Frances

“Being able to skip two seconds could be quite useful–if you picked the right two seconds. Like when you're at the dinner table with your parents and your mom has just said something sarcastic about your dad being passed over for promotion, and you just know your father is about to let out a brief but lethal burst of resentment. You need godlike timing to pick the exact instant when the barb is being launched. There are a hundred leading indicators: the scent of overcooked casserole, the sensation of the room's temperature dropping slightly. The ticking of the stove, powering down. You can leave reality behind and reappear for the aftermath.”
― Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky

“Theodolphus began to sob, without making any sound. He wept like a silent jungle cat. Then at last, he decided that life would not be worth living if he couldn’t eat ice cream from time to time without worrying it was poisoned and began to eat.”
― Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky

“Deedee dropped out of her ska-punk band and joined an eight-person madrigal chorus. She had a clot somewhere deep inside her that was connected to the people she had lost in the flood, or might lose in the aftermath, and the endless conversations where everybody compared notes on their respective tragedies only made her feel shittier. Just saying the words "My brother is still missing" made Deedee want to throw up and then head-butt whoever had asked. She needed an alternative to the dull repetition of facts, a way to share her uncut heartbreak without any particulars, and to her amazement she found it in these strange old songs about doomed lovers.”
― Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky

“Human fear has a terrible power. It changes everything, distorts everything, maddens everything. Fear is the dark womb where monsters are born and thrive.”
― Frances Hardinge, Deeplight