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They were gone long enough that people had stopped referring to them as “missing,” which implied a temporary state of being, and now simply called them “lost.” You looked for missing children. You mourned lost ones.
When Maggie and Tom noticed the posters while looking for the trail map, they remembered that they’d forgotten all about the lost boys. Because that’s how it worked. First you were missing. Then you were lost. Then you were forgotten.
She didn’t say that part out loud to Tom. It was only their fourth date, and she didn’t want to spoil the mood.
Tom started forward, but Maggie grabbed his arm to stop him. Why? She didn’t know. Instinct. Fear. The uncanny feeling that they’d crossed the border into a story they didn’t belong in…
Maggie never saw the boys again after that day. It wasn’t her story, and neither is this one, but she never forgot the moment when the universe allowed her to brush her fingertips along the spider-lace edges of a true-blue fairy tale.
We walked until we were too tired to feel sad.”
“It’s called ‘searching behavior,’ ” he said. “People who lose someone will find themselves walking for miles or driving for hours…Lots of theories on why. I think it’s guilt. Misplaced usually. We think we should have been able to stop it, but we can’t. Even after they’re gone, your body keeps trying to do something to help even though you can’t.”
Thought you were some big hero.” “I am, apparently. I’m also an asshole. They’re not mutually exclusive.”
“Are you Catholic?” “I’m nothing. What are you?” “I’m everything,” he said.
“You think the rats that live in sewers resent the one-percenter rats that live in castles?” “At the vet clinic, we always said, ‘You can’t save them all, but today we will save one.’ Kept you going on the rough days.”
I never had to clean my room or do the dishes. All she ever asked of me was to get good grades and practice piano one hour a day.”
Per Shaffer's LadyMisogyny: evidently in order to be a 'good mother' [godmother] to boy children, what's required is never making them do any chores. Especially not housework ones; that's a mother's job.
You’ll be lonely. Just don’t let it make you stupid.
“But if the universe is infinite?” “Then yes. Yes to everything. Infinite universe equals infinite outcomes.” “Unicorns?” “Yes?” “Dragons?” “Yes, yes!” “Infinite monkeys typing infinite Hamlets?” “Yes, in an infinite universe, wormholes have to exist. All possible worlds exist. In fact, there are no possibilities in an infinite universe, just eventualities.” “What do you think it is? Finite or infinite?” “Oh, I don’t know what I think, but I know what I want. I want an infinite universe.” She rolled onto her side to face him. “Think about what it means if literally anything is possible. We
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“But if the universe is infinite?” “Then yes. Yes to everything. Infinite universe equals infinite outcomes.” “Unicorns?” “Yes?” “Dragons?” “Yes, yes!” “Infinite monkeys typing infinite Hamlets?” “Yes, in an infinite universe, wormholes have to exist. All possible worlds exist. In fact, there are no possibilities in an infinite universe, just eventualities.” “What do you think it is? Finite or infinite?” “Oh, I don’t know what I think, but I know what I want. I want an infinite universe.” She rolled onto her side to face him. “Think about what it means if literally anything is possible. We could be anything you can think of.” “Anything?” “This entire universe we’re in right now could be tiny, fitting in the palm of some being’s hand so far beyond us, we’re like ants to a giant. And the giant keeps us in jars on her windowsill. We’re a computer simulation. We’re characters in a storybook left on a train by a girl late for dinner. We’re a dream an ancient god is dreaming, and any minute now…he will wake. Ask any question in an infinite universe, and the answer is yes. Always yes.”
You didn’t want to be a queen of a magic kingdom. You wanted to be a fantasy writer. You did understand the assignment.”
“Might be fun to fall in love with you again,” Rafe said. “I don’t remember the first time it happened, so who knows…maybe it’ll feel like it’s the first time.”
The day you saw me drawing my stupid coyote in my notebook? I was already so lost. If you hadn’t found me, I could’ve ended up just like my father.
But you don’t really need a magic pencil to write a magic book. All books are magic. An object that can take you to another world without even leaving your room? A story written by a stranger and yet it seems they wrote it just for you or to you? Loving and hating people made out of ink and paper, not flesh and blood? Yes, books are magic. Maybe even the strongest magic there is.
