The Wake Up QUOTES

1 " He wasn't the sort of person you interacted with and fluttered away from; he was the type of man you fell for. People got hurt when they got attached to other people, because people always left or were taken away. Falling in love, therefore, was just a set-up for inevitable failure.

She knew all this. But logic is fallacy when it spars with instinct. So she fell anyway. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

2 " Rage swallowed remorse. Rage drop-kicked self-pity. Rage murdered sorrow. And then, like blood-red wine tucked into the refrigerator, rage chilled to become cold, calculating anger. Anger was a creature that arrived on her doorstep with a suitcase full of strategy and vengeance. It tipped its hat at her and hopped into her brain. It knocked on the Logic Department's door. It found a broken mirror somewhere in the crevices between her hippocampus and her hypothalamus, and it was wondering if somebody had misplaced it.

No retaliation? It scoffed. Think again, missy. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

3 " Emotions were beautiful like birds of paradise, seemingly fragile, surprisingly resilient, fleeting and lovely, with wings that could churn blood and claws that could rake souls. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

4 " Something new prowled these floors, something that sucked the space into its lungs and pressed up against people's eyeballs. She felt the darkness and told herself she could walk away from it, forgetting how difficult it is to run from that which you cannot see coming. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

5 " The road swerved left. The crash of waves morphed into the rumble of thunder, and the black asphalt tapered to become a slender stretch of rope. She followed it up into the darkness, night spilling around and below her as someone knocked over the ink-jar of the sky and scattered its liquid to the furthest corners, dislodging silver shards of moon that bounced off her umbrella. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

6 " He slipped off her clothes and covered her eyes with one hand, a blindfold of naivete she wore willingly, relishing his embrace like an idiot inmate who mistakes a straitjacket for a snuggie. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

7 " She found a second blanket in the closet and curled up on the bed, feeling like the discarded toy of a spoiled child. She found a strange sort of comfort in the heat of her misery as the cold chilled her tears. In time, she would look up words like 'doormat' and 'wimp,' with Merriam-Webster definitions that would expose her to the faulty clockwork of her heart. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

8 " The vehicle screeched away. A pair of black tire-tracks scorched the asphalt in its wake, as if the ground had sprouted its own set of horns. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

9 " Most people feared the darkness. Some people feared, more wisely, the things within the darkness.

Gabriel feared both, and with good reason. He walked anyway. That had always been his way. He had a complicated history with the woodlands of the world. He'd met his share of the Cyclops and the Circes that lurked within.

And the world never seemed to run out of monsters. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

10 " Hell and Heaven are states of being, not destinations. They are worlds we carry within. Don't expect to find angels and demons -- not in the way you've envisioned them. As God is called Allah, so Man is called Monster. Don't be fooled by titles. Call a skunk a rose and it will continue to reek.

Hydras do not crawl out from between the weatherworn pages of fairytale anthologies. On the contrary, they ride the subway and order food at the local drive-through and enjoy stolen kisses at the cinema. Only one head is visible to the naked eye. They tend to avoid reflective surfaces.

Each head is a sin: each belch of fire is a sin put to action. But you should know that the shadows differ. There may be seven heads, or three, or one. Those with one head are particularly tricky. Who's to say if they're human or hydra? You'd have to kiss them, bite them. You would know them by their mouth. The name of their sin is tattooed on the inside of their bottom lip, so they can lick and taste its sweetness. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

11 " The wind breezed through the neighborhoods and pushed the hands of household clocks. Waves rose and fell with the regularity of a sleeping god's snores. People cupped snowflakes in their hands, scraps of divinity that melted at the human touch, as ephemeral as time. Seasons are only man-made time-traps after all. We can call them what we please. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

12 " Too many times we're stuck trying to revive the dead when we can't even rouse the living." The woman added a paperboard coffee sleeve around Lexi's cup. "I think if we spent as much time worrying about the life prior to the afterlife, we would likely have no time to contemplate the latter. Heaven and Hell are right here, inside of us. We take them with us wherever we go."

"That's pretty good." Lexi took a sip of the coffee, desperate for caffeine. "What are your views on relationships?"

Sahar smiled. "Don't settle until you find the one who makes you want to say ya'aburnee."

"What?"

"It's Arabic for 'you bury me.' The hope that the person you love will outlive you so that you will be spared the pain of living without them. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

13 " She raised her middle finger to their smiles. She downed vodkas and cocktails and stumbled through the crowds and the streets, occasionally stretching up to touch a star in the black ice cap of the sky, shaking her hand and blowing on her fingers when it burnt her. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

14 " Gabriel's face was leathery from the sun, clean with honesty, and framed by a thick beard that was striped black and white like a badger's hide. He was tall, sometimes formidably so, but children tended to forget that when he hunched down on his knees. He did that whenever he could, so that their eyes were level. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

15 " You have that look -- the look of all runaways. But I will tell you what I tell my children. The caged bird sings sadly and dies quickly. Your heartstrings are not shoelaces -- they were never meant to be knotted. It is important to set things free. You begin with yourself. And maybe a tissue. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

16 " One little girl didn't mind the fading sun. Her mittened hands sculpted a snowman, happy to work without distractions. She whispered apologies as she thrust a carrot into his face, assuring him it was for the best and he'd be able to breathe much better now, just try and see. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

17 " She bit her lip, forcing the truth deeper inside until it caved her. She hunched over like a woman protecting her illegitimate unborn child. She brandished forks and knives and set them on the table, each fork crossed over each knife like a coat of arms, a pattern of X's. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

18 " The metal door began to roll open as she held her breath. Its parts creaked like the bones of a giant roused from his slumber, like a Lazarus that had hidden his flaming heart within fireproof walls, patiently sleeping as the comatose do.

The smell hit her first. Mold. Dampness. Cold lifeless things.

Within, there was a darker sort of silence, as if the building had been holding its breath for so long it had forgotten how to breathe. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

19 " Dad?" she said.

"Do you want some coffee?" he asked. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head. No.

"There are only so many hours you can sleep in a stranded vehicle." He glanced at the dashboard of her car, then at the untouched receipt--her receipt--sticking out of the machine a few feet away like a white tongue. "There's only so many times you can try to resurrect the dead. You can sit there all you want but you're not going anywhere. And, stuck as you are, you'll be forced to think about it, forced to wake up at some point, forced to depart or die here. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up

20 " When your legs and arms are being torn from your body, you console yourself that you've not yet been beheaded. Of course, right? When your nerves are being extracted strand by strand and your flesh is being dried drop by drop, you simply see past the blood and the bones and think: Hey, at least they haven't torn me apart at the cellular level yet.
Unnerving logic. "

― Angela Panayotopulos , The Wake Up