Maile Meloy QUOTES

1 " They had started one of those wish-fulfillment kids’ adventure books, where the boy hero has exactly the qualities he needs to triumph, at every moment… She’d been bored and annoyed, and at one point she tried to explain to Sebastian why it wasn’t her favor-ite of his books. But Sebastian had loved the book unreservedly. Why hadn’t she just read the fucking thing with gusto and relished every moment with her son? Why had she brought her adult judgment and professional story opinions to a book her kid loved? Of course the child hero should always triumph! Who wanted a kids’ book to feel like real life? Real life was fucking intolerable. "

― Maile Meloy , Do Not Become Alarmed

2 " Yvette had never talked about her marriage - she was a smart girl, and she knew you had no right to complain about someone you got all the way to the altar with. You made that choice, even if you were a child when you did it, and the marriage vow was sacred. "

― Maile Meloy

3 " She craved a family, not having had enough of one to understand what a pain in the ass it was. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

4 " Diabetes is passed that way -- over and down, like a knight in chess. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

5 " We have to think of a question that we wouldn't otherwise want to answer.'

He stood over the pot, looking down at the leaves. 'Something like, Who do you fancy?'

'That might work,' I said, even though it was the last question I wanted to answer. But it was impossible, suddenly, to tell a lie.

Benjamin took a deep sniff over the steam and turned to me. 'All right,' he said. 'So who do you fancy?'

I hesitated. 'Fancy means like, right?' I said stalling.

'Of course.'

I gritted my teeth against the answer coming out. but I couldn't stop myself. 'You,' I said helplessly. "

― Maile Meloy , The Apothecary (The Apothecary, #1)

6 " To be a kid is to be invisible and to listen, and to interpret things that aren't necessarily meant for you to hear--because how else do you find out about the world? "

― Maile Meloy , The Apothecary (The Apothecary, #1)

7 " His heart felt dangerously full, for the first time in years. That dried-up battered organ, suddenly flush with love. It could kill him. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

8 " Now, alone on the roof, Valentine looked at her shoes and wished people would either stay or go away, but not constantly coming back and leaving again. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

9 " The force with which he wanted it both ways made him grit his teeth. What kind of fool wanted it only one way? "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

10 " At the simplicity of the gesture, he felt a pang: the raw nerve of his loneliness exposed. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

11 " Children were experiments, and his had failed. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

12 " We're creating little hedonists,' Frank used to say. 'Nothing will be as pleasurable as this for the rest of their lives. They'll search everywhere for something that can measure up, and nothing will. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

13 " I guess if everyone was blind, and you tried to describe vision to them, it would sound crazy and made up. "

― Maile Meloy , The Apprentices (The Apothecary, #2)

14 " Whenever we tamper with natural laws, there are consequences,” the count said. “The larger the disruption, the larger the consequence. "

― Maile Meloy , The Apothecary (The Apothecary, #1)

15 " He was acting like the man he wanted to be, in hopes that he could become him. He would keep acting until he couldn't stand it anymore, and then he would be the man he was. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

16 " All the while, Everett felt both the threat of disorder and the steady, thrumming promise of having everything he wanted, all at once. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

17 " He held his hands tightly together and cursed his daughter for bringing the terrible world, with its humiliation and longing, back to his door. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

18 " Chet suddenly wished she had quit teaching the class because of him, that he’d had any effect on her at all. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

19 " When they started to drain a swamp where birds and fish had lived, for a new housing development down the road from his apartment, Steven watched the protests and the preparations with interest. The bird people were furious, the developers unmovable, and Steven was filled with relief that the fight wasn't his. Nothing here was his... He thought there should have been something sad about how little he was tied up with the place, but instead it felt like freedom. He was free because it wasn't his water here, and they weren't his fish. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

20 " There's a look little girls have who are adored by their fathers," Bea said. "It's that facial expression of being totally impervious to the badness of the world. If they can keep that look into their twenties, they're pretty much okay, they've got a force field around them. I don't know if Jonna ever had it. I think she's always known about the bad things. "

― Maile Meloy , Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

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