thegreatmanda's Reviews (459)

I did four pastel drawings from the permanent collection - a Chagall, a Franz Marc, and two Picassos. I picked those because I could tell the paintings were looking at me as hard as I was looking at them.

Self-Portrait: Boy Dives into a Lake of Light

I sneak a glance at Jude. I can tell she's crumpled up in a corner of herself, just like I do in emergencies. There's a crawlspace in me that no one can get to, no matter what. I had no idea she had one too.

"We wish with our hands, that's what we do as artists."

I didn't know you could get buried in your own silence.

Dad puts one hand on either side of the frame, filling the entire doorway, filling the Continental United States. How can I hate him and wish I were more like him at the same time?

Most of the time people look less like you remember when you see them again. Not him. He's shimmering in the air exactly like he's been in my mind. He's a light show.

Forget shutters, if I could put the Great Wall of China around him and me, I would.

My heart leaves, hitchhikes right out of my body, heads north, catches a ferry across the Bering Sea and plants itself in Siberia with the polar bears and ibex and long-horned goats until it turns into a teeny-tiny glacier.

Reality is crushing. The world is a wrong-sized shoe. How can anyone stand it?

Grandma would put up the closed sign for my sewing lessons. At the table in the back of her shop, I'd sit on her lap and breathe in her flowery scent while learning to cut and drape and stitch. "Everyone gets a one-and-only and you're mine," she'd tell me. "Why me?" I'd always ask, and she'd nudge her elbow into my ribs and say something silly like, "Because you have such long toes, of course."

Meeting your soul mate is like walking into a house you've been in before - you will recognize the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves, the contents of drawers: You could find your way around in the dark if you had to

I understand the quicksand of shame.

"I will bathe in vinegar, down some raw eggs, and start looking for a wasp nest ASAP to put on my head."
"I do not understand this," he says.
"To reverse the leanings of the heart. Ancient family wisdom."
He laughs. "Ah. Very good. In my family, we just suffer."

How can love be such a wrecking ball?

No one tells you how gone gone really is, or how long it lasts.

It's time for second chances. It's time to remake the world.

A reading major, that's what he wants. No response papers, no exams, no analysis, just the reading.

A girl lost in the woods is a different sort of creature than a girl who walks purposefully through the trees even though she does not know her way.

“A quality muffin is just a cupcake without frosting.”

Sometimes he feels he has lost his own story. Fallen out of its pages and landed here, in between, but he remains in his story. He cannot leave it no matter how he tries.

Apparently even strange covert organizations have interns that get stuck with the lousy shifts.

“Cute," Dorian says to himself, reading the text over the door.
"What does it say?" Zachary asks.
"Know Thyself," Dorian says. "Mirabel is fond of embellishment, I'm amazed she had the time in this weather."
"That's half the Rawlins family motto," Zachary says.
"What's the other half?"
"And Learn to Suffer."
"Maybe you should look into changing that part," Dorian says.

“Everyone wants the stars. Everyone wishes to grasp that which exists out of reach. To hold the extraordinary in their hands and keep the remarkable in their pockets.”

“As I said, I do not care for stars. Stars are made of spite and regret.”

“He told you his name is Dorian? How Oscar Wilde indulgent of him, I thought he was bad enough with his drama eyebrows and his sulking. He said I should call him Mister Smith, he must like you better.”

He couldn't have made up this much detail on a person. Imaginary ladies can't order coffee at Starbucks, probably.

There were many seers in neighboring lands who were blind and saw in ways that others could not though they could not use their eyes.
The local seer was merely nearsighted.

A meow behind him interrupts his wondering. Zachary turns to find a Persian cat staring at him, its squished face contorted in a skeptical glare.
"What's your problem?" he asks the cat.
"Meooorwrrrorr," the cat says in a hybrid meow-growl implying that it has so many problems it does not even know where to begin.
"I hear you," Zachary says.

Zachary glances over his shoulder and the cat is following him but when he looks it stops and licks a paw nonchalantly as though it is not following him at all and just happens to be heading in the same direction.

