Lish McBride > Quotes

“Most people felt lost after high school. Sometimes I felt like I'd never really been found in the first place.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“There were no windows in my bedroom, so I had to sit up and read my clock to figure out how angry I should be at my visitor. Eight A.M. I hated whoever woke me up. Had they come an hour earlier, I would have also hated their families and any household pets.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“On top of all that, you're naked. And while I'm going to hate myself for this later, could you put on some clothes? At least just for a little while, so I can think. Then you can go right back to being naked. All the time. With my full blessing.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“Wind does not discriminate—it touches everyone, everything. He liked that about wind.”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone

“You know what the great thing about babies is? They are like little bundles of hope. Like the future in a basket.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“So, you're telling me the zoo commissioned you to make a zombie panda in order to avoid a potential international incident.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“So you're the guy who did the no-no cha-cha with my baby sister.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“Can you just tell them we don’t need Jesus, Girl Scout cookies, or whatever the Mormons worship, and let me lie here in peace?”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“You want waffles?” I tried to keep the skepticism from my voice. “No firstborn or a pot of gold?”
“I’m not a leprechaun, Sam. And what would I do with a baby?” Her eyebrow shot back up, and she crossed her arms. “I want waffles. Take it or leave it.”
I glanced at Brid, who was staring at Ashley shrewdly.
“Let’s talk numbers,” she said. “Are we talking, like, twenty waffles all at once? Or a waffle a week for six months? What?”
“Every day for two years,” Ashley said.
“That’s outrageous,” Brid sputtered.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“Begin at the beginning," I said, "and go on till you come to the end. Then stop.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“Hi, my name is Ashley, and I’ll be your Harbinger today. I will be acting as an interim instructor for all your necromancy needs.” She flashed her best stewardess smile and gave a little Vanna wave.
“Ashley, as delighted as I am to meet you, don’t you think it might be hard to teach me? I’m in a cage that you can’t get into. Oh, and—” I grabbed the bars with both hands, “I’m a little distracted right now by the fact that I’m being held by a psychotic killer.”
Ashley cocked a single eyebrow, a look of mild amusement on her face. “Geez,” she said, looking at Brid. “Is he always this big of a drama queen?”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“Ramon looked closely at the little guy as he ate. "Maybe he's Jewish. I mean, if Sammy Davis Jr. could convert to Judaism, why not a chupacabra? We should name him Harry Mendelbaum."

I held up my arms in protest. "You're all racist. Now shut up. We'll call him Taco von Precious of Svenenstein. There, everybody happy?"

"Isn't von the same thing as of?" Frank asked. "Wouldn't that be kind of redundant?"

"You're redundant," I said.”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone

“Twinkle the Destroyer wasn't alone, it seemed. There were more gnomes than I thought. Pip the Bringer of Pain, Chauncey the Devourer of Souls, Cuddly the Inexplicable, Gnoman Polanski, Pith the Bitey, Gnome ChompSky, Gnomie Malone, Chuck the Norriser- the list went on.
'It's like a mishmash of violent imagery, TV, an political references'
'I told you they like TV. I'm not sure the understand everything they see, though, so they don't fully grasp what they're stealing their names from. Like, I think Gnome ChompSky just thought it sounded tough and Chuck the Norriser came from watching too many episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger. They believe Chuck Norris is a demigod'
'Who doesn't?”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone

“When it came to music, I was omnivorous.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“No wonder I'd always felt lost. I actually was. The knowledge felt terrible, but in a strange way, it also felt good. Now I knew why I'd never connected to anything. Why I felt like I was outside the world around me, moving at a different speed from everyone else. That amputated piece of me explained everything, even why I'd failed at college. But that kind of blanket excuse can be dangerous. Crutches usually are.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“I had an affinity for pandas. Something about clumsy vegetarians struck a chord with me.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“Despite her obvious stress, my mom still managed to pour the hot chocolate into mugs, cover them with whipped cream and a pinch of cayenne, and add a cinnamon stick to them. She was like the Jedi master of hot chocolate.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“I stared at the pictogram of a burger nestled between similar representations of shakes, sodas, and fries, on the front of my register. I wondered why humankind seemed so dead set on destroying all of its accomplishments. We draw on cave walls, spend thousands of years developing complex language systems, the printing press, computers, and what do we do with it? Create a cash register with the picture of a burger on it, just in case the cashier didn't finish the second grade. One step forward, two steps back-- like an evolutionary cha-cha. Working here just proved that the only thing separating me from a monkey was pants.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“When you break up with someone, and I’m not talking casual breakups here, it’s hard to take the sudden absence of such an important person in your life. It reminded me of when I’d stopped going to school and the weird uneasy feeling I’d gotten afterward, like I was forgetting to do something. My life until that point had pivoted around some form of education, and all of a sudden, it was gone. Homework, classes, running around, and then – bam – nothing but a life of work stretching out before you. No one prepares you for that feeling or even mentions it. You just suddenly have a gap and have to decide how to fill it.

A break up is like that gap, only much, much more painful. One day the person you talked to constantly or did stuff with is just absent. Gone. Poof. And even though I’m not one of those people who has to be in a relationship all the time, I was feeling at a loss.”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone

“Slow down and explain to us plebeians. If you have to, use sock puppets.”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone

“Mrs. Winalski owned a candy-apple-red 1965 Mustang GT convertible, and she drove it like she could die at any minute and needed to get five things done before that happened.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“Are we going where I think we are?” he asked.
“Hell, yeah,” I told him, turning the key in the ignition. I steered the car toward the highway that would take us to my mother’s house. “And I hope she’s got a few good answers.”
“I hope,” Ramon said, “that she’s made cookies.”
I glared at him.
“Don’t look at me like that. If we were going to interrogate my poor mother for whatever, you’d be secretly hoping she’d made you tamales. I’m just honest enough to admit it.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“She looked away, trying not to cry. She hated crying, and in public she hated it more.”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone

“People often talk about the pain and degradation of being bullied. No one really talks about the cost. Not that money is more important than those other things, but having to pay the expenses of your own humiliation just rubbed rock salt into the wound.”
― Lish McBride, Cornered: 14 Stories of Bullying and Defiance

“I wanted to howl until I was nothing but sound.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“You have to ask it something it knew when it was alive. People don't become omniscient just because they have keeled over.”
― Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

“Life is a series of calculated risks, James. I happen to think that this one is worth it.”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone

“Fear, left unchecked, can spread like a virus.”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone

“I know you're frustrated, Sam, but the reality is you're in a world now where the majority of the people you run into will be able to snap you like a twig."

"My world was like that before.”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone

“Thanks for not talking with your fists,” I said. I have a little sister, and I’m not sure I’d be as understanding with any of her boyfriends.
“I’ve seen you fight,” he said, turning. “It would’ve been a terribly short conversation.”
― Lish McBride, Necromancing the Stone