Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies.
Suddenly a pair of searchlights lanced out from the frigate. They swept across the dark expanse - bright knives slicing the night into pieces.
They walked with a pedatory grace.... one of them ripped off their hood and said, "my name is Tally Youngblood and is a special circumstance".
Around the outskirts of the city, cut off from town by the black oval of the river, everything was in darkness. Everyone ugly was in bed by now.
I love you all. But it's time to say good-bye, for now. be careful with the world, or the next time we meet, it might get ugly. -Tally Youngblood
Everyone in the world was programmed by the place they were born, hemmed in by their beliefs, but you had to at least try to grow your own brain.
This is the power of the Goliath, that no one on earth, Clanker or Darwinist, can escape. So we all must learn to share the globe, or perish together!
I found a great book called 'Slang Through the Ages' by Jonathon Green. It's basically a thesaurus of historical slang, and had lots of great old uses.
A rat called Possible New Strain was sitting under a spaghetti strainer held down with a pile of journalism textbooks, saying rude things in rat-speak.
Gravity was something you could beat; all it took was hydrogen, hot air, or even a bit of rope. But being a girl was a miserable, never-ending struggle.
Probably? So you're asking me to trust my life to steel wool and peanut butter?" "Poisoned peanut butter." "Cal, I don't care if it's nuclear peanut butter.
Alek said, "Do you think I'm being a fool?" "I think you're trying to do something good. But doing good is rarely easy, and no weapon has ever stopped a war.
Now,young lady,I suppose you're here for a work assignment." Work?" Tally said. They both looked down at her puzzled expression, and Shay burst into laughter.
The Rusty Ruins were the remains of an old city, a hulking reminder of back when there'd been way too many people, and everyone was incredibly stupid. And ugly.
I like my first lines short and declarative. No complicated sentences. Of course, that's not really a Scott thing. It's pretty classic grab-the-reader technique.
Junkies might be easy to knock down, but they're never fragile. They have souls like old leather shoes studded with steel, and they're about as much good as friends.
The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit. Of course, Tally thought, you’d have to feed your cat only salmon-flavored cat food for a while, to get the pinks right.
I have no formal training as a writer at all, not even a single English class in college. However, my adult books are all science fiction, which has some similarities to YA.
When I finish a first draft, I often look back at first chapters I wrote and laugh at them. They're like pictures of yourself in middle school. You're embarrassed to see them.
Nature was tough, it could be dangerous, but unlike Dr. Cable or shay, or peris-unlike people in general-it made sense. The problems it threw at you could be solved rationally.
Oh, this beast? It's...perspicacious loris. 'Perspicacious' meaning 'wise or canny'." "Get stuffed," Bovril said, then giggled. "And it insults people," Telsa said. "How peculiar.
Ninety percent of the research comes first. I mostly blunder around reading stuff and talking to smart people until an idea batters or oozes its way through to my narrative brain.
And over all those sleepy weeks, the dream always ended the same way, with the dragon coming for the princess saying the same words every time.... "Face it, Tally-wa, you're Special.
She carried a knife inside of herself now, one that was always cutting her. She could feel it every time she swallowed, every time her thoughts strayed from the splendor of the wild.
He turned to face her again, his late-pretty composure crumbling. "But you're..." "Pretty? Think again." She smiled. "I'm Tally Youngbood. My mind is very ugly. And I'm taking your car.
Money's the same, whoever gives it to you. That was the point of money, after all: crisp and clean or wrinkled or disintegrated into quarters - a dollar was always worth a hundred cents.
He thinks Goliath can end the war," Alek managed at last. "The man wants peace!" "As do we all," Count Volger said. "But there are many ways to end a war. Some are more peaceful than others.
With everything so perfect, reality seemed somehow fragile, as if the slightest interruption could imperil her pretty future... all of it felt as tenuous as a soap bubble, shivering and empty.
