Simon Sort of Says: (Newbery Honor Book)

by Erin Bow

That means he planned the Masses and things—like a wedding planner, but for Jesus.

It’s named for Saint Barbara, the patron saint of architects, explosives, and people in danger of a sudden death.

There’s no blending into an empty field.

(In addition to being a deacon, my dad likes to make up his own wise sayings. So that’s Dad.)

I have enough self-consciousness to fuel the robot uprising.

Agate bursts, just bursts, with laughter. If she was all phrase book before, it’s like laughter is her native language. She turns pink with it, and I’m smiling before I know why.

Four minutes is the difference between this and another world.

a photo is now,

I think there’s never going to be a now. I think there’s always going to be a before, and an after.

“I’m fine,” I tell her, tell everyone. This is the point where the narrator voice-over would say “He was not fine.”

YouTube has this way of pouring information over you so fast that you don’t need to think; you just soak some of it up as it goes by. I totally want that, a stream to fill up the dry-sponge holes in me.

Silence can build, you know. Like bricks.

But when the Romans were still in charge, refusing to get married was reason enough for someone to feed you to the lions or chop you up with a sword or something else awful. A surprising number of girls chose option B. It kind of makes you wonder about how bad Roman boys were, to be honest.

Einstein says that the past still exists and the future already exists. The whole thing’s like a field and you’re just standing somewhere in it. There’s nothing special about where you’re standing. And I’m standing someplace different, and sometimes we can talk to each other and sometimes we can’t, but there is nothing special about where I’m standing either. There is nothing special about now.”

“So, you’re, like, super smart.” “Yes,” says Agate. “But sometimes people don’t like that.”

“And in my family we believe in supporting self-directed exploration.

“Science fairs box natural curiosity and exploration into an artificial rubric,”

“I would sell you to the fairies for magic coffee beans.”

In small towns, the permanent record principals are always threatening you with is a real thing.

“If you want me to have choices, sometimes you’re not going to like them!”