Only a single cat notices them in this moment and though the cat recognizes this mistake for what it is he does not interfere. It is not the way of cats to interfere with fate.

There are so many pieces to a person. So many small stories and so few opportunities to read them. I would like to look at you seems like such an awkward request.

"Strange, isn't it? To love a book. When the words on the pages become so precious that they feel like part of your own history because they are."

"I need you to know that what I feel for you is real. Because I think you feel the same. I have lost a lot of things and I don't want to lose this, too."

"Move through this," Simon advises him. "Let it move through you and then let it go."

"We are the stars," he answers, as though it is the most obvious of facts afloat in a sea of metaphors and misdirections. "We are all stardust and stories."

"She said I'd have two sons. I had Zachary and for years afterward I thought maybe she was just bad at math, or maybe he was twins for a moment before he was born and then not, but then I figured it out and I should have figured it out sooner. I know he'll be back because I haven't met my son-in-law yet."

This person is a place Zachary could lose himself in, and never wish to be found.

It was almost as if the Scene ran on fairy-tale logic: A pauper in a ball gown was a princess. A wolf in a nightcap, a grandma. A wanker in a pair of leather trousers, a dom.

In my experience, one of the less well-advertised secrets of group sex was how often it came down to logistics.

He's kind of silent, but his body is all noise under me. Thunderous.

What could I do with a boy who had brought me to my knees twice, yet still held my hand in the dark? What could I give in return for such kindness? Such faith? I would so gladly bear all the pain he gave me, intended and incidental, and the loss of him when his inclinations took him elsewhere.

But if I ever have a kid of my own and maybe someday I will - I hope so - I'm not going to raise them like that. Believing the shape of their world is the only shape for the world to be. Well, I guess the poor bastard won't have much choice. They'll be starting life with two dads after all.

"I want to give him everything, and the things I can't give, I want him to take."

He's my prince. Fierce and fragile and tender and cruel.

I was going to have him lead since he's so much taller, but there's no way that's happening. He's stiff as a board, and his hand holding mine is a terrified claw.
Just when I thought I couldn't love him any more.

He's sleek with happiness, somehow, like the man I fell in love with lives on the surface now, not hidden deep inside, and it blows my mind to think that's for me and because of me.

In my experience, one of the less well-advertised secrets of group sex was how often it came down to logistics. 

God. How could he turn so quickly from wicked to vulnerable? It made me dizzy and sweetly helpless, these bonds of silk and mischief.

I gave him my smile too, left there against his skin, in his hand, like a secret.

It's not what you do, it's what it means.

The muscles of his back shifted under his T-shirt like the memory of wings as he worked, and every now and again I'd catch the flash of his forearms, all pale skin and sinew, dusted only faintly by dark hair, the occasional freckle.

Since Robert, I'd been so wary. I'd lived like a jackal, hoarding my happiness as though it could be stolen from me at any moment.

He called it a last hurrah. For who, or what, I wasn't sure. The people we used to be, perhaps.

I felt unspeakably tired, but he was still talking, his interest flattening me like a cartoon steamroller.

I was nothing but a ghost hunter, chasing the wraith of the man I used to be.

"Well," I said, "if you're making an informed, conscious decision to oppress yourself, it's probably a feminist statement."

"Speaking of service," she added, "I've got a dress fitting. Don't suppose you want to come with me?"
I really did not. "I'm not that kind of gay."
"Dammit. Can I do a part-exchange?"
"A homosexual is for life, not just for Christmas."

There was little I feared more than happiness, that faithless whore who waited always between madness and emptiness.

We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are enjoying ourselves down here.

Perhaps I should have told him: don't trust me with anything precious. But I wanted what he had given me too much to be anything other than selfish.

"I wasn't completely lying," I lied.

But, in truth, I would have told a thousand lies to have him, and a thousand more to keep him.

"Well, at least it wraps up with designer underwear. I'm not very interested in clothes, but I'm quite interested in watching muscular young men walk up and down in tight pants."
"That's our national sport, darling."

