Kelly Creagh Quotes

“The more this guy talked, the more he sounded like a fortune cookie.”

— Kelly Creagh

“You're really a blond," she said, her tone just short of accusatory.
"And if you tell anyone, I will come to you in the night and smote your everlasting soul.”

— Kelly Creagh

“So." [Isobel] cleared her throat. "What are we doing?"
"We," [Varen] said at last, "are doing a project on Poe."
"Didn't he marry his cousin or something?"
"The man is a literary god and that's all you have to say?”

— Kelly Creagh

You're a dream. Like everything else.

— Kelly Creagh

“When there is no way, you must make a way.”

— Kelly Creagh

“Wasn't he the one who sliced off his ear and mailed it to his girlfriend?"
"Van Gogh," said Varen, in a monotone that suggested he might be in pain.
"Van Gogh," Gwen said, leaning away, waving the apple. "Edgar Allan Poe. Close enough!”

— Kelly Creagh

“In love. In love with the stoic, the sullen, the eternally morose Varen Nethers?
He would never allow it.”

— Kelly Creagh

“He smiled like he couldn't help it. She couldn't believe it. He was actally smiling, teeth and all. Had she ever seen him smile before? No, she realized, because right now, it was such a jarring thing to witness that for a moment it felt as though she was sharing the car with a stranger.”

— Kelly Creagh

I'll come back to get you, too, okay?"
"Why?" he snapped.
"Because," she said with a gasp, unable to fathom the source of his question, or his tone. "Because I love you, that's why.

— Kelly Creagh

“Isobel's head popped up. "What does 'sagacious' mean?"
"Sagacious," he said, writing, "adjective describing someone in possession of acute mental faculties. Also describing one who might, in a bookstore, think to get up and locate an actual dictionary instead of asking a billion questions.”

— Kelly Creagh

He turned his head and caught her with his eyes. She froze, locked by the intensity of his stare. His eyes were stark and cold, the concentrated green of pale jade. Outlined in smudged black kohl, those eyes focused on her, unblinking through the feathery strands of his jet black hair, and it was like being watched through a cage by a complacent and calculating cat.
Discomfort welled in her, thick and black as an oil spring. Who was this guy and what was his royal problem? Her gaze flicked briefly to the small metal loop that hugged one corner of his bottom lip.
He blinked once, then slowly lifted one hand and crooked a beckoning finger at her. Isobel hesitated but then as though spellbound to obey, she found herself leaning in.
"What are you staring at?" he whispered.

— Kelly Creagh

“Yeah, well, I tried to explain that my mind powers don't work on Tuesdays.”

— Kelly Creagh

She glanced down at the contents of her plate. Just tell him what it is. Simple. Look at it and say what it is. "Sloppy Joe," she managed.
"Hmm," he said, sounding doubtful. "May he rest in peace.

— Kelly Creagh

“Why couldn't she just come out and say she liked him?
Maybe it was because she more than liked him.”

— Kelly Creagh

“Hands quivering, she reached toward him. "Don't." He turned his back to her, facing the door. That word had stopped her once before. But not now. Not now that she had glimpsed through the funeral front of Varen's own eternal Grim Facade. Despite all the dark armor, the kohl eye liner, the black boots and chains, she saw him clearly now. She peered through the curtain of that cruel calmness, through the death stare and the vampire sentiments and angst and, behind it all, had found true beauty.”

— Kelly Creagh

“For the briefest moment, they came face to face. Their eyes locked. Then he broke the stare, swiveled, sank into a sitting position, chains clanking, with his knees up.
She watched him speechlessly as he set a cooler bag between his boots, like he was settling down to a picnic or something. An image of the contents as hospital blood bags, complete with juice straws, flashed through her mind.
Unfolding her legs, she made herself as comfortable as she could on the cold outer edge of the sill. An intangible and unnameable charge electrified the space between them, and at first, neither of them said anything.
[ ... ] Finally she heard him unzip the bag and watched him pull out a small cylinder.
"I thought you might like some crappy ice cream," he said.”

— Kelly Creagh

“He clutched the watch hard in his fist, determined to destroy it, to prove that it couldn't be real. That she hadn't come here because of him, for him.
That he hadn't done what he knew he had.”

— Kelly Creagh

Death always wins.

— Kelly Creagh

Don't let the elegance act fool you," Varen said, drawing out his notepad. "She farts.

— Kelly Creagh

“What can I say?" Poe muttered. "Chicks dig the mustache.”

— Kelly Creagh

“There is always that fine line between doing what we want and doing what we're told.”

— Kelly Creagh

“I keep telling myself
That you're
just a girl.
Another leaf blown across my path
Destined to pass on
And shrivel into yourself
Like all the others.
Yet despite my venom
You refuse to wither
Or fade.
You remain golden throughout,
And in your gaze I am left to wonder if it is me alone
Who feels the fall.”

— Kelly Creagh

“She stood in the mist, waiting for him again.
Always in the same place.”

— Kelly Creagh

“You need to just drop dead, okay?”

— Kelly Creagh

As much as he was different from other guys, he still had that stupid male pride thing.

— Kelly Creagh

“She edged away from him, trying to put a greater distance between herself and Creepy McCreeperson. She bent down, careful not to let her eyes leave him, and plucked up a hairbrush from where it had fallen on her floor. She held it at arm's length in front of herself, a stupid weapon feeling better than no weapon at all. At the very least, she could give him style.”

— Kelly Creagh

“It was here that Isobel first felt the twinge of an inward pull on her mind. Slowly the words started to get out of the way and let images of courtiers revolve, in slow motion, through her mind's eye. It was as though she had somehow adapted to the density of the language. Soon the words smudged away from the page, and in their place, she was left with the sensation of gliding through the scene, like she'd become a movie camera, sweeping through the sets of rooms and over the heads of costumed actors.”

