Libba Bray Quotes

Sometimes I just want to go in a room and break things and scream. Like, it’s so much pressure all the time and if you get upset or angry, people say, ‘Are you on the rag of something?’ And it’s like I want to say, ‘No. I’m just pissed off right now. Can’t I just be pissed off? How come that’s not okay for me?’ Like my dad will say, ‘I can’t talk to you when you’re hysterical.’ And I’m totally not being hysterical! I’m just mad. And he’s the one losing it. But then I feel embarrassed anyway. So I slap on that smile and pretend everything’s okay even though it’s not.

~ Libba Bray

I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I've got to think.

~ 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

There are no safe choices. Only other choices.

~ Libba Bray

What happens if your choice is misguided?' I ask, softly.Miss Moore takes a pear from the bowl and offers us the grapes to devour. 'You must try to correct it.''But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t?'There's a sad sympathy in Miss Moore's catlike eyes as she regards my painting again. She paints the thinnest sliver of shadow along the bottom of the apple, bringing it fully to life.'Then you must find a way to live with it.

~ 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

A man bumps me on his busy way without so much as an apology. But that is all right. I forgive you, busy man about town with the sharp elbows. Hail and farewell to you! For I, Gemma Doyle, am to have a splendid Christmas in London town. All shall be well.God rest us merry gentlemen. And gentlewomen.

~ Libba Bray

I just read this great quote by Junot Diaz, he was talking about true intimacy, and he was saying that it was the willingness to be vulnerable and to be found out. That’s what I felt that YA did. It wasn't pretentious, and it wasn’t hiding its heart. It wanted to be found out...It felt like those moments when you go to a party and you're standing around for a long time, going, I don't fit in here, what am I going to talk to these people about? And everybody's getting drunk, and then you find this one person, and you end up sitting in some corner talking about all these arcane things.And then before you know it you're having a conversation about the meaning of life and it's four o’clock in the morning. That kind of feeling, that kind of intimacy — I felt like that's what I got from YA.

~ 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

And when it comes, her kiss is like something not so much felt as found.

~ Libba Bray

My whole life I’ve been ordered about. Now I shall give the orders.” I’ve never seen Felicity so wounded. “Not me,” she says. “I never ordered you about.” “Oh, Fee.” The old Pippa surfaces for just a moment, hopeful and childlike. She pulls Felicity to her. Something I cannot name passes between them, and then Pip’s lips are on Fee’s in a deep kiss, as if they feed on one another, their fingers entwined in each other’s hair. And suddenly, I understand what I must have always known about them—the private talks, the close embraces, the tenderness of their friendship. A blush spreads across my neck at the thought. How could I not have seen it before?

~ Libba Bray

There is no greater power on this earth than story.

~ Libba Bray

I know you adore Father, but he isn't the white knight you imagine him to be. He never was. True, he's charming and loving in his way. But he's selfish. He's a limited man determined to bring about his own end-But-Tom grabs both my hands in his and gives them a small squeeze. Gemma, you can't save him. Why can't you accept that?I see my reflection on the surface of the Thames. My face is a watery outline, all blurred edges with nothing settled. Because if I let go of that - I swallow hard, once, twice - then I have to accept that I am alone.The ship's horn howls again as it slips out toward sea. Tom's reflection appears beside mine, just as uncertain.We're every one of us alone in this world, Gemma. He doesn't say it bitterly. But you have company, if you want.

~ Libba Bray

I understand we'll be attending your friend Miss Worthington's Christmas ball. Perhaps I'll find a suitable-- which is to say wealthy-- wife among the ladies attending.And perhaps they will run screaming for the convent.

~ 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

...There's an -or- in -whore- because you always have a choice to respect your body and say no.

~ Libba Bray

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Felicity and Ann hunched over their ornaments as if they were fascinating relics from an archaeological dig. I note that their shoulders are trembling, and I realize that they are fighting laughter over my terrible plight. There's friendship for you.

~ Libba Bray

Do you ever feel that way?Lonely?I search for the words. Restless. As if you haven't really met yourself yet. As is you'd passed yourself once in the fog, and your heart leapt - 'Ah! There I Am! I've been missing that piece!' But it happens too fast, and then that part of you disappears into the fog again. And you spend the rest of your days looking for it.He nods, and I think he's appeasing me. I feel stupid of having said it. It's sentimental and true, and I've revealed a part of myself I shouldn't have.Do you know what I think? Kartik says at last.What?Sometimes, I think you can glimpse it in another.

~ 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

Miss New Mexico stared, dumbfounded. Stand out? Stand out? I have a freaking tray stuck in my forehead! She broke into fresh sobs.Taylor clapped for attention. Miss New Mexico, let's not get all down in the bummer basement where the creepy things live. There are people in heathen China who don't even have airline trays. We have a lot to be grateful for.

~ 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

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 Bray

Kartik feels like a country I want to travel—vast, dangerous, and unknown.

~ Libba Bray

It's strange how deliberate people are after a death. All the indecision suddenly vanishes into clear, defined moments - changing the linens, choosing a dress or a hymn, the washing up, the muttering of prayers. All the small, simple, conscious acts of living a sudden defense against the dying we do every day.

~ Libba Bray

She shrieks above the din. If you wish a battle, I shall give it. I am the last of my kind. I shall not lie down without a fight.

~ Libba Bray

I'm an oddity of one, my strangeness too complicated to explain or share.

~ Libba Bray

I’m not that kind of Indian,” Shanti said, her practiced smile never leaving her face, though it faltered just a bit, and in that slight wobble was something hard and angry, something that looked like centuries of colonial oppression boiling up into an I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass-in-this-pageant-and-then-take-over-all-your-beauty-out-sourcing-needs hatred.

~ Libba Bray

I’m a wild girl from a cursed line of women. I paw at the ground and run under the moon. I like the feel of my own body. I’m not a slut or a nympho or someone who’s just asking for it. And if I talk too loud it’s just that I’m trying to be heard.

~ Libba Bray

So I slap on that smile and pretend everything’s okay even though it’s not.

~ Libba Bray

Beliefs converge and become something new all the time.

~ Libba Bray

I am hard at work on the second draft ... Second draft is really a misnomer as there are a gazillion revisions, large and small, that go into the writing of a book.

~ Libba Bray

Careful there, Poet. I might start to believe you.

~ Libba Bray

We have work to do if you are not to be a total failure like high-waisted, acid-wash jeans.

~ Libba Bray

The wind has shifted to the East. A storm isn't far off. I can smell the moisture in the air, a fetid, living thing. Isolated drops fall, licking at my hands, my face, my dress. The quests squawk in surprise, turn their palms up to the sky as if questioning it, and dash for cover.

~ Libba Bray

Every city is a ghost.New buildings rise upon the bones of the old so that each shiny steel bean, each tower of brick carries within it the memories of what has gone before, an architectural haunting. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of these former incarnations in the awkward angle of a street or filigreed gate, an old oak door peeking out from a new facade, the plaque commemorating the spot that was once a battleground, which became a saloon and is now a park.

~ Libba Bray

We are the dead. We are the keepers of the stories. We hold the history of blood and promises. We are speaking. Are you listening? Will you hear?

~ Libba Bray

For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning.

~ Libba Bray

Ain't that a sight? With all the things we know and learn, we still ain't touched the big mysteries -- where we come from, where we go next, why we even her. And when something truly miraculous happens, we run and hide in our caves. We deny.

~ Libba Bray

Memphis found his smile. 'You know me, sir. I don't wear worry.

~ 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