Top 100 Maureen Johnson Quotes
#1. Braiiinnnnssss," we said in unison.
"It's both sad and incredibly impressive that you were all ready with that one.
Maureen Johnson
#5. You've never told me about your love life, Scarlett. You're a very pretty girl. You must have a boy shacked up somewhere for your personal delights. I'd bet it's a booky one, overtones of Harry Potter and a lot of black T-shirts.
Maureen Johnson
#6. You'd been petting a stuffed dog?' she said 'A dead one?'
'It was a really well stuffed dog' I clarified. 'I have seen some bad taxidermy. This was top-notch work. It would have fooled anyone.
Maureen Johnson
#7. I feel warm and reassured," I whispered. "He's like Santa.
Maureen Johnson
#9. Good stuff!" [Knud] said. "All organic, of course! All fresh! We take care of the earth here! You like smoked herring? You will. Of course you will! I work in iron, though I have also done some of these wood carvings. All of my work is based on traditional Danish art. I am a Viking! Eat!
Maureen Johnson
#10. Gators are just something you have to accept where I come from. Most don't go anywhere near the houses, even though there are lots of delicious children and dogs there. Every once in a while, though, an alligator has a lightbulb moment and decides to take a stroll and see the world a bit.
Maureen Johnson
#11. The English play hockey in any weather. Thunder, lightening, plague of locusts ... nothing can stop the hockey. Do not fight the hockey, for the hockey will win.
Maureen Johnson
#12. There is nothing about a bad situation that fourteen hyper cheerleaders can't worsen.
Maureen Johnson
#13. There is no normal. I've never met a normal person. The concept is flawed. It implies that there is only one way people are supposed to be, and that can't possible be true. Human experience is far too varied.
Maureen Johnson
#14. You're not weird in the head.' 'There's a giant talking chicken next to me that would say otherwise.
Maureen Johnson
#15. I want to follow him. I want to go where his show is and just lie on the sidewalk outside so he can trip over me. Okay? That's how pathetic I am now. You should be thrilled. I
Maureen Johnson
#16. I realize Jubilee is a bit of a stripper name. You probably think I have heard the call of the pole.
Maureen Johnson
#18. Just a moment," she said, "Murphy, yes?" "How did she know that?" Keith asked as the woman walked to the phone. "How do you have all of these strange connections inside Harrods? Who are you?
Maureen Johnson
#19. Being sixteen means you have to be a genius conversational editor.
Maureen Johnson
#21. Back at home, people would have been weeping and doing a lot of very public group hugs. At Wexford, some people just aggressively pretended nothing was happening.
Maureen Johnson
#22. 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.
Maureen Johnson
#23. Hey! Jack the Wanker! Over here! I want your autograph!
Maureen Johnson
#24. WORTH IT and perfect are different things. No one's perfect, yet in romance, everyone becomes WORTH IT. And that's the trick.
Maureen Johnson
#25. 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.
Maureen Johnson
#26. But here I was,quasi-boyfriend saying he wanted to take me on an actual date, and I was just staring at him impassively, like a horse watching a mime pretending to walk against the wind.
Maureen Johnson
#28. This wasn't a position she wanted to be in. And yet ... yet she knew that she was going to do it anyway.
Maureen Johnson
#29. I felt so alone on that train ... a weird, unnatural kind of alone that bore into me. It was feeling just beyond fear and somewhere to the left of sadness.
Maureen Johnson
#30. It's always awkward when someone doesn't realize you're joking and devotes thought time to what you've said. Double that when the person is wearing tinfoil.
Maureen Johnson
#31. Prefects. I had learned this one. Student council types, but with superpowers. They who must be obeyed.
Maureen Johnson
#32. We're going to die," Keith said, the moment he was gone. "This man is a serial killer. We're going to die, and he's going to bury us in his garden and build a shed on us.
Maureen Johnson
#33. I mean, you can throw any two people together, it doesn't mean they'll fall in love. Everyone knows this. No one quite understands how it works. It's just those people, where they are in their lives, how circumstance throws them together.
Maureen Johnson
#34. Stuart must have sensed my despair from the way I began lightly banging my forehead on the table.
Maureen Johnson
#35. Don-Keun was a new man. The moment they arrived, he vanished for a second. We heard muffled ecstatic screaming coming from somewhere in the back of the Waffle House kitchen, then he reappeared, his face shining with the kind of radiance usually associated with religious epiphany.
Maureen Johnson
#36. I read two mysteries a day when I was a kid. All of Agatha Christie, all of 'Sherlock Holmes.' I've seen every single British detective show ever made.
