Mechanica Quotes

“Everything was a broken line for me in those days. I was slipped into the empty spaces between words.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“When your heart is broken, it’s easier to follow rules”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“I brought my hand to the back of his neck and leaned into him, sliding my fingers into the curls at his nape. His arms clasped tighter around me. I sighed just a little against his mouth, feeling that it was almost too much, all this newness, this feeling that there was space and light inside me I’d never noticed before. Every part of me down to my fingertips felt like reworked glass, melting into some new shape, my edges beginning to glow. I wanted to do nothing but change this way, pressed against his body, his warmth and goodness, forever.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“I had rescued myself entirely.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“I do the same with my books...Nothing like a good argument in the margins with someone who's already said all they have to say on the subject.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“I have to believe it’s right to be a warm voice, a companion if I can be, as soon as ever I find a friend.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“The cracks grew over him like vines, faster and faster. At first he bucked, whinnying metallic screeches. Then he gradually stilled, looking up at me with frightened glass eyes.
He was growing.
New, molten glass leeched out between his fissures, cooled and hardened only to crack again and make room for more liquid glass. The gears inside him moaned and creaked, and metal filings gathered at the base of his transparent stomach, only to fly up again and form more joints and chains and gears. Black smoke poured from his nostrils.
Soon he was the size of a large dog, then a man, and still he grew and grew until he towered over my bed, as big as any plow horse I’d ever seen. Glass dripped down his flanks like sweat, a few rivulets still glowing with molten heat.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“The love between friends could create life.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“Now was a time not to anger, but for survival. I would survive. I knew that was all I could do.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“My motrher says friendship should be slowly and carefully cultivated, like a rose garden, like a romance in a story. That every reason you care about someone should be rational.

She says I care too quickly.

But friendship has never been somenting I could do halfway”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“A whole life could change, and change again, in the smallest fraction of forever.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“you had to be willing to forget what it had done before and look for what it could do.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“One must always account for the vagaries of truth.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“I had no idea how one day could contain so much happiness and despair at once.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“and even making beads reminded me that there were other things in life besides handsome young men with kind smiles and soft lips.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

“Sometimes you have to put things away for a while.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica