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21 " He was a strange lad—with a peculiar, dreamy air about him that made some think he was dim-witted. But he wasn’t stupid—he just paid attention to other lessons. Bones "
― Pat Murphy , Points of Departure
22 " If you don’t believe in ghosts, then I dare you to run around the old man’s grave. Three times. Counterclockwise.” John thought about it. “If I run round it counterclockwise, that’ll bring bad luck,” he said. “I believe in bad luck.” “Bones "
23 " Someone once told me that archaeologists are anthropologists who don’t like live people. They dig up dead ones because dead ones can’t talk back. That’s not quite true. But I think live people are too fast for most archaeologists. We’re a slow-moving lot. "
― Pat Murphy , The Falling Woman
24 " He arranged three hundred pairs of women’s shoes on the stairway that climbed from Taylor Street to Broadway. High heels and flats, running shoes and loafers, all of them heading uphill, as if an army of invisible women had paused to rest while climbing. Danny-boy "
― Pat Murphy , The City, Not Long After
25 " The people who have put their minds to translating the Mayan hieroglyphics have come to the conclusion that many of the symbols are puns and puzzles. ‘Xoc,’ for example, means ‘to count.’ It is also the name of a mythical fish that lives in the heavens. So the Maya used the head of the fish to represent counting. But since the fish was difficult to carve, they substituted the symbol for water, since that’s where fish live. The symbol for water is a jade bead, since both are green and precious. So jade means water means fish means to count. "
26 " I must waken these somnolent beasts and teach them something, make them blink, shake their heavy heads, and grope for answers in their sluggish brains. I must breathe life into the dusty air. "
27 " Verla says that no one thinks of himself as a villain. Even the nastiest person thinks that he is in the right. "
― Pat Murphy
28 " We talked about each story for a while, and then Verla talked about heroes and villains. 'Nobody is all good or all bad,' she told us. 'The world is painted in shades of gray. "
― Pat Murphy , The Wild Girls