Pahua and the Soul Stealer Quotes

“I know I’m only eleven, but I also know what it’s like when things aren’t what you want them to be. I pretend to be other people all the time. But...I don’t run away. That’s what cowards do. And while you’re not there for them, I will be.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“We all must make mistakes before we can succeed. No hero emerges into the world fully formed.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Spirits are just like anyone else–good or bad both. Their nature isn’t determined simply by what they are.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“If our roots are who we are, everything we’ve been and done, then wouldn’t cutting out such an important piece, even if it was a bad one, hurt the whole tree?”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“You’re too young to be filled with so much sadness.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Sometimes family means different things to people.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“I don’t take fashion advice from cat spirits.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Stop watching you sleep? I paused in the middle of wadding up another sock. “Do you watch me sleep?” His yellow eyes glowed faintly. Let that question haunt you for the rest of the day.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“What have you been doing in your prison for thousands of years? Shouldn’t you have taken up a few hobbies by now?” “I’ll have you know that I’m accomplished at crochet, cross-stitch, and embroidery. But don’t try to distract me.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“You could have defeated the ghost girl just as well,” I said.
“Yeah, I could have defeated her. But you’re the only one who could have saved her.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“I initially sided with my father because I wanted his approval. I thought that by helping him escape his prison I would finally earn his love. But the more time I spent with you and your family–in the beginning, with your dad, and then after, seeing the way your mom worked so hard to support you and Matt, and the way you always took care of your brother–the more I understood what love really is. I couldn't let my father destroy you the way he destroyed everything else.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“It didn’t seem like the ax had been sitting here for thousands of years, waiting for Shee Yee to claim it again. It looked… ready.
Unlike me. I wasn’t ready to take this responsibility. But I was ready to save my brother. I wanted all this to be over with so I could take Matt home.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“When people think about their past, they usually like to… brighten it up. They tend to gloss over the shadows and the hollow spaces, smooth out the dull patches. They talk about the ‘good old days.’ Most souls here don’t want to face the pitted and stained reality of what their lives had been. But they must take stock of everything before they can move on. So I help them.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“It sounds like what I learned in school about the cycle of reincarnation. The roots are the part of our soul that will always remain us regardless of how many times the plant has withered and regrown. The trunk is our current form, and the branches represent a higher state we can achieve when our soul is finally allowed into the realm of our ancestors.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Miv wasn’t the best at delivering motivational speeches or saying nice things in general. But like Matt, he’d always been there for me, for as long as I could remember. He gave me confidence.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Can you face your own soul, Pahua Moua?”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“We’re going to beat the bridge spirit. I know we have a lot to do yet, and it probably won’t be easy, but we will win.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Despite nearly being turned to stone, almost drowning in frog backwash, and then narrowly escaping death by horns, we were somehow alive and mostly unharmed.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“I didn’t know how I was going to save my brother. I only knew that I had to do it, and not just because his current condition was my fault. Like me, Matt didn't really have anyone else. If his big sister couldn’t look out for him, who would?”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Right before we moved, she’d told me that, sometimes, it was hard to change the minds of people who’d already decided to judge you.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“More than once, I’d wished he was a terrible dad just so I could be glad that he left.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Matt was still in there, too, but his spirit felt far away, like a kite caught in a thunderstorm. Its string could snap at any moment.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“For once, I didn’t have to imagine I was someone more interesting. Except... it didn’t feel regal. It felt less real, actually, than all the times I’d pretended to be someone else. Being told you’re supposed to be some big-shot shaman isn’t the same as making something up yourself.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“According to the story, a powerful warrior died here after spending a hundred days and nights searching for his lover, who’d been stolen away by tiger spirits. Although he finally found the spirits, he couldn’t defeat them. The only thing he had left of his beloved ws her bamboo comb, which he was holding when he died. From the comb sprang the bamboo forest, and from his heartbreak, the sleeping curse.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Some stars, though-the really faint ones-you couldn’t look at directly If you tried to focus on them, they’d melt into the black sky. But if you looked at the space around them and relaxed your eyes, they would always twinkle and made themselves known.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“The pretending had started small–I’d imagined myself as a Girl Scout, or a ballerina, or a world-famous ventriloquist. You know, attainable things. But Mom hadn’t had the money or time to make those dreams real, and I never would have fit in anyway.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“I couldn’t change the fact that I was different from everyone else in real life, but in my fantasy life, I can make myself unique in more exciting ways. Then it wouldn’t matter what anyone else thought.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Maybe Pahua Moua, eleven-year-old nobody, was scared of a bridge, but I didn’t have to be her right now. I’d pretend to be someone braver–a warrior princess setting out to vanquish an evil sorcerer. Or a secret government experiment, part machine and part vampire bat, bent on destroying the mad scientist who’d created me.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Fun fact #1 about me: I like to pretend to be something more exciting than an eleven-year-old who spends all her time babysitting her little brother and talking to invisible spirits. Some would say I’m too old for imaginary games. But some people also like olives, so folks can be just plain wrong.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer

“Math should be illegal during the summer.”
― Lori M. Lee, Pahua and the Soul Stealer