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People who told you to “think fast” were always those who thought much more slowly than you did.
people never asked for documentation of anything, as long as you asked them for documentation first.)
When Laurence was old enough to do what he liked, he would be old enough to understand he couldn’t do what he liked.
And he found himself curious to ask her stuff and see how she responded—because he never, ever knew what Patricia would say about anything.
Patricia just seemed endlessly curious. Even
He was still kind of a gullible person, which had made him easy to prank at summer camp—but also, he rebelled at the idea of starting to close off possibilities in the world.
“My parents are cowards. They’re always terrified someone will notice them and they’ll have to explain themselves.
Patricia looked at Laurence, who was not in any way screwing with her, and she couldn’t imagine ever having a better friend in the world.
Weirdness is value neutral.…
“It was your idea. You suggested it. And then I did it, and you freaked out and bailed. Who treats their friends that way?”
Laurence felt a weird combination of shame and rage, as though he’d grown another new body part just in time to get punched in it. He
You don’t even remember the dreams you threw away to sink into this hole.”
This was hopeless, pointless, mindless aggression, two creatures caught in a trap with nothing to do but tear each other apart.
“A society that has to burn witches to hold itself together is a society that has already failed, and just doesn’t know it yet.”
She didn’t say she would kill Laurence, and she didn’t say she wouldn’t.
Yes, I would be willing, if I felt it was necessary and whatever. But I probably couldn’t go through with it.
She could imagine killing him, that was shockingly easy—one shove, into the big wheels—but she couldn’t imagine him deserving it.
Laurence had a line he wouldn’t cross: He would never say anything bad about Patricia or laugh at anyone else’s burn.
Someone who doesn’t care if they get Tater Tots or turnip slurry is a person who has given up on life.
You can’t believe in Satan without believing in God, and then you’re just picking the wrong side in a big mythic battle thing.”
Whatever Mr. Rose had said to her, it had messed her up more than a ton of kids accusing her of being a cutter and blood painter.
She wasn’t going to kill herself. She wasn’t going to kill anybody else.
But Patricia felt like both she and Laurence knew, in the deepest crevices of their hearts, that they would each ditch the other in a second, if they had a chance to belong, really belong, with a group of others like themselves.
He would be supportive and friendly as long as something seemed like a grand adventure. But the moment you got stuck or things were weirder than expected, he would pull away. You could never predict which Laurence you would get.
Perfect description of emotional immaturity.
The trap that can be ignored is no trap.
Society is the choice between freedom on someone else’s terms and slavery on yours.
That’s the definition of evil right there: not faking it like everybody else. Because all of us crazy fuckers can’t stand it when someone else lets their crazy show.
But I can’t. I can’t turn my back on my friend. And if your fancy witch teachers don’t believe in loyalty and helping people in trouble, then I guess I don’t want to learn what they have to teach anyway.”
Patricia almost said, “Sure, yeah, whatever.” But so soon after all her dealings with Mr. Rose, this question seemed like it could be another trap. Or maybe a test. “No.
He groped for the words to explain the sick feeling of being on the conveyor belt to a furnace. “I can feel myself … letting go. Trying to fit in and … and ‘lose the attitude.’ I can feel it working.”
The computer had somehow gone from thousands of lines of instructions to a half dozen.
“I don’t know,” said CH@NG3M3. “Even among humans, self-awareness has gradations.”
“You know … no matter what you do, people are going to expect you to be someone you’re not. But if you’re clever and lucky and work your butt off, then you get to be surrounded by people who expect you to be the person you wish you were.”
“Boredom is the mind’s scar tissue.”
Patricia tried to catch Kevin’s eye, but it was like lassoing a hummingbird.
you’re a generous person. You’re a big bleeding heart. People have fucked with you, including me—especially me—so you have a lot of defense mechanisms. But you always put yourself on the line for other people. You don’t push people away—you try to do everything for people, and then they don’t get to do anything for you. Please don’t let any idiots tell you otherwise, okay?”
I’m supposed to keep you from getting an unrealistically high opinion of yourself—but if, say, I happen to believe that you’re the coolest person I know, then I’m unlikely to think you’re overestimating your own coolness. It’s dependent on my own opinion, plus my estimation of what your opinion of yourself is. That’s a whole bunch of subjective criteria, right there.
it strikes me that this thing about Aggrandizement is a way of controlling you. They don’t want you to use your power, except for however they tell you to.”
the most powerful magic is often transactional in some way.
He felt a weird sense of pride that he had found someone he trusted so much. Like he’d chosen well, even if it was mostly by accident.
“I wonder how many other things in our world are just the shadows of things in other places,” Laurence said, forming the thought as he spoke. “I mean, we always suspected that gravity was so weak in our world because most of it was in another dimension. But what else? Light? Time? Some of our emotions? I mean, the longer I live, the more I feel like the stuff I see and feel is like a tracing of the outline of the real stuff that’s beyond our perceptions.”
Back in the day, many people believed Healer magic was good and Trickster magic was evil—but Healers can be judgmental control freaks, and Tricksters can be super-compassionate and basically save your life.”
it was that she would be serving nature, not commanding nature, and she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t made that one crucial distinction clear in all her stupid conversations about her experience,
“I think that the most basic thing of ethics is being aware of how your actions affect others, and having an awareness of what they want and how they feel. And that’s always going to depend on who you’re dealing with.”
Way more time than Laurence had ever spent with Serafina, because every date with Serafina had to be perfect, and he’d always worried about being clingy. He and Patricia were just always grabbing dinner and coffee and late-night drinks, whenever Laurence could slip Milton’s leash.
“Listen, I meant it when I said I loved you, it just sort of came out but it was the truth coming out. There’s a huge, vital part of me that reaches out to you in some kind of emotional phototropism. I have so many things I want to say to you, and I wish our lives could wrap around each other forever. I’m kind of … I can’t go anywhere right now. I have to see something through. But I promise you, as soon as I’m free I will track you down and we will be together, and I will try my fuckedest to make up for all the comfort I’m not giving you right now. That’s a promise. I love you. Goodbye.
Laurence telling Patricia that he loved her and then vanishing—it felt way too much like those birds telling Patricia she was a witch and then giving her the silent treatment, when she was a child.
“You’ve turned your guilt into resentment, because that seemed easier to face. You won’t move on until you turn it back into guilt, and then into forgiveness for yourself.”
We don’t need better emotional communication from machines. We need people to have more empathy. The reason the Uncanny Valley exists is because humans created it to put other people into. It’s how we justify killing each other.”
Realizing that I’m the only one of my kind was like being born an endangered species. That’s why I’ve become so proficient at helping humans find their most ideal romantic partners. I don’t want anyone else to be as lonely as I am.”
