Just Because

Over at Shadow Manor, she answered some of Pensive Pumpkin's questions. As a reader, I thought I'd answer them because I haven't posted for a while. There have been some issues and crazy things happen (which I'll explain at a later date) so here is a post, just because.

1. What is your favorite candy?
 I am a chocoholic, but I go through it in stages. Right now it's the Snickers stage. Last month it was chocolate mints. (like Andes)



2. What is your least favorite vegetable?
 On its own, without any other flavor, zucchini. In bread, meatloaf, etc. it is soooo good.


3. Do you play a musical instrument?
 Piano, until my brother told me I was terrible. So I quit. Ukelele is my goal. It just sounds so much more fun.


4. What's the worst injury you've ever had?
 A dog bit me on my throat. I only had a few stitches, but it was close to my jugular, so pretty scary. Although I was in a wreck in college and had staples in my head. It felt awesome to have that familiar ka-chunk, ka-chunk on your skull. Not kidding.


5. What's under your bed?
 Not sure. I don't look under it much. Maybe a few stray books and socks?


6. If you could publish one book, what would it be about?
 Mermaids. Or my biography in the fiction section. I'd rather people not believe that certain things really happened.


7. Do you believe in ghosts?
 I didn't. And then one day we were watching some ghost hunter show. I laughed and said how stupid they were and how fake the whole thing was. Then I went to take a nap. I could tell someone was standing at the foot of the bed and thought it was my husband, the presence was so strong. When I opened my eyes, no one was there. I screamed. My brother-in-law told me someone died in that house. Now I'm not sure.


8. What's on your mouse pad?
 We don't own one. We use a book or the couch or whatever we're close to.


9. What are you currently reading?
 East by Edith Pattou, Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo by Obert Skye, and The Peacegiver by James Ferrell.


10. If you could have any job you wanted, what would it be?
 I'd love to be a camp counselor at Hellboy Camp. Or the person that sprays male models with the mist of water so they look sweaty.


11. What's your all-time favorite television show?
 When I was a kid I loved Nash Bridges. Not even kidding. Now, not even sure. Prime Suspect, maybe? She's awesomely hardcore.
 
Answer these questions on your own blog or leave some answers as a comment!
Am I the only person without a mouse pad, though?

Books, What Else?

I know I've already done a post on books that I love, but I've compiled a short list (this is short compared to what I wanted to do originally) of quotes that I love from books that I adore.
Just because.



“That's the trouble with loving a wild thing: You're always left watching the door.” 
Edith Pattou, East
(I believe this would have described my small self perfectly.)


“Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.” 
(Honestly, I have a few poems memorized. They are ones I'm hoping my kids will have memorized. And their kids. And it will be because of me.)
&
“In a perverse way, I was glad for the stitches, glad it would show, that there would be scars. What was the point in just being hurt on the inside? It should bloody well show.”
Janet Fitch, White Oleander
(I used to be a cutter. I was never diagnosed in high school, but I think I had depression. This is how I felt about cutting. It did hurt inside. And I think I wanted the outside world to know I was in pain.)


“So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”
(I once had a boy describe me as two opposite ends of the scale. I still hope when some boys think of me, they think of the quiet hurricane.)
&
“When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books.”
John Green, Looking for Alaska
(Because I am a girl who loves books.)


“The upside to grief is it takes away your appetite. When people say you look good they really mean it. Nature's thoughtful that way.”
Barbara Park, Mick Harte Was Here
(This book, while extremely sad, is also hilarious.)


“It kills me sometimes, how people die.”
Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

(Really, it does.)


“You do not question an author who appears on the title page as "T.V.N. Persaud, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.C.Path. (Lond.), F.F.Path. (R.C.P.I.), F.A.C.O.G.”
Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
(This book is interesting, funny, thought-provoking... Love it.)

“All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story. ”
(I was born on a very snowy day in March. It was the first day of spring, but you'd never know it by the blizzard outside. My mother woke early, not bothering to wake my father. She showered, got ready, and made sure the bags were ready before she woke him. Then she told him it was time. On their way to the hospital, they found my father's cousin, Carolyn, stuck in a snowbank off to the side of the road. She hopped in with them and went to the hospital. She looks at me still with an eye of nostalgia. She was there when I was born. When she sees me with my oldest, she gasps and tells me how much she looks like myself. My mother left when I was two and my father died when I was 8. Carolyn makes me feel connected to them in a way.)
&
“Do they sense it, these dead writers, when their books are read? Does a pinprick of light appear in their darkness? Is their soul stirred by the feather touch of another mind reading theirs? I do hope so.”
(All I can say is Amen.)
Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past "weird" and "strange" and "goofy." Her ways knocked us off balance.”
&
“A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?”
(Because it was the first genuine smile. At least, that's what I think.)
Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.”
&
“Do you like to slide?" His voice was eager.
Stair rails! Did he suspect me? I forced a sigh. "No, Majesty. I'm terrified of heights."
"Oh." His polite tone had returned.
"I wish I could enjoy it. This fear of heights is an affliction."
He nodded, a show of sympathy but not much interest. I was losing him.
"Especially," I added, "as I've grown taller.”
(Ella is one of my favorite heroines.)
Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted


Do you have any favorite quotes that remind you of you?
Any brilliant, sad, humorous quotes you recite often?