Maureen Johnson
#37. Sometimes artists like to catch themselves looking out, let the world see them for once. It's a signature. This one is a very bold one. But this is also a witnessing. We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That's why we paint." Mari
Maureen Johnson
#38. Oh my God!" said one of the Ambers. "Is this not the worst trip ever? Did you see the snow?"
She was a sharp one, this Amber. What would she notice next? The train? The moon? The hilarious vagaries of human existence? Her own head?
Maureen Johnson
#39. I had always assumed the weekend was a holy tradition, respected by good people everywhere. Not so at Wexford.
Maureen Johnson
#40. When something happens to me - good, bad, boring it doesn't matter - I have to tell someone to make it count. There's no point in anything happening if you can't talk about it.
Maureen Johnson
#41. When I worked in theater, I was always writing things on Post-it Notes and sticking them on screens or desks. Twitter has given me a way of continuing to post those notes, only a lot of other people see them, too.
Maureen Johnson
#42. Want to make it a date, haircut?' she asked. 'As soon as I can scrape together the cash for the train ticket?'
What's with the "haircut," kiddo?' he asked. 'I thought we were past that.'
We'll never be past that,' she said.
Maureen Johnson
#43. Tell me what you want, what you really, really want," he said.
"Braiiinnnnssss," we said in unison.
Maureen Johnson
#44. (It was also helpful that the hotel's owner tended to turn a blind eye to room sharing. A room filled with too many guests was better than one with no guests at all.)
Maureen Johnson
#45. What you don't realize at the time is that you're not seeing the full picture," "You don't think about the fact that things will change. Things always change.
Maureen Johnson
#46. Although it was very cold, he wore no coat. I think some English people think coats are for the weak.
Maureen Johnson
#47. The best part, without any question, was the tie. I've always liked ties, but it seemed like too much of a Statement to wear them.
Maureen Johnson
#48. Something about this boat screamed, I am a very popular model in the world's oil-bearing regions. I cost more than your soul!
Maureen Johnson
#49. Is this all right?" he asked. He was using that very low, somewhat husky universal kissing voice.
"Huh?" I said, because I am sexy.
Maureen Johnson
#50. 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
#52. Maybe this was what Aunt Peg meant all along - returning was a weird thing. You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe our what came before.
Maureen Johnson
#53. Guilt isn't always a rational thing, Clio realized. Guilt is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not.
Maureen Johnson
#54. Sometimes artist like to catch themselves looking out, let the world see them for once. It's a signature. This one is a very bold one. But this is also a witnessing. We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That's why we paint.
Maureen Johnson
#55. I live alone," Knud said, "and I work alone, but I am never truly alone. I do my ancestor's work. I live the entire history of my country and people.
Maureen Johnson
#56. People don't change . . . You just sort of have to take them like they are.
Maureen Johnson
#57. One of them hung a pink bra from our lighting fixture. I left it there. It was a nice bra
Maureen Johnson
#58. 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.
Maureen Johnson
#59. It was probably a good idea to have you possible future stepmother think you were a little nuts. It would keep her on her toes and dissuade her from trying to sit down and have touchy-feely talks. Not that she expected that from Julia. Julia looked like she might head-butt people in meetings.
Maureen Johnson
#60. Go see old virgins! Now ask a strange boy out, you shy, Retarded thing!
Maureen Johnson
#61. The funny thing about stop signs is that they're also start signs.
Maureen Johnson
#62. Were you playing with Stuart? she asked.
The question was loaded. I was a filthy, filthy woman, and even the five-year-old knew it.
Maureen Johnson
#63. She introduced herself to my parents with one of her mighty, bunny-crushing handshakes. (I'd never seen Claudia crush a bunny, to be fair, but that's the approximate level of pressure.)
Maureen Johnson
#64. 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.
Maureen Johnson
#65. The kids I talk to are readers, and the craziest, the most dedicated readers you will ever see.
Maureen Johnson
#66. 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.
Maureen Johnson
#67. And what else is she?" Jerome asked. Jazza didn't offer any reply so I chimed in with, "A bitchweasel?"
"A bitchweasel!" Jazza's face lit up. "She's a bitchweasel! I love my new roommate.
Maureen Johnson
#69. Nowhere was good. Except with Eric. He had both perfumed and poisoned her entire world.
Maureen Johnson
#71. I know no one is perfect, that behind every facade of perfection is a writhing mess of subterfuge and secret sorrows ... but even taking that into account, Noah was pretty much perfect.