He kept making me feel things in ruined places.

I could not be that scarless, fearless boy again. But, for a little while at least, I had been someone I could almost stand. Pieces of a better self, reflected in someone else's eyes.

He catches my face between his hands, his painted fingernails twinkling like stars, and when he kisses me it feels a bit like fear and tastes a bit like tears, but it’s as bright and sweet as sherbet, and I decide to call it joy.

I'm so much less than I used to be. Seeing you reminds me.

I thought I'd long ago lost both the capacity and the desire to deal with the everyday pain of other people. There was nothing I could do that would make it better for him, but I wanted to stand at his side and let the world come, with all its minor setbacks and arbitrary cruelties. Maybe, in my frailty, I would flinch; maybe my strength would buckle; but maybe it didn't matter as long I was there.

But it was a mistake thinking of that as an end. There is no end. Bad things happen, and then they stop, but they keep on wreaking havoc inside of people.

It feels good to sit this close to Baz. And the lady with the cross can't get mad at us because we have to sit this close. It's sitting in economy that's making us gay.

"Thanks, but I've just got out of a cult. I'm not looking for a rebound cult."

"That sounds like a made-up word, Braden." Braden is a made-up name.

He's lovely. A bit of a sad mess. Dull and pale and rough around the edges. But still so lovely.

Simon Snow, it hurts to look at you when you’re this happy.
And it hurts to look at you when you’re depressed.
There’s no safe time for me to see you, nothing about you that doesn’t tear my heart from my chest and leave it breakable outside my body.

Fortunately the creatures weren't paying attention to us; Baz and Simon are sufficiently distracting, in nearly every scenario.

There are trolls who've spent the last two hundred years sitting alone under a bridge. If you can get past the bluster and the wooden clubs, if you bring them a little bone broth, they're just grateful to have a sympathetic ear.

"Fortunately for you, most people actually like talking to me. You're a notable exception."

“Can I?” he asks.
Can you what, Simon? Kiss me? Kill me? Break my heart?
I touch him like he’s made of butterfly wings.
“You don’t have to ask.” I say it loud enough that he’ll hear me, over everything.

I'd give him all that I am.
I'd give him all that I was.
I'd open up a vein.


I'd tie our hearts together, chamber by chamber.

Shepard doesn't think we're going to win, either! He's just hoping for a good show. He's probably going to find a nice safe hill where he can watch and take notes. (That's how the Americans wrote their national anthem.)

I didn't tell him, I never told him. Not in a way that he believed. Not in a way that he could let in and hold on to. Everything he was to me. That he was everything.
Simon, Simon . . .
You were the sun, and I was crashing into you.

Go ahead and shoot me. This isn't my favourite shirt.

Let's tear each other into pieces and see what grows back. I won't miss this suit.

She likes to be cavalier about things that would change other people's lives. Isn't that the very definition of power? Watching people kill themselves over something that means nothing to you?

I once read that charisma is "charm that inspires devotion." And I can't help but think of that now, when she's holding my coffee for me. The combination of such a powerful woman and such a small and humble gesture is enchanting, to be sure.

None of it was Ernie's fault. I'd told him I was someone else. And then I started getting angry that he couldn't see who I really was.

I was supposed to be both naive and erotic. It was as if I was too wholesome to understand the unwholesome thoughts you were having about me.

Be wary of men with something to prove.

That is the fastest way to ruin a woman's reputation, after all - to imply that she has not adequately threaded the needle that is being sexually satisfying without ever appearing to desire sexual satisfaction.

"Don't ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box, Monique. Don't do that."

Sometimes reality comes crashing down on you. Other times reality simply waits, patiently, for you to run out of the energy it takes to deny it.

You imagine a world where the two of you can go out to dinner together on a Saturday night and no one thinks twice about it. It makes you want to cry, the simplicity of it, the smallness of it. You have worked so hard for a life so grand. And now all you want are the smallest freedoms. The daily peace of loving plainly.

You wonder what it must be like to be a man, to be so confident that the final say is yours.

