Lost and Found

by Orson Scott Card

it’s kind of what I figured, because if everybody says something it’s almost always wrong.”

Your mother and I read a Miss Manners book when you were just a baby, and she says that if people ask rude questions, you don’t have to answer or explain or get mad or anything. You just ask them, ‘I wonder why you think you need to know that,” and then change the subject or, you know, walk away.”

“Efflorescent adolescent,” she repeated. Then her lips moved as she subvocalized it several times. “Such a cool euphemism for acne.”

“Nothing ever goes the way I want,” said Ezekiel. “Not nothing,” said Beth. “But if you really feel that way, I know a complete fix.” “Oh, really? For everything that doesn’t go the way I want?” “Right,” said Beth. “Just decide you wanted things the way they went.”

The lawnmower business depended completely on the surly looks of neighbors, so that everybody had to keep mowing their useless grasspatches.

“Take as long as it takes and try not to get killed by some serial killer kidnapper.” Other kids got curfews.

He probably meant to be cruel, but Princess Bride references meant that he had watched the movie and cared about it enough to remember tags from it, and that meant that Aaron was probably a decent human being, somewhere deep inside.

“If a spider crawls on me,” said Shank, “I’m crashing this car. Not a threat, just a prediction.”

“I don’t know if I could have done anything like what you did.” “You don’t know what you can do until you have to do it,”