I’m not interested in being polite. It’s false.

It's only his thumb brushing slowly across the lower edge of my lip, but it's as if time slows and the sweep of that thumb below my mouth takes forever. It is no spell that I know of, but it holds such magic, I can scarcely breath. He pulls his hand away fast, aware of what he's done. But his touch lingers.

Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on. Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells 'em off for a coupla stones.

What happened to the winner" Adina asked. "She tripped." "And the first runner-up?" Miss Michigan cracked her knuckles. "She tripped, too.

She was tired of being told how it was by this generation, who’d botched things so badly. They’d sold their children a pack of lies: God and country. Love your parents. All is fair. And then they’d sent those boys, her brother, off to fight a great monster of a war that maimed and killed and destroyed whatever was inside them. Still they lied, expecting her to mouth the words and play along. Well, she wouldn’t. She knew now that the world was a long way from fair. She knew the monsters were real.

You are unique, and this is a beautiful, beautiful thing, grasshopper.

There’s a moment of profound sadness that can be dispelled only by summoning my anger.