Maureen Johnson
#72. She firmly held the theory that everyone gets at least one very stupid superpower.
Maureen Johnson
#73. But when we live, we believe that we have a right to everything in the universe - that everything is ours to touch.
Maureen Johnson
#74. I can sleep like a champion. I once slept through a smoke alarm going off. For three hours. In my bedroom.
Maureen Johnson
#76. Charlotte had been beaten over the head with a lamp by an invisible man. I was prepared to give her a pass.
Maureen Johnson
#78. Running away is pretty pathetic, but it's even worse getting caught.
Maureen Johnson
#79. Writing is one of the few careers for which you essentially train yourself, the other two major ones being juggling and pickpocketing.
Maureen Johnson
#80. She spent the entire day at the house, debating the issue with herself. First, she watched TV. British television seemed to consist mostly of makeover shows. Garden makeovers. Fashion makeovers. House makeovers. Everything relating to change. It seemed like a hint. Change something. Make a move. She
Maureen Johnson
#81. Avery had sixth and seventh and eighth senses and could tell more from the way someone stood or said "see you later" than Mel could if she stole the person's diary and read it cover to cover.
Maureen Johnson
#82. It just seemed like telling the truth would mean admitting some weakness
Maureen Johnson
#83. I could pretend, at least, and if I pretended long enough, maybe I could make it into a reality.
Maureen Johnson
#84. (Oh, the ongoing love affair between hair and mouths. Hair always goes for the mouth. The mouth opens, and hair says, "I'm going in! I'm going in!" like a manic cave diver.)
Maureen Johnson
#85. She was standing in the airport of Copenhagen, staring at a doorway, trying to figure out if it was (a) a bathroom and (b) what kind of bathroom it was. The door merely said H.
Was she an H? Was H "hers"? It could just as easily be "his". Or "Helicopter Room: Not a Bathroom at All
Maureen Johnson
#86. Sometimes you have to see the bathroom to know the hard reality of things.
Maureen Johnson
#87. All right. Normal rules apply."
"Right."
The man walked off, leaving us.
"What are the normal rules?" I asked.
"He walks away and has a tea break and doesn't ask any questions.
Maureen Johnson
#88. Okay, maybe it didn't get that close and it didn't move that much, but it still came toward me, and if you've been chased by an alligator at any distance or speed, I don't think people should get all 'But how far was it? And how fast was it going?
Maureen Johnson
#89. I take my best lessons from nature, and nature says 'When something flies at your head- move.
Maureen Johnson
#90. You want to go back to my house the long way?" he asked.
"Or the shortcut? You have to be cold-"
"Long way," I replied. "The long way, for sure.
Maureen Johnson
#91. For you, there is underage, and then, there is underage. I believe a taste of wine is perfectly acceptable, but please stick to one glass tonight. Now, let's work on ambiance.
Maureen Johnson
#92. Then I noticed his rising blush, and I realized something.
Tobin and Angie ... their togetherness was new. New enough that being touched by her still came as a
glorious, blush-worthy surprise.
Maureen Johnson
#93. I looked at the stained-glass image of the lamb in the window above me, but that only reminded me that lambs are famous for being led to slaughter, or sometimes hanging out with lions in ill-advised relationships.
Maureen Johnson
#94. I've heard people on panels say, 'You must have a Web site. You need to tweet. Repeat the title of your book constantly,' and I just want to say, 'Shut up. Everything you're saying is wrong.' People will know instantly if your only motivation for tweeting is to sell books.
Maureen Johnson
#95. , I don't think you would just be treated like a member ofan agency. You'd be treated like an asset. And assets don't get to have lives.
Maureen Johnson
#96. I miss you so much it's giving me a pain in my pancreas.
Maureen Johnson
#97. Things change. Never act is if situations won't change
Maureen Johnson
#98. It was a bit on the frantic side, maybe because neither one of us had done the metal preparation, so we were both thinking, Oh, right! Kissing! Quickly! Quickly! More movement! Deploy tongue!
Maureen Johnson
#99. Spicy food and I have a close relationship - an obsessive one, in fact. If it's spicy, I want it. I want to sweat and shake and go half blind from the searing pain ... which, now that I put it that way, seems really suggestive. But spicy stuff is addictive. That's a known fact of science.
Maureen Johnson
#100. Even though she had been warned, she tripped over the bike. She probably tripped because she'd been warned and was telling herself not to trip over the bike. She did that sometimes. It was often easier not to know what obstacles were in the way.
Maureen Johnson
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