Karen Joy Fowler

But I knew that, both in fairyland and the real world, too, wishes were a slipperier things.

The dogs came racing up the stairs. They danced at Rima's feet, frantic with the need to communicate something to her. Little Timmy's down the well! Feed us ice cream and potato chips! Sometimes there's a benefit to not sharing a language.

He envied the bark, which had been, in the course of one lifetime, both forest and fire. One endured; one destroyed.

We don't choose whom we love,_ he told Maura, so gently that she knew he knew. If she wasn't going to be loved in return, she would have liked not to be pitied for it. She got neither of these wishes. __ut people have this advantage over swans, to put their unwise loves aside and love another. Not me. I'm too much swan for that.

Lots of people go mad in January. Not as many as in May, of course. Nor June. But January is your third most common month for madness.

So many problems, however infinitely varied they first appear, turn out to be matters of money. I can't tell you how much this offends me.

There was no point in telling my father. He'd never let me quit after only one day. He couldn't help me and he'd make some terrible blunder if he tried. Parents are too innocent for the Boschian landscapes of middle school.

We are so excited that, in the strangely illuminating phrase my mother favours, we__e completely beside ourselves.

Out there is South Dakota," Kitch had said, "Matt said they treated Fern like some kind of animal.

Contrary to our metaphors, humans are much more imitative than the other apes. For example: if chimps watch a demonstration on how to get food out of a puzzle box, they, in their turn, skip any unnecessary steps, go straight to the treat. Human children overimitate, reproducing each step regardless of its necessity. There is some reason why, now that it__ our behavior, being slavishly imitative is superior to being thoughtful and efficient, but I forget exactly what that reason is.

A nonhuman animal had better have a good lawyer. In 1508, Bartholomé Chassenée earned fame and fortune for his eloquent representation of the rats of his French province. These rats had been charged with destroying the barley crop and also with ignoring the court order to appear and defend themselves. Bartholomé Chassenée argued successfully that the rats hadn't come because the court had failed to provide reasonable protection from the village cats along the route.

You can__ imagine the white-hot fury someone who can__ sleep has toward the beautiful dreamer beside him.

I once broke up with a boy because he wrote me an awful poem.

Because what could be more Casablanca? Suddenly Harlow saw that what she__ always wanted was a man of principle. A man of action. A domestic terrorist. Every girl__ dream, if she can__ have a vampire. (Chapter four pg 202)

Emotion and instinct were the basis of all our decisions, our actions, everything we valued, the way we saw the world. Reason and rationality were a thin coat of paint on a ragged surface.

Without our listening, all the stories are the same story.

The idea of our own rationality...was convincing to us only because we so wished to be convinced. To any impartial observer, could such a thing exist, the sham was patent. Emotion and instinct were the basis of all our decisions, our actions, everything we valued, the way we saw the world. Reason and rationality were a thin coat of paint on a ragged surface.

I admired her choices though I wouldn't have made them.