JoLee

“When there’s an end-of-the-world cult living next door to you, make it your business to find out what they’re up to,” he said. “That’s, like, a basic life rule.”
― Stephanie Tromly, Trouble is a Friend of Mine

“She stood looking carefully at the labeled portraits Ursala had put up: Little Crow, Chief of the Santees, Geronimo, last of the Apaches, and Ursala's favorite, Big Foot, dying in the snow at Wounded Knee.
"Isn't that where the massacre was?" asked Ellen.
"Yes. I'm going to go there when I'm grown up. To Wounded Knee."
"That seems sensible," said Ellen.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Song for Summer

“I think something must happen to you when you get into eight grade. Like the Doug Swieteck's Brother Gene switches on and you become a jerk.
Which may have been Hamlet, Prince of Denmark's problem, who, besides having a name that makes him sound like a breakfast special at Sunnyside Morning Restaurant--something between a ham slice and a three-egg omelet--didn't have the smarts to figure out that when someone takes the trouble to come back from beyond the grave to tell you that he's been murdered, it's probably behooveful to pay attention--which is the adjectival form.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“You are a total stranger and you want to take my library book.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian