Maria

“I'd be smiling and chatting away, and my mind would be floating around somewhere else, like a balloon with a broken string.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”
― Benjamin Franklin Wade

“When did my house turn into a hangout for every grossly overpaid, terminally pampered professional football player in northern Illinois?"

"We like it here," Jason said. "It reminds us of home."

"Plus, no women around." Leandro Collins, the Bears' first-string tight end emerged from the office munching on a bag of chips. "There's times when you need a rest from the ladies."

Annabelle shot out her arm and smacked him in the side of the head. "Don't forget who you're talking to."

Leandro had a short fuse, and he'd been known to take out a ref here and there when he didn't like a call, but the tight end merely rubbed the side of his head and grimaced. "Just like my mama."

"Mine, too," Tremaine said with happy nod.

Annabelle spun on Heath. "Their mother! I'm thirty-one years old, and I remind them of their mothers."

"You act like my mother," Sean pointed out, unwisely as it transpired, because he got a swat in the head next.”
― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Match Me If You Can

“Who or what are you? Besides insufferably rude?”
― Garth Nix, Lirael