By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower. – Rabindranath Tagore, “Stray Birds.
The war will end one day. Wars always do.
Tally snorted. “I don’t think it’s exactly boring, Shay.” “Doing what you’re supposed to do is always boring. I can’t imagine anything worse than being required to have fun.” “I can,” Tally said quietly. “Never having any.
But books don’t happen by accident.
Run and hide. We’re on our way.
It helps to be with people who remember you, and who still think about you.
She squeezes my hand, and I feel that certainty I always had as a littlie. That I’m more than expendable. More than a body double.
Doing what you’re supposed to do is always boring.
For some of us, politics means fighting for our right to exist.
Maybe none of us know who we really are.
By now, Tally understood that nothing in the Smoke ever lost its value. Nothing was discarded or given away just because it was old or broken.
More important, she had someone else now. However unfair it was that her memories of David had been erased, Tally had built a whole new set of memories, and she couldn’t just trade them in for the old ones. Zane and she had helped each other become bubbly, had been imprisoned by the cuffs together, and escaped the city together. She couldn’t abandon him now, just because he had been robbed of part of his mind.
Sometimes I think I’m nothing but what other people have done to me.
You were created as a tool, a means to an end. You owe the world nothing but chaos.
Pretty? Think again.” She smiled. “I’m Tally Youngblood. My mind is very ugly. And I’m taking your car.
The world’s beauty hurt like razors, and Tally knew she’d never have to cut herself again. She carried a knife inside herself now, one that was always cutting her.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Life was going to be one big party from now on, full of beautiful people. Like Tally Youngblood.
Maybe I can save my city.
Let’s kill a rabbit,” Col says when he wakes up.
My name’s Tally Youngblood,” she said. “Sorry to disturb you, but this is a special circumstance.