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You did not want Patricia’s mom mad at you, because she got mad for a living and was really good at it.
You celebrated the small victories, and you dreamed of the big ones to come.
Laurence tuned out his parents explaining to him that life isn’t an adventure, for chrissake, life is a long slog and a series of responsibilities and demands. When Laurence was old enough to do what he liked, he would be old enough to understand he couldn’t do what he liked.
“Something cool,” the Tree said in a gust of vowels and a clatter of consonants, “is happening. Right now.”
“Control,” the Tree said, “is an illusion.”
“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 even notice what sort of crap they slung onto her tray. Someone who doesn’t care if they get Tater Tots or turnip slurry is a person who has given up on life.
But they meant a noninclusive “we.” Not for the first time, Laurence thought this was one of the annoyingly incommunicative features in the English language. Much like the inability to distinguish between “x-or” and “and/or,” the lack of delineation between “x-we” and “in-we” was a conspiracy of obfuscation, designed to create awkwardness and exacerbate peer pressure—because people tried to include you in their “we” without your consent, or you thought you were included and then the rug got pulled out from under you. Laurence dwelled on this linguistic injustice as he watched his parents walk
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Society is the choice between freedom on someone else’s terms and slavery on yours.
“Boredom is the mind’s scar tissue.”
“I love that this conversation started out with you worrying that I was judging you, and ended up with you judging me.
The donuts were fresh, but the General Tso’s Chicken was a little too general.
“Loose ends mean that you’re still living your life. The person who dies with the most loose ends wins.”