— Kelly Creagh

“If they failed the project - when they failed the project - the book would give her one last excuse to see him. To tell him everything, she thought, letting her eyes slide closed. Everything she should have said already. She'd spit it all out, regardless of who was around to hear it. She'd tell him how she couldn't stop thinking about him, how she just wanted to be near him. She'd do the unspeakable. She'd let her hands slide inside his jacket and her arms slip around him.”

— Kelly Creagh

A tall, thin boy with choppy black hair stood next to her. He eyed Isobel as she approached, sizing her up, grinning like he found something funny. She glared at him in return, ready for him to say just one thing about her cheer uniform, because she knew he must have pulled the black jeans he wore straight from the girls' rack at Target.

— Kelly Creagh

Isobel looked down at her lap, at her hands. She turned her left one over, remembering where Varen had written his number on her that first time. Those numbers were gone now, but in hindsight, he may as well have tattooed the moment onto her soul.

— Kelly Creagh

“He opened his palm and saw that the watch remained. Still there. Still real.
Varen looked up at the figure that stood atop the fountain.
With a howl of rage, he made it burst apart.
He fell to his knees amid the wreckage and floating dust.
Crumpling into himself, he released a choking sob, knowing that he, too, belonged to the ruin.”

— Kelly Creagh

“And keep a watch out at the garage door, because you'll be back by the stroke of seven thirty and in time for dinner or else you'll turn back into an alien and be deported to your home planet.”

— Kelly Creagh

“Oh, sure. Let me just ask my geek brother to stop slaying zombie ninjas for a few hours so I can borrow the PC and catch up on my Victorian horror lit.”

— Kelly Creagh

Please," she murmured at her burger, her voice no more than a squeaky whisper, "Don't do this.

— Kelly Creagh

“To Madeline,
This subtle second self
Sheaf of me
Can do more than you ever could.
Like you, it can leave
And go
Somewhere else.
The night splits me in two.
I disconnect
To sink, to fall, to fly
And rage
Forever
And always
Without you”

— Kelly Creagh

He leaned down, far enough that the dark ends of his hair brushed feather-light against her face, caught in her lashes, She had just enough time to take in a breath, to blink, to part her lips before he took them with his own.
Time froze. Her heart ceased to beat. Her eyes fluttered shut.
The cool slip of the small metal loop pressed into her skin as he kissed her.
Urgent.
Gentle.
So slow.
Sweet, soft demolition.
He tasted of cloves and coffee. And of something else. A farawat essence, familiar and yet somehow foreign, too. Something sere and arid.
A little like some.
A little like decay
Ash.

— Kelly Creagh

Yesterday, she began, speaking to his back, hurrying as though there was some element of him that was part hourglass.

— Kelly Creagh

“You can't understand us. We don't even understand ourselves.”

— Kelly Creagh

“His voice ripped through her, low, soft, and a little husky- like the hushed crackling of an old fashioned record player just before the music starts”

— Kelly Creagh

Much like books, she could tell how voiceless things had provided a brand of companionship more compatible to his nature than human friendship had ever been. These things, locked in their inanimate ways, fed him ideas, she thought. They whispered their tales to him through unmoving lips and he listened, opening himself to their world so much more than any normal passerby. That much was evident in the way he'd taken the photos, as if he'd caught each soulless thing in a candid moment of secret animation. Like they'd sensed him coming and so turned themselves his way because they knew that he held the power to translate their silence into words.

— Kelly Creagh

Besides," Gwen added, fluffing the dress folds, "this thing took forever, so you're wearing it."
"Wait you made this?" Isobel asked, distracted.
"Altered it," she admitted. She shrugged. "Half off at the Nearly New Shop. By the way, you owe me twenty-five dollars.

— Kelly Creagh

She'd never seen a boy with hands like that, with long, delicate fingers, beautiful but still masculine. His fingernails were long too, almost crystalline, tapered to points. They were the kind of hands you'd expect to see under lace cuffs, like Mozart or something.

— Kelly Creagh

“She never answered. She couldn't. All she could do was stare, reaching toward him with her gaze alone, pulling him to drown in the sorrow of those depthless black pools.”

— Kelly Creagh

“But to pine for those we have had and loved and once held but will never clasp again," he continued, "it is a torture of an unbearable degree. It is the worst pain possible. Enough to drive you away from yourself ...”

— Kelly Creagh

“He could be so cynical. So dry and acidic. As blank as a page. Could he be tender, too?”

— Kelly Creagh

Painted faces laughed. It was like a mad carnival where everyone was oblivious, lost in the bliss of chaos, a throng unaware of a bomb planted beneath the
floorboards.

— Kelly Creagh

Sam stop yelling at her!" her mother yelled.
"If this were in Japsnese," said Danny, "it could be an anime.

— Kelly Creagh

“Dancers churned around them like storm tossed flowers, their heads held to either side as they whirled with abandonment.
"Look at them," he whispered, his voice in her ear. "Have you ever seen anything like it? They have everything, don't they? Everything except a single care to dwell on.”

— Kelly Creagh

“No," said her dad, starting to shout, "what I can't handle is you being dropped off after midnight by some kid who thinks he's a vampire!"
"And now you're dating a vampire?" Danny asked, intrigued. "You know they bite right?"
...
"How can he be a vampire when he knows so much about slayers?”

— Kelly Creagh

“Demons ... they don't just waltz into your life and take over for no reason," she said, her voice going soft again. "They might knock on the door, but ultimately, you have to be the one to invite them in.”

— Kelly Creagh