“He wasn't surprised. He was used to this anticlimactic feeling, where by the time you've done all the work to get something you don't even want it anymore.”
― The Magicians
― The Magicians
“Dad on Child-rearing: "There's no education superior to travel. Think of The Motorcycle Diaries, or what Montrose St. Millet wrote in Ages of Exploration: 'To be still is to be stupid. To be stupid is to die.' And so we shall live. Every Betsy sitting next to you in a classroom will only know Maple Street on which sits her boxy white house, inside of which whimper her boxy white parents. After your travels, you'll know Maple Street, sure, but also wilderness and ruins, carnivals and the moon. You'll know the man sitting on an apple crate outside a gas station in Cheerless, Texas, who lost his legs in Vietnam, the woman in the tollboth outside Dismal, Delaware, in possession of six children, a husband with black lung but no teeth. When a teacher asks the class to interpret Paradise Lost, no one will be able to grab your coattails, sweet, for you will be flying far, far out in front of them all. For them, you will be a speck somewhere above the horizon. And thus, when you're ultimately set loose upon the world..." He shrugged, his smile lazy as an old dog. "I suspect you'll have no choice but to go down in history.”
― Special Topics in Calamity Physics
― Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“...I couldn't let go of the thought that it had, in fact, been he, restless and moody Heathcliff. Day after day, he floated through all the Wal-Marts in America, searching for me in a million lonely aisles.”
― Special Topics in Calamity Physics
― Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“We are alike,” he said, “as no one else is, as no one else will ever be.”
The truth of it rang through me. Like calls to like.”
― Siege and Storm
The truth of it rang through me. Like calls to like.”
― Siege and Storm
“I remembered what Dad said once, that some people have all of life's answers worked out the day they're born and there's no use trying to teach them anything new. "They're closed for business even though, somewhat confusingly, their doors open at eleven, Monday through Friday," Dad said. And the trying to change what they think, the attempt to explain, the hope they'll come to see your side of things, it was exhausting, because it never made a dent and afterward you only ached unbearably. It was like being a Prisoner in a Maximum-Security Prison, wanting to know what a Visitor's hand felt like (see Living in Darkness, Cowell, 1967). No matter how desperately you wanted to know, pressing your dumb palm against the glass right where the visitor's hand was pressed on the opposite side, you never would know that feeling, not until they set you free.”
― Special Topics in Calamity Physics
― Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Paoly’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Paoly’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Paoly hasn't connected with her friends on Goodreads, yet.
Favorite Genres
Contemporary, Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Paranormal, Science fiction, Suspense, and Thriller
Polls voted on by Paoly
Lists liked by Paoly


























