“We're all strangers connected by what we reveal, what we share, what we take away--our stories. I guess that's what I love about books--they are thin strands of humanity that tether us to one another for a small bit of time, that make us feel less alone or even more comfortable with our aloneness, if need be.”
-- Libba Bray -
“I love you for who you are, not who the world thinks you should be.”
-- Libba BraySource : Libba Bray (2011). “Beauty Queens”, p.355, Scholastic Inc.
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“It is funny how you do not miss affection until it is given, but once it is, it can never be enough; you would drown in it if possible.”
-- Libba Bray -
“In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice... No one can live in the light all the time.”
-- Libba BraySource : Libba Bray (2010). “A Great and Terrible Beauty”, p.249, Simon and Schuster
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“Who but the mad would choose to keep on living? In the end, aren't we all just a little crazy?”
-- Libba Bray -
“You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains.”
-- Libba Bray -
“There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn’t. I failed myself.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment.”
-- Libba Bray -
“In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.”
-- Libba Bray -
“There are no safe choices. Only other choices.”
-- Libba BraySource : Libba Bray (2015). “The Gemma Doyle Trilogy”, p.348, Delacorte Press
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“But if we are to remain a great empire, we must have a greater understanding of the hearts and minds of others.”
-- Libba Bray -
“So, now I've been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.”
-- 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 -
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“When I dream, I dream of him. For several nights now he’s come to me, waving from a distant shore as if he’s been waiting patiently for me to arrive. He doesn’t utter a word, but his smile says everything: I’ve missed you.”
-- Libba Bray -
“When she can't bring me to heal with scolding, she bends me to shape with guilt.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Any librarian or scholar will tell you: Close is not the same as accurate.”
-- Libba Bray -
“We create the illusions we need to go on. And one day, when they no longer dazzle or comfort, we tear them down, brick by glittering brick, until we are left with nothing but the bright light of honesty. The light is liberating. Necessary. Terrifying. We stand naked and emptied before it. And when it is too much for our eyes to take, we build a new illusion to shield us from its relentless truth.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Sometimes we seek that which we are not yet ready to find.”
-- Libba Bray -
“People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense-words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions-words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History”
-- Libba Bray -
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“I should never be left alone with my mind for too long.”
-- Libba Bray -
“There is no greater power on this earth than story.”
-- Libba Bray -
“But we can't go back. We can only go forward.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Reminds us that greatness lies even in the smallest of moments, in the humblest of hearts, and we shall, each of us, be called to greatness. Whether we shall rise to meet it or let it slip away is the challenge put before us all.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“Why do girls always feel like they have to apologize for giving an opinion or taking up space in the world? Have you ever noticed that?" Nicole asked. "You go on websites and some girl leaves a post and if it's longer than three sentences or she's expressing her thoughts about some topic, she usually ends with, 'Sorry for the rant' or 'That may be dumb, but that's what I think.”
-- Libba Bray -
“I've never done acid, finding it hard to go willingly to a place that could be frightening, hellish, and totally beyond my control. A place much like high school.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Writers are also sort of like vultures, but with fewer ethics.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Peace is not happenstance. It is a living fire that must be fed constantly. It must be tended to with vigilance, else it dies out.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“Adina appealed to the sky. "We asked for rescue and you sent us incompetent rockstar pirates with a broken ship and perfect abs?" "Thank you, God," Petra said.”
-- Libba Bray -
“As a kid, I imagined lots of different scenarios for my life. I would be an astronaut. Maybe a cartoonist. A famous explorer or rock star. Never once did I see myself standing under the window of a house belonging to some druggie named Carbine, waiting for his yard gnome to steal his stash so I could get a cab back to a cheap motel where my friend, a neurotic, death-obsessed dwarf, was waiting for me so we could get on the road to an undefined place and a mysterious Dr. X, who would cure me of mad cow disease and stop a band of dark energy from destroying the universe.”
-- Libba Bray -
“What makes a girl a girl? What makes a guy a guy? Do you have to be what they want you to be? Or do you stop and listen to that voice inside you? I know who I am. I'm Petra West. And I'm a girl. You want me to sleep somewhere else, fine. Whatever. But I'm not going to pretend to be somebody I'm not. I've done enough of that.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“We all walk in a land of dreams. For what are we but atoms and hope, a handful of stardust and sinew? We are weary travelers trying to find our way home on a road that never ends. Am I a part of your dream? or are you but a part of mine?”
