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The Basic Eight QUOTES

The Basic Eight QUOTES

1 " She had the look in her eye when you kick and kick at the door and it doesn't open, when you write a boy letters and letters and he never loves you, not ‘til the day he dies. Not even then. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

2 " Maybe, generations ago, young people rebelled out of some clear motive, but now, we know we’re rebelling. Between teen movies and sex-ed textbooks we’re so ready for our rebellious phase we can’t help but feel it’s safe, contained. It will turn out all right, despite the risk, snug in the shell of rebellion narrative. Rebellion narrative, does that make sense? It was appropriate to do, so we did it. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

3 " Dark, light, dark, light, dark-I swung and missed. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

4 " May we generally be happy, generally be witty, generally be honest, but above all always be interesting. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

5 " She spun the car through a right turn that would have killed us all had we been minor characters. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

6 " I hadn't felt such disgust for a boy since the early days, when they'd tease girls on the playground, kicking us and throwing gravel and raising their voices in high screechy mockery. "They do that because they like you," all the adults said, grinning like pumpkins. We believed them, back then. Back then we thought it was true, and we were drawn toward all that meanness because it meant we were special, let them kick us, let them like us. We liked them back. But now it was turning out that our first instincts were right. Boys weren't mean because they liked you; it was because they were mean. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

7 " She gave me a hug and for a second I was embraced by a body that makes me want to go home and never eat again. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

8 " How confusing. Could it be that our narrator is unreliable? No such chance. Mind like a steel trap, I have. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

9 " I'm sitting on the lumbering late bus, thinking about the way I'm going to start my Monday: by filling out an unexcused absence form for the cranky secretary. The last time the bus was late she actually told me, "Don't tell me the bus was late. That excuse won't work anymore today. About ten kids ahead of you said that their bus was late, too." I tried to explain that we all took the same bus, but there was no pulling the wool over her eyes. She wasn't born yesterday. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

10 " She licked her lips and then wiped them on her hand, her dark lipstick staining her wrist like a suicide. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

11 " We are a nation of children letting horrible things happen, and flunking Calc. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

12 " You'd think that sweet would be a land far, far away from irritating, but as it turns out they're right next door and always having border disputes. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

13 " Forever and ever, world without end. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

14 " The bus driver gave me a why-the-hell-aren't-you-at-school look and I gave him a shut-up-you're-a-bus-driver-so-bus-drive look right back. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

15 " I think one of the reasons it ended was that his eyes never lit up for me the way they did for classical music. I realize that in the long run I may not be as wonderful as a Brahms symphony but I think I’m good for a Haydn quintet. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

16 " You know, despite all my world-weariness and cynicism, I think I've always believed that there is one person in the universe for whom you are truly meant - and the fact that sometimes there are two or even more people on the earth you can fall in love with really bothers me. It suggests that if you work hard you can be meant for anyone. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

17 " Come on in," I said again, and he came on in and I hugged him. I felt his arms, warm through the linen. Suddenly there was a reason to leave the house and see other humans, because some of them were good. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

18 " I saw myself, clearly, a scorned woman drunk and angry at a party. Hell hath no fury etc. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

19 " After all, I was only eighteen then. I’m almost twenty now. I learned lots about narrative structure in my Honors English classes so I know what I’m doing. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight

20 " I don’t have to answer to you,” Adam said, instantly and harshly. He brushed his pants off like he’d just buried his mother. "

― Daniel Handler , The Basic Eight