Liz Braswell Quotes

“Beyond it were a dozen skeletons still shackled to the wall, left there even after they'd decomposed like a forgotten detail in a fairy tale.”
― Liz Braswell, A Whole New World

“The scary glow of ghoulish red dotted the city like a plague that was taking over an otherwise healthy body.”
― Liz Braswell, A Whole New World

“To wit: mercury is deadly poisonous.
Hatters really were said to have gone mad in the nineteenth century because of exposure to mercury in their hat-making processes: in effect, they suffered long-term mercury poisoning.
You cannot eat the fish from many rivers and lakes of America even today because of the deadly mercury that lies on their muddy bottoms eternally, the result of toxic industrial pollution.
In this book the Hatter drinks mercury.
You, dear reader, cannot.
It will kill you.


L. Braswell”
― Liz Braswell, Unbirthday

“So many different kinds of fruit and vegetables! Eggplants of all sizes, in every shade of purple, white, and black! Dozens of onion-scented things that weren't the traditional farmhouse variety: leeks, scallions, long green onions, calçots, chives... Ten different kinds of peaches! Remi felt drunk on the sweet, sugary smells that wafted up from the fruit as the sunlight hit it.
He almost fell to the ground when he came to the fromageries.
The combination of fine cheeses being sold from those booths was too much for his refined nose, which was already a thousand times more sensitive than a normal rat nose. It was like he was eating by breathing, like he was swimming through an ocean of fromage.”
― Elizabeth Lim, A Twisted Tale Anthology

“The tastes didn't so much blend as overlap, one flavor after another--- salty, sweet, briny--- combining into a magnificent pièce de résistance: sparkling citrus fireworks right before she swallowed. It was like nothing Auguste Gusteau had ever made--- at least, not outside of his own kitchen late at night. It was something else. A very delicious something else.”
― Elizabeth Lim, A Twisted Tale Anthology

“The troutberry trees had already bloomed and gone; on the forest floor, delicate white petals of starflowers and goldthread and Carolina springbeauty sparkled when a stray beam of sunshine caught them. Wild onions were the only plant that had fully leafed out, brilliant bright green under maple and elm and birch and oak whose own leaves were still pregnant thoughts.
All of nature was just waking up, fulling, becoming large and new.”
― Elizabeth Lim, A Twisted Tale Anthology

“Instead of diving into the shadows of the forest, he was a tawny lightning bolt striking the edge of a clearing that would eventually be filled with bright purple blossoms. Violets first, then lupines that would make little crowns across the sweet-smelling milkweed, the summer ending with mounds of aster.”
― Elizabeth Lim, A Twisted Tale Anthology

“The two deer ran for the sheer joy of running, flashes of sunlight gleaming on their flanks and their white tails, the otherwise invisible and dark shapes moving at unbelievable speed through the forest. Smaller animals dashed and dipped out of their way. A still-sleepy bear, the only creature in the forest close to them in size, watched them go and wondered at the calories they were expending for no reason. Small foraging flocks of birds exploded up out of trees as they passed, chickadees and nuthatches and titmice exclaiming in irritation and amusement.”
― Elizabeth Lim, A Twisted Tale Anthology