the_cat > Recent Status Updates

In Argyll’s case, instant automatic responses took over. Ever since he was tiny, people had instructed him in the virtues of politeness and hospitality.
“Gosh, hello. What a surprise. Come in, do. Make yourself at home.”
Well, how else do you talk to your murderer?

I have to say Jayne Entwistle's readings are awesome.

That was sad :/

We ordered dinner: salad and ribs. Eating ribs on a second date takes nerve. It's difficult to look suave gnawing on dead pig bones and licking red goo off your fingers. And scraping sinew out from between your teeth always drives 'em wild.

I guess my romance with snow died when I wasn't looking.

I have the feeling I'm missing some short story here before this book, ::shrug::

I kept my face pressed tightly into the pillow.
After what seemed like a very long time, I felt his hand (her father) gently touching my head—but only for a moment.
He did not stroke my hair, nor did he speak, and I was glad he didn’t. His silence spared both of us the embarrassment of not knowing what to say.
And then he was gone, as quietly as he had come.

Don't think these are books for kids...

“It is our property, Inspector,” I said, just to remind him that he was talking to a de Luce.
“Yes, and it’s my investigation. So much as one of your fingerprints at the scene and I’ll have you up on charges. Do you understand?”
What insolence! It didn’t deserve an answer. I could have said “My fingerprints are already at the scene, Inspector,” but I didn’t.

When I come to write my autobiography, I must remember to record the fact that a chicken-wire fence can be scaled by a girl in bare feet, but only by one who is willing to suffer the tortures of the damned to satisfy her curiosity.

... the river Efon had been diverted temporarily to form the ornamental lake and feed the fountains whose remnants dotted the lawns and terraces at Buckshaw. At the time of its construction, this marvel of subterranean hydraulic engineering had caused no end of hard feelings between my family and the local landowners, so that one of my ancestors, Lucius de Luce, had subsequently become known as “Leaking de Luce”...

I paused at the door … and turned.
“If anyone wants me,” I said, “I shall be upstairs, weeping at the bottom of my closet.”

I love this girl ;)

I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear that your employee remuneration package includes specialist health-care insurance, as well as a generous death-in-service lump sum and an even more generous undeath-in-service annuity, index-linked to keep your dependants in luxury and you in coffins and AB negative for the rest of time; which is a tremendous comfort, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Eleven-year-olds are supposed to be unreliable. We’re past the age of being poppets: the age where people bend over and poke us in the tum with their fingers and make idiotic noises that sound like “boof-boof”—just the thought of which is enough to make me bring up my Bovril. And yet we’re still not at the age where anyone ever mistakes us for a grown-up. The fact is, we’re invisible—except when we choose not to be.

He had to get out of this bloody stupid habit of falling in love the way a cat bats at a bit of string. It’s embarrassing and it’s got to stop. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if just once he had the guts at least to try and make something of it, but he never did. The string twitched, he batted, missed, and immediately panicked and hid under the table till the danger went away. Pathetic.