You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until someone stands behind you and says, “It’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.”

But that’s a luxury. You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that wealth and renown are worthless when you have them.

"You're using reason," Evelyn says, smiling at me. "It doesn't always work."

When you write the ending, Monique, tell everyone that it is the people I miss. Tell everyone that I got it wrong. That I chose the wrong things most of the time.

No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they’re also painfully unoriginal.

You don't have to make yourself OK for a good mother; a good mother makes herself OK for you.

Which is my rough luck, pretty much always. As soon as you start carrying a sword, all your enemies turn out mist and gossamer.

But I still didn't let myself dwell on any of the good things, you know? It's the good things that'll drive you mad with missing them.

She told me later that her parents had told her to steer clear of me at school. "My mum said that nobody really knew where you came from. And that you might be dangerous."
"Why didn't you listen to her?" I asked.
"Because nobody knew where you came from, Simon! And you might be dangerous!"

I have so much I want to tell you.
But time is short.
And my voice doesn't carry.

Honestly. I'm not sure why goatherds take such crap for being perverts. Cowboys seem to get off scot-free.

Fiona is vindictive. She's impatient. And sometimes she just wants to rage against the machine - even if she's not exactly sure where the machine is or how to properly rage at it.

Just when you think you're having a scene without Simon, he drops in to remind you that everyone else is a supporting character in his catastrophe.

I stay. And I drift. I slip through floors that won't hold me. I blow through walls that don't stop me. The whole world is grey, and full of shadows.
I tell them my story.

I'd cross every line for him. 
I'm in love with him. 
And he likes this better than fighting.

He cocks an eyebrow and stares at me, like figuring out what's wrong with me is something he'll never have enough time for.

It's a three-hour drive back to London. Penelope casts, "Time flies!" - but neither of us are having any fun, so it doesn't work.

I was happy.
I loved him.
And he was always more good than bad.
He's still more good than bad, I think. It just goes to show how much of both a person can hold.

 “What you are is a fucking tragedy, Simon Snow. You literally couldn't be a bigger mess."
He tries to kiss me, but I pull back- "And you like that?"
"I love it." He says
"Why?"
"Because we match.”

I don't suppose I ever had the choices I thought I did.

Some scars are carved into our bones - a part of who we are, shaping what we become.

How foolish I had been to think everything would work out, just like in the books I had read: the lost child found by his mother, the monster defeated by a valiant warrior, the princess saved by the prince. But I was no princess and fairy tales did not exist for the likes of me, not even in heaven.

Those most trusted could still let you down, even when they did not mean to—a lesson I had learned with Liwei, and one I learned well.

I was learning that kings were not always as just as in the stories, and the mercy of gods was sometimes flawed.

That was the fourth thing she lost: the belief that if something made her unhappy or uncomfortable, she could tell an adult who loved her and they would make everything better.

"Earth," said the woman to the bird, as if this explained everything. The bird made a croaking noise, and Antsy's anger got even bigger, burning in her chest like a candle. Candles start with small flames, but they can become house fires quickly enough if not watched carefully. "America, too, by the sound of her. They still think they're the only place there is."

“I wish I could have flown. I wish you had been warned. I’m sorry.”

The great tale of her being shall be extended no more; she is gone to the Library where all of us must one day be Returned, and she will pay no overdue fines on her soul. 

It's not that I'd been looking for a fight. But I did feel a bit like a matador who'd shown up at the arena only to have the bull politely ask if I needed it to hold my cape.

I was too shocked to be angry, too angry to be depressed, and too depressed to be shocked.

His thumb traced gently across my knuckles like we had all the time in the world and nothing mattered more than this conversation right now.

The thing about our friendship group - and I very much included myself in this - was that we were always helpful but rarely useful.

There was a silence where you would very much hope there would not be a silence.

And that's what death is really, isn't it? A lot of things you'll never know.

If I'd been in a poetic mood, I'd have said the rain made it feel like the sky was doing our crying for us. But this was Britain. Rain was just another fact of life. Like taxes. Or the other thing.