More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
reality’s got nothing on the power of the imagination,”
“Only different people change the world,” Granny used to say. “No one normal has ever changed a crapping thing.”
Two hundred thousand people died at the same time that Elsa started to live.
Because not all monsters were monsters in the beginning. Some are monsters born of sorrow.
Because not all monsters look like monsters. There are some that carry their monstrosity inside.
“There are many ways of being alone, darling.”
“All superheroes have to make sacrifices,
was angry at her when she was away, and even angrier when she was home.”
Soup is soup whatever bowl it’s in.”
“Maybe she was disappointed in you because you’re so disappointed in yourself.”
“It’s hard to help those who don’t want to help themselves.”
“Your granny was old.” “Not to me. I only knew her for seven years. Almost eight.”
“You gave me your words,” she whispers.
But she doesn’t want to disappoint him, so she stays quiet. Because you hardly ever disappoint anybody if you just stay quiet.
“Because you turned out to be perfect.”
CANDLE GREASE
doesn’t even have the strength to be upset anymore.
The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people left behind want to stop living,
People in the real world always say, when something terrible happens, that the sadness and loss and aching pain of the heart will “lessen as time passes,” but it isn’t true. Sorrow and loss are constant, but if we all had to go through our whole lives carrying them the whole time, we wouldn’t be able to stand it. The sadness would paralyze us. So in the end we just pack it into bags and find somewhere to leave it.
you always have the sun up ahead and the wind at your back.
your brain likes to make you look like an idiot.
And this is all fake. Plastic and makeup. As if everything’s going to be fine just because they’re having a funeral. Everything is not going to be fine for Elsa, she knows that.
Elsa is too used to running. Too good at it. She runs until she’s no longer sure whether it’s the wind or her grief that is making her eyes run.
This is how people end up on the sides of milk cartons,
Death’s greatest power is not that it can make people die, but that it can make people want to stop living.
“Not run alone. Never run alone,”
I don’t even think your grandmother knew herself.”
“Don’t fight with monsters, for you can become one. If you look into the abyss for long enough, the abyss looks into you.”
Because no one gets upset if you don’t say anything. All almost-eight-year-olds know that.
No one likes feeling like an idiot.
That’s damned well how you stand up to bastards who tell you what you can and can’t do. You bloody do those things all the bloody same.”
sometimes we have to do things that are dangerous, because otherwise we aren’t really human.”
“Because I like it when he shouts my name.”
actually don’t. I only wanted you to listen to me. Is that so much to ask?
That this is how it is, being the mother of a daughter who is starting to grow up.
The snow is red. It tried to get to her. Crawled out of Audi and crept along until it collapsed.
“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid” over and over again into its ear. “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, Wolfheart has defeated the dragon and no fairy tale can end until the dragon has been defeated.”
“YOU CAN’T DIE! YOU HEAR?! YOU CAN’T DIE BECAUSE ALL CHRISTMAS TALES HAVE HAPPY ENDINGS!”
the UN, vaccines, and cheese slicers, for instance. Granny then said the real trick of life was that almost no one is entirely a shit and almost no one is entirely not a shit. The hard part of life is keeping as much on the not-a-shit side as one can.
something always had to give up its own space so that something else could take its place.
they were sent away by the very people they had protected and loved.
because the hearts of all living creatures are broken in war.”
Kent wants it, and I want Kent to be happy, but he wants to sell the flat and make money and move. I don’t want to move.”
It’s hard not to like her for that.
if you don’t care about anything, you’re actually not alive at all. You’re only existing….”
As long as someone sees him,”
‘We want to be loved,’ ” quotes Britt-Marie. “ ‘Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. The soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact.’ ”
“I can’t take everyone dying all the time,”
“Means ‘I forgive.’ ”
certain kinds of friends can be friends without talking much.
