Quote

These houses had been plunked down with an alarming randomness -- unevenly spaced, on crooked lines, like whoever had designed the place had said, We'll just follow this cat, and wherever he sits down, we'll build something.

Maureen Johnson

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Maureen Johnson
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: February 16
Author
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Build
Randomness
Follow
Crooked
Lines
Sits
House
Houses
Place
Designed
Something
Whoever
Unevenly
Like
Wherever
Spaced
Cat
Alarming

More quotes by Maureen Johnson

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I like to talk. Talking is kind of my thing. If talking had been a sport option at Wexford, I would have been captain. But sports always have to involve running, jumping, or swinging your arms around. You don’t get PE points for the smooth and rapid movement of the jaw.
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Every time you try to flirt with her, a puppy dies.
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Walk really, really carefully. It's not complicated, but if you mess up, you'll die, so pay attention.
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Some nutter's gone and pulled a Jack the Ripper.
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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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No sausage? he asked. Apparently my pork consumption habits were a matter of public record.
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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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She looks like a jumper to me. Jumpers do that a lot, stand on the edge and stare out. Never kill yourself in a Tube station. Tip number one. You might end up down here forever, staring at the wall. Stephen coughed a little. Just giving advice, Callum said.
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The truth was that she had managed to betray everyone by doing nothing. No one in history had ever done less and yet been so wrong. Not cheating on a non-boyfriend with the non-boyfriend of a friend. The pressure of thinking that one through made her swollen body ache.
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Do you ever sing in the car? Generally not. But I am driving a police car. I think people would like a singing policeman. Makes life seem more like a musical. Like Foot-tastic. You can talk for a long time about nothing. I certainly can, you charming man!
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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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With that, I splashed some water on my face, fixed on a smile, and stepped out. I would find Jerome. I would make him explain to me what I was missing. We would laugh, then we would kiss with tongue, and all would be well.
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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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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.
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A pause while my mother made high-pitched sisterly devotions of gratitude.
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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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Tell me what you want, what you really, really want, he said. Braiiinnnnssss, we said in unison.
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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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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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Can I tell you something you really don't want to hear? He's going to break up with you. - Stuart
Maureen Johnson