-- Libba Bray -
“You know what else is hot?" said a nameless blonde as she put her arm around the one black girl. "What?" "Bisexuals." "Totally. Well, not like real bisexuals who are just sort of your everyday people, but, like, the kind of bisexuals you see in magazines wearing nothing but body paint and kissing both boys and girls to promote a new single." "Totally, totally hot.”
-- Libba Bray -
“They see her differently now, as somebody. And isn't that what everyone wants? To be seen?”
-- Libba Bray -
“The world is only as fair as you can make it. Takes a lot of fight. A lot of fight. But if you stay in here, in your little cave, that's one less fighter on the side of fair.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“We have traveled through space and time. We have been many places. Visited many worlds. And there is good news: the acoustics everywhere are terrific.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Harold Brodie is a louse and a lothario who cheats at cards and has a different girl in his rumble seat every week. That coupe of his is pos-i-tute-ly a petting palace. And he’s a terrible kisser to boot.†Evie’s parents stared in stunned silence. “Or so I’ve heard.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Her eyes take on that suspicious, wounded look girls get when they know they've fallen off the top rung of friendship and someone else has passed them, but they don't know when or how the change took place.”
-- Libba Bray -
“This is how the fire starts. This is how we burn.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“Men have feelings too, you know. You bruise the petals of my manflower.”
-- Libba Bray -
“We've left the moment. It's gone. We're somewhere else now, and that's okay. We've still got that moment with us somewhere, deep in our memory, seeping into our DNA. And when our cells get scattered , whenever that happens, this moment will still exist in them. Those cells might be the biulding block of something new. A planet or star or a sunflower, a baby. Maybe even a cockroach. Who knows? Whatever it is, it'll be a part of us, this thing right here and now, and we'll be a part of it.”
-- 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 -
“Your mother and I do not approve of drinking. Have you not heard of the Eighteenth Amendment?†“Prohibition? I drink to its health whenever I can.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“The world expected girls to pluck and primp and put on heels. Meanwhile, boys dressed in rumpled T-shirts and baggy pants and misplace their combs, and yet you were suppose to fall at their feet? Unacceptable.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Adina gave a little shriek. "That fish just swam past my leg! Creepy! Where did it go?" "To your right! Two o'clock! Get it!" "You are officially the most bloodthirsty vegetarian ever.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's is watching them so they can be who they really are”
-- Libba Bray -
“They misspelled 'party.' How evil genius can they be?”
-- Libba Bray -
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“He smiles sadly. "Now I know my destiny." "What is it?" "This." He draws me in to him in a kiss. His lips are warm. He pulls me tighter in his embrace. The roots sigh and release their hold on my waist and the wound in my side is healed. "Kartik," I cry, kissing his cheeks. "It's let me go." "That's good," he says. He makes a small cry. His back arches, and every muscle in his body tightens.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Greetings, ax murderer! I was just wondering how you like your eggs?”
-- Libba Bray -
“It's always darkest before the ultimate sparkle.”
-- Libba Bray -
“In school, they would tell you that life wouldn’t come to you; you had to go out and make it your own. But when it came to love, the message for girls seemed to be this: Don’t. Don’t go after what you want. Wait. Wait to be chosen, as if only in the eye of another could one truly find value. The message was confusing and infuriating. It was a shell game with no actual pea under the rapidly moving cups.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“Might. Is there any opiate more powerful than that word?”
-- Libba Bray -
“...I think we should find some kind of shelter; a cave or something." "I don't want to do that! What if there's like, a creature living in the cave?" Tiara said. "Seriously, I saw this show once where these people were stranded on an island and there were these other people who were sort of crazy-slash-bad and there was this polar bear creature running around." "What happened?" Miss Ohio asked. "I don't know. My parents got divorced in the middle of season two and we lost our TiVo.”
-- Libba Bray -
“My personal motto is: WWWWD?: What Would Wonder Woman Do?”
