Elizabeth Cody Kimmel > Quotes

“In reality there is no normal. Normal is something people have agreed to invent so we have something to compare ourselves to. Normal should be the least of your worries.”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, School Spirit

“Frankly, I'm guessing that before getting to my house today, Shoshanna had thought the Hoover Dam was some kind of vacuum cleaner attachment.”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, School Spirit

“Why not just tell my parents the boarding school thing wasn't working out, and go home? That offer had been on the table from the beginning, after all. I could live at home forever, growing white-haired and teaching piano and taking in stray cats until the neighborhood children started weaving tales of my tragic past and my story was adapted for Lifetime Television.”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt

“There should be a phone service, I thought, something like 1-800-MEDIUM-1.Where an automated voice would direct you. Press one if an object in your home is levitating. Press two if there is ectoplasm oozing out of your walls. Press three if spirits are disrupting your cable service. Press four if you've inherited your mother's psychic abilities.”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, School Spirit

“Well, that’s what they said. (It could have just been indigestion, though.)”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“(abandoned since the sudden disappearance of the hamster last Tuesday) and the pink plastic pig that had been sliced down the middle”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“Norman certainly thought so. There was something there, but it didn’t have a dead-thing vibe. And Neil had heard it, too, so whatever was going on, Norman knew it didn’t involve the supernatural. Suddenly, something leaped out in front of them. “You. Boy. You know who I am?” it wheezed. Norman and Neil both took a step backward. A hulking man stood hunched over with age and”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“You’re not a frog; you’re a toad,”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“build-your-own-telescope”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“So what?” Prenderghast snapped. “I’ve got unfinished business here—the dead do sometimes, you know.” What the dead did not normally do was emerge from a toilet in the boys’ room; normally they did not emerge from any sort of plumbing whatsoever. “I know,” Norman said in a small voice. “But this stall is already being used.” “You wouldn’t listen to me while I was alive, so I gotta do what I gotta do now that I’m dead, and that means making you listen,” Prenderghast hissed. “I don’t know what you mean,” Norman said, pulling himself into an even smaller ball in an attempt to stop being dripped on. “Because you never listened while”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“The only sound was Alvin’s snorts of laughter. “Dude, you’re the only one standing there! Who are you talking to, the vegetable dip?” he shouted before his grandmother shushed him.”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“Brown or green in color, they are toothless and sometimes warty in appearance,”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“Now, Norman was used to all kinds of strange, but this was something he had never experienced before. As he stood staring at the script, the paper turned yellow and parchmentlike”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“She cleared her throat. “They discovered, to their eeeeever-last-ing horr-or”—here Mrs. Henscher’s voice rose to such a shriek that Norman imagined fine crystal shattering halfway across the county—“an eeeeevil witch among them!” Now she began to wave her arms”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“I’m going to faint, Norman thought, just as his legs gave way, and he sat down hard on the stage. The world came back in a snap, led by the nauseating sound of Alvin’s Hyena Laugh. “Normie fell down and go boom, baby! Look at him! He’s white as a sheet! Whassamatter, Norm, you look like you saw a ghost! Get it? Get it? A ghost!” The laughter of Alvin and his Meaty Henchmen was momentarily drowned out by the sound of the bell. Leaving his script where it had fallen, Norman jumped to his feet and sped out of the gym. For just a moment, he was the only person in the hallway—everything looked oddly deserted and devoid of human life. Like how a school might look in a ghost town.”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview

“was always such a relief to get out of school. Norman looked forward all day to the moment when he could finally get away from the other kids. He slung his book bag over one shoulder and began to walk down the sidewalk. But as he walked, he kept hearing an echo of his footsteps. No—not his footsteps. Somebody else’s. Someone was following Norman. Norman shifted his bag onto the other shoulder, and without looking back, he began walking much faster. The footsteps sped up to match his. He wasn’t just being followed.”
― Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, ParaNorman: A Novel Extended Free Preview