She’d always been a little contemptuous of beauty, as though it was something you had to trade away some other vital thing for.
Crippled things are always more beautiful. It’s the flaw that brings out beauty.
Sam: You know what I wish? Cassel: What? Sam: That someone would covert my bed into a robot that would fight other bed robots to the death for me.
Jones looks like he wants to slug me, which is only subtly different from his usual way of looking at me like I’m a slug.
He runs to the sink to spit it out. I grin. There’s nothing quite as funny as someone else’s misery.
That’s family for you. Can’t live with them, can’t murder them.
Nobody ever really sees me the way I am, underneath everything. But she did. She does.
Ruthless. That’s my girl.
Everything was strange and beautiful and swollen with possibilities.
I’m sorry I kissed you- it was selfish and it upset you- but you can’t ask me to pretend I didnt want to.
I like all the things that make you monstrous.
Boys never believe I can beat them, she told me back then. But I always win in the end.
I can’t help feeling a little bit competitive and a little bit disappointed in myself that I’m already so far behind. After all, Yulikova thinks Barron has a real future with the Bureau. She told me so. I told her that sociopaths are relentlessly charming. I think she figured I was joking.
The problem with cell phones is that you can’t slam them down into a cradle when you hang up. Your only option is to throw them, and if you do, they just skitter across the floor and crack their case. It’s not satisfying at all. I close my eyes and bend down to pick up the pieces.
You want me to say something? Okay. Sometimes I think I am what you made me. And sometimes I don’t know who I am at all. And either way I’m not happy.
It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.
We’re all dying, Cassel. It’s just that some of us are dying faster than others.
More and more I feel like the boy who cut off his nose to spite his face.
Mirroring behavior. When a mark takes a drink from his water glass, so should you. When he smiles, so should you. Keep it subtle, rather than creepy, and it’s a good technique.
I want you and I hate wanting things and I especially hate admitting I want them.