I was going to say the beginning is the good part, when it's all sparks and sparkles, before they are inevitably unmasked as assholes.

So violent. You want to mug and tase everybody these days." "I do," Zuzana agreed. "I swear I hate more poeple every day. Everyone annoys me. If I'm like this now, what am I going to be like when I'm old?" "You'll be the mean old biddy who fires a BB gun at kids from her balcony." "Nah. BBs just rile 'em up. More like a crossbow. Or a bazooka.

I might try that one thing, you know, that thing people do when their eyes get all wet and stupid—what’s it called? Crying? Or NOT. I might PUNCH you instead and trust that you won’t punch me back because of my endearing smallness. It would be like punching a child.

During my second draft pass on my last book I made 20,000 words happen in a week, which is practically supernatural for me, and it would never have been possible without three nights in a hotel in my own city.

The audacity to love. Do you know what a gift that is?

Then there were things-- epic, terrible things-- that he didn't tell her but skirted around, like caressing the edges of a wound, hesitant, testing for pain.

Staring at her face, she began to fancy her outer layer had begun to melt away while she wasn't paying attention, and something -- some new skeleton -- was emerging from beneath the softness of her accustomed self. With a deep, visceral ache, she wished her true form might prove to be a sleek and shining one, like a stiletto blade slicing free of an ungainly sheath. Like a bird of prey losing its hatchling fluff to hunt in cold, magnificent skies. That she might become something glittering, something startling, something dangerous.