I expect that you must receive top marks at school, young lady." Madeleine smiled as she stirred her tea. "There are always rewards for those who state the obvious frequently and with conviction.
And the worst thing was, there were no mirrors out there in the wild, so the princess was left wondering whether she in fact was still beautiful... or if the fall had changed the story completely.
Maybe they didn't want you to realize that every civilization has its weakness. There's always one thing we depend on. And if someone takes it away all that's left is some story in a history class.
Never give us what we really want. Cut the dream into pieces and scatter them like ashes. Dole out the empty promises. Package our aspirations and sell them to us, cheaply made enough to fall apart.
Not everything made you stronger. It was possible to survive, yet still be crippled for your trouble. Sometimes it was okay to run away, to skip the test, to chicken out. Or at least to get some help.
Even mocking people helped their face stats. In the reputation economy, the only real way to hurt anyone was to ignore them completely. And it was pretty hard to ignore someone who made your blood boil.
you're infamous, Tally. Everyone's terrified of you. The new system may have made the other cities nervous, but they seem to think my little gang of psychotic sixteen-year-olds is worse" - Cable to Tally
Did you really think I was too fragile to know what Deryn was?" "Fragile?" Volger looked about. "I hadn't thought so, but now I find you brooding in a bathroom. This doesn't speak well of your sturdiness.
What did a happy ending even mean in real life, anyway? In stories you simply said, 'They lived happily ever after,' and that was it. But in real life people had to keep on living, day after day, year after year.
I'd watched too many schoolmates graduate into mental institutions, into group homes and jails, and I knew that locking people up was paranormal - against normal, not beside it. Locks didn't cure; they strangled.
I've learned a lot about stage-managing for illustration. Sometimes you have to delete characters from a scene just to keep from overcrowding the image. I've also learned to making big-scale design decisions early.
...I want those perfect eyes and lips, and for everyone to look at me and gasp. And for everyone who sees me to think Who's that? and want to get to know me, and listen to what I say." "I'd rather have something to say.
The difference between being a part-time writer and a full-time writer is like the difference between dating someone and living with them. Some of the romance is gone, but you learn things you'd never know just by dating.
He squeezed her hand. "Then I'll come get you, wherever you are when it happens. We'll be okay." "But what about everybody else?" He stared out across the river, nodding slowly. "My guess is, everybody else is in big trouble.
Lilt pulled away. "I saw what he was doing, so I cleared a path for him. I helped him do it..." She shook her head, tears tracking the dust off her face, and turned to stare at the fallen tower. "Have we all gone mad to want this?
I'm not sure what I am anymore... Sometimes I think I'm nothing but what other people have done to me―a big collection of brainwashing, surgeries, and cures... That, and all the mistakes I've made. All the people I've disappointed.
She thought of the orchids spreading across the plains below, choking the life out of other plants, out of the soil itself, selfish and unstoppable. Tally Youngblood was a weed. And, unlike the orchids, she wasn't even a pretty one.
I wouldn't say design has become strictly functional. A lot of cars these days look downright comic book to me, and the info-gadgets with which late industrial people spend the most time - phones, music players, etc. - are blobjects.
Why are you still wearing...?" Aya began. "Oh, that's not smart plastic? You're really an ugly?" David rolled his eyes and Shay said quietly, "David's never had any surge at all. But I wouldn't use the word ugly...Tally might eat you.
The world rests upon a turtle, which itself stands on the back of an elephant!” Alek tried not to laugh. “Then what does the elephant stand on, madam?” “Don’t try to be clever, young man.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s elephants all the way down!
Didn't this beat everything? A pretty and an ugly taking a stroll together. The warden came closer, confusion all over his middle-pretty face. Tally smiled. At least she was causing trouble to the end. "I'm Tally Youngblood," she said. "Make me pretty.
One of the most common questions writers are asked is "Where do you get your ideas?" But the sad truth is, we don't know. Ideas can come at any time and from any direction: in the shower, waiting for an elevator, or while bouncing across Wikipedia pages.