Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1)

by Maureen Johnson

When you have enough power and money, you can dictate the meanings of words.

We kind of wanted the going-out, shopping, prom-going type, and we got this weird, creepy one, and we love it but what is it talking about, ever? Sometimes Stevie felt bad for her parents. Their idea of what constituted interesting was so limited. They were never going to have as much fun as she did.

Where her books were, she was. Get the books right and the rest will follow. Now she could address the rest of the room.

Stevie had no fears of the dead. The living, however, sometimes gave her the creeps.

Sherlock said, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.”

“Of course I worry too much,” Nate said. “But I’m usually right. The people who worry are always right. That’s how that works.”

That was something they taught you in anxiety therapy—the thoughts may come, but you don’t have to chase them all.

You have to take things as they are, not how you hear they’re supposed to be.”

“I just think you get me,” she said. “I do,” he said, shrugging. “We have a limited emotional vocabulary. We’re indoor kids.”

Stevie said stuff like that all the time and was told she was wrong. David said it once and he got a nod and a compliment. Oh, the magic of dudes. If only they bottled it.