-- Libba Bray -
“Agent Jones switched to the big screen and a grainy video of MoMo sitting at his enormous desk, a swivel-hipped Elvis clock ticking behind his bewigged head. 'Death to the capitalist pigs! Death to your cinnamon bun-smelling malls! Death to your power walking and automatic car windows and I'm With Stupid T-shirts! The Republic of ChaCha will never bend to your side-of-fries -drive -through-please-oh-would-you-like-ketchup-with-that corruption! MoMo B. ChaCha defies you and all you stand for, and one day, you will crumble into the sea and we will pick up the pieces and make them into sand art.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“What you want can be yours. But you must first know what it is you want.”
-- Libba Bray -
“The glow dies down, and she's standing at the end of my bed--the one who's been following me around leaving feather messages. I take in the torn fishnets, plaid mini-kilt, shiny, riveted breastplate with leather straps at the sides and a worn Great Temolo decal near the left shoulder. Her wings are a crazy black-and-white-checkered pattern, like they've been spray-painted at a body shop to look like hipster sneakers.”
-- Libba Bray -
“There's no such thing as nothing. In every nothing, there's a something. In fact, there could be everything!”
-- Libba Bray -
“You don't know me, dude," he says, not smiling this time. Gonzo examines his cards, prepping for his next move. "People always think that they know other people, but they don't. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won't eat doughnuts or they like action movies or whatever. But they don't know what their friends do in their rooms alone at night or what happened to them when they were kids or if they feel ****ed up for no reason at all.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“People see what they want to see when they need to.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Because there's nothing wrong with you... that can't be fixed.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Petra turned to her. "Everybody lies about who they are. Name one person here who isn't doing that and I will drop out right now!" Shanti felt that snake of truth coil around her legs, threatening to squeeze. "I didn't mean..." "No one ever does." Petra said, shoving the baton back at Shanti.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“There are no wrong decisions ― only different ones.”
-- Libba Bray -
“This is going to make such a great story: How I nursed a pirate back to health and my love saved him," Miss Ohio said with a contented sigh. "And then we can have our own reality show about our relationship." - "Beauty Queens”
-- 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 -
“You want to know what pain is? Try running out of Advil when you've got a Category Five period. I've had cramps that would make grown men beg for a bullet between the eyes." - Jennifer, "Beauty Queens”
-- Libba Bray -
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“I've had so many bikini waxes, I cry every time I see a Popsicle stick.”
-- 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 -
“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 -
“And when it comes, her kiss is like something not so much felt as found.”
-- Libba Bray -
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“In the end, I take my shoes off and stick my feet in, letting the lukewarm water lick at my ankles. It feels good, and not just because I’m stoned. I make a mental note to add this to Dulcie’s list of things worth living for. For some reason, I keep seeing her rolling her eyes at me, that big, goofy grin stretching her face like Silly Putty. On my private list, I add her smile. She doesn’t have to know.”
-- Libba Bray -
“I hate this place,†Tiara whimpered. “It’s super creepy. Like a haunted Chuck E. Cheese’s where the games all want to kill you and you never get your pizza.”
-- Libba Bray -
“I have done what they expected of me. I have curtsied for my Queen and made my debut. This is what I have anticipated eagerly for years. So why do I feel so unsatisfied? Everyone is merry. They haven't a care in the world. And perhaps that is it. How terrible it is to have no cares, no longings. I do not fit. I feel too deeply and want too much.”
-- Libba Bray -
“My platform's called Don't Even Think About It. I go to schools and I say, 'Whatever bad thing it is you're thinking of doing, don't even think about it. 'Cause I can see into your soul, and I will hide in your closet and come for you in the night, and the last sound you ever hear will be my sharp teeth popping through the flesh of my gums, ready to eat you.' Their eyes get all big. It's awesome. I love little kids, man. They're the cutest”
-- Libba Bray -
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“You evah hear of a magic screw?' I cough back a laugh. 'No. No, sir.”
-- Libba Bray -
“Without further warning, the sky opens up and cries.”
-- Libba Bray -
“The dull pain of truth weights my soul, pulling it under. I am left hopelessly awake.”
-- Libba Bray -
“There was something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade. They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping. They were becoming. They were.”
-- Libba Bray -
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