Barry Lyga > Quotes

“You won't even know you've crossed the line until it's way back in your rearview mirror.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“See, forgiveness doesn't happen all at once. It's not an event -- it's a process. Forgiveness happens while you're asleep, while you're dreaming, while you're inline at the coffee shop, while you're showering, eating, farting, jerking off. It happens in the back of your mind, and then one day you realize that you don't hate the person anymore, that your anger has gone away somewhere. And you understand. You've forgiven them. You don't know how or why. It sneaked up on you. It happened in the small spaces between thoughts and in the seconds between ideas and blinks. That's where forgiveness happens. Because anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth. At least, that's what I hope.”
― Barry Lyga, Boy Toy

“This is why I forgive, but I don't forget. When you forget someone, the forgiveness doesn't mean anything anymore.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“Medicine cabinets are dangerous. Those doors, man. They'll just spring on you like a ninja.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“...called nine-one-one," Howie was saying, "and then I heard something in the alleyway, so I went back there and" --Howie coughed-- "and valiantly attacked his knife with my guts, to no avail."

"Did you get a good look at him? Could you describe him?"

Howie smiled wanly. "Yeah. He was about yay long" --he held up his hands, four inches apart-- "thin, made of steel. Pointy. Sharp.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“Anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth.”
― Barry Lyga, Boy Toy

“[She] was made up of skin and bones and hate and crazy, and hate and crazy don't weigh anything.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“What if a puppet could cut its own strings, and in that act of defiance and strength of will become truly alive? Become is own puppetmaster?”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“Jazz hadn't given her many details of exactly what life in the Dent house had been like, but he'd told her enough that she knew it wasn't hearts and flowers. Well, except for the occasional heart cut from a chest. And the kind of flowers you send to funerals.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“What was the opposite of linkage blindness? What described being certain of something without any kind of evidence?

...The term was faith.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“Jazz spent a chunk of the day fantasizing about ways to kill his grandmother, plotting them and planning them in the most excruciating, gruesome detail his imagination would allow. It turned out his imagination allowed quite a bit. He spent the rest of the day convincing himself--over and over--not to do it.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“It's like this," he'd explained once to Connie. "If someone gave you a single rose, you'd be happy, right?"
"Okay," he went on, "Now imagine someone gives you ten thousand roses."
"That is a whole lotta roses," she said. "That's too much."
"Right. Too much. But more than that, it makes each individual rose much less special, right? It makes it hard to pick one out and say, 'That's the good one.' And it makes you want to just get rid of them all because none of them seem special now."
Connie had narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying when you're at school you just want to get rid of everyone?”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“One time you told me that the opposite of love isn't hate. And I didn't understand that, but I think I do know. Because if you hate someone, you most still care, right? You have to care a little bit; otherwise you would just ignore them and forget they even live. Or lived.”
― Barry Lyga, Goth Girl Rising

“And my parents made me want i am. So what? We get stuff from our parents, but we also get stuff from the world around us. From people around us. And at the end of the day, we're us.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“He moved to run a hand through her cornrows, then pulled back remembering the one time he's tried that-Connie had lectured him on the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not touch thy black girlfriend's hair. Ever.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“And Jazz snapped.
He didn't snap the way a normal person might snap. A normal person would fling his arms around and stomp his feet and rant at the top of his lungs, bellowing to the sky. There might be tears, from a normal person.
Jazz went quiet. He darted out one hand and grabbed the wrist of the paramedic who had been trying to cuff him and pulled the man close, holding his gaze.
In a moment, he channeled every last drop of (his father).
"Who am I? I'll tell you. I'm the local psychopath, and if you don't save my best friend's life, I will hunt down everyone you've ever cared about in your life and make you watch while I do things to them that will have you begging me to kill them. That's who I am.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“And what? Accidentally cuts off three fingers postmortem? 'Oops, oh, no, my girlfriend just died! Clumsy me, in trying to perform CPR, I chopped off some fingers! Guess I'll just take them with me.... Oh, darn, where did that middle finger go?”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“You and your scars. Please! You don't kill youself like this!" I gesture, holding a wrist turned up to the ceiling, then pretending to cut across it with my other hand. "That's just a cry for help. That's just attention. Everbody knows that. Cutting across just gets you to the hospital. That's just from movies and TV shows and stuff like that. You didn't really try to kill yourself. you just wanted attention, but you screwed up. Try harder next time.”
― Barry Lyga

“We humans have the capacity to wreak horrors on each other. But we also have the capacity to survive those horrors.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“I’m a complicated man, with complicated taste buds.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“We can know what love is. It´s adults who have forgotten, so they cling to their poor substitute and yell at kids who dare to live with real love. Pure Love. Love without compromise or distraction.”
― Barry Lyga, Boy Toy

“Anger was a waste of time and energy. Anger was useless."Anger" was the label given to the emotion that accomplished nothing.”
― Barry Lyga, Game

“Don’t crap where you eat”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“Are you stalking me, Mr. Fulton?" The idea both amused and horrified Jazz.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“I don't know and I don't care anymore. I was supposed to have my way for once, just once in my life. I did everything right and I got nothing for it.
I want to kill them all. no, better yet, I want to die. No, even bettter than that: I want to kill them all then die.”
― Barry Lyga, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

“Fear can keep you alive. The trick is not to let it overwhelm you. Not to let it rule you. If you’re afraid, that’s the universe trying to tell you something. Get away. Don’t run; don’t panic. Just pick up and walk out, calm as you please. Panic makes you stupid.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“A river of images and thoughts and feelings, dirtied and polluted so that no one could drink from it without gagging.”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers

“I just have an allergic reaction to lung cancer. Gives me tumors.”
― Barry Lyga, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

“. . . but there's a restraining order in place.' She speaks slowly, choosing her words carefully. 'I'm not supposed to be this close to you.'

You were never supposed to be this close to me,' I say, and I have no idea why.”
― Barry Lyga, Boy Toy

“It's not an easy choice, but that's OK. Easy doesn't equal good. Difficulty doesn't equal bad.

It's just life, is all.”
― Barry Lyga, Boy Toy