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Walk really, really carefully. It's not complicated, but if you mess up, you'll die, so pay attention.

Maureen Johnson

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Maureen Johnson
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: February 16
Author
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Really
Carefully
Mess
Complicated
Pay
Walk
Walks
Dies
Attention

More quotes by Maureen Johnson

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I envisioned huge piles of the Elf Hotel flying off the belt, taking down everybody in sight. I had seen pictures of that Elf Hotel - it had sharp candy-cane spires that could easily impale someone. If anyone was ever going to be killed by an Elf Hotel, it would be my parents.
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I could pretend, at least, and if I pretended long enough, maybe I could make it into a reality.
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I had one class in the morning, the mysteriously named Further Maths. It was two hours long and so deeply frightening that I think I went into a trance.
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Ah, he said. I had an . . . artistic disagreement with the director of the panto. As it happens, I take issue with the objectification of women in Cinderella, and the reliance on shoes as a means of identification. Surely you understand.
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I may have been a complete lunatic, but I was a complete lunatic with manners.
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The locker at the end of her bed had no lock, and one of the hinges was busted. She opened it up. There was a thing in it. The thing might have been a sandwich at some point, or an animal, or a human hand...but what it was now was fuzzy and putrid. A minute later, Ginny was down the stairs, out the door, and gone.
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One question, I said. Did you tell me all that because you think I'm going to die? No, he said. It's because you're doing something brave, and I felt I should too. I'll take that as a yes, I said.
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Which is both gross and breathtakingly romantic. He could always have just gone upstairs and brushed his teeth, but he stayed and lurked by the fish for me.
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I try to shake it loose-but these ideas, they cling. It's like I'm shackled to them with an iron chain. They rattle along behind me, dragging against the ground, always reminding me of their presence.
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Tired, but not the kind of tired that sleep fixes.
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I had always assumed the weekend was a holy tradition, respected by good people everywhere. Not so at Wexford.
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You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.
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One of them hung a pink bra from our lighting fixture. I left it there. It was a nice bra
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We study there a lot because... what other choice does society give us, right? It's Starbucks or death, sometimes.
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I could envision it all to clearly: Stuart or Debbie finding the dented door off its hinges, lying in the snow. She came in, ravaged the boy, stole plastic bags, and ripped off the door in her escape, the police would say in the APB. Probably making her way to bust her parents out of jail.
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A woman who shaves or otherwise depilates her pubic curls has a profound interest in recreational sex.
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Guilt isn't always a rational thing, Clio realized. Guilt is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not.
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WORTH IT and perfect are different things. No one’s perfect, yet in romance, everyone becomes WORTH IT. And that’s the trick.
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You don't know me yet, I said. Rory was telling me she lives in a swamp, Charlotte said. That's right, I said, turning up my accent a little. These are the very first shoes I've ever owned. They sure do pinch my feet. Jerome gave a little snort.
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No one hid their interest when I walked into the room. I'm not sure if it was the news about Boo or my general appearance. At home, people would have asked. People would have been crawling all over me for information. At Wexford, they seemed to extract what they wanted to know by covert staring.
Maureen Johnson