Barry Lyga Quotes & Sayings

Thanks to the very best in Microsoft/Intel engineering, it crashes every time you exhale too hard in its general vicinity.
Fanboy on his computer — Barry Lyga

Jazz shook his head. "No. The fingers. Your average murderer doesn't mutilate a body like that. And he especially doesn't take trophies. But it's more than that. It's that he left one behind. He left the middle one behind." "Are you serious?" "Yeah. He literally gave the cops the finger. He's saying, 'Come and get me. Catch me if you can.' That's a serial killer." For — Barry Lyga

Once he gets inside your head, you're dead. — Barry Lyga

Jazz opened his eyes.
Conner opened her eyes.
Howie opened his eyes. — Barry Lyga

He thought for a moment. About puppets.
About being controlled.
Everyone was controlled by something, the Impressionist knew. By a spouse. A parent. A boss. A friend. By one's own impulses, be they dark or light.
Everyone was a puppet to something.
Most people just couldn't see the strings, is all. And so they didn't believe they were puppets in the first place. — Barry Lyga

Jazz hadn't given her many details of exactly what life in the Dent house had been like, but he'd told her enough that she knew it wasn't hearts and flowers. Well, except for the occasional heart cut from a chest. And the kind of flowers you send to funerals. — Barry Lyga

Here's the thing about baseball-it's not the individual sport I thought it was. Turns out I was wrong about that.
Yeah, the batter is a lone man against the world. He stands in the batter's box like a soldier and it's up to him-and him alone-what happens next.
But here's the thing I didn't understand until I was forced to, until recently: In order to hit a home run ...
Someone else has to pitch the ball. — Barry Lyga

There was some kind of X-men emergency, so all the teachers were gone. This happens every now and then. It's one of the perks of having super heroes for your teachers - when the world is about to end (which is like at least twice a month), school gets canceled. Heck, three weeks ago there was a big chemistry final for the upperclassmen. Beast was the teacher - he's this big, burly guy who can do acrobatic stuff like a monkey, but he also happens to be a super-genius. He's, like, legendary for his tough finals, so there were kids walking through the halls, going, Oh, God, please let Galactus try to eat the earth. Please please please let there be an alien invasion by the Skrulls! — Barry Lyga

The pain would find him.
The pain always found him. — Barry Lyga

Ginny Davis - poor, dead Ginny - had lent Connie a set of yoga DVDs that looked like they'd come from the ancient 1990s. — Barry Lyga

Pain means you're alive. Pain is good. Pain is life. — Barry Lyga

Jazz spent a chunk of the day fantasizing about ways to kill his grandmother, plotting them and planning them in the most excruciating, gruesome detail his imagination would allow. It turned out his imagination allowed quite a bit. He spent the rest of the day convincing himself
over and over
not to do it. — Barry Lyga

A river of images and thoughts and feelings, dirtied and polluted so that no one could drink from it without gagging. — Barry Lyga

Mom's already dead!" I yelled at him. "Who the hell do you think you're saving?"
And he just gave me his Sad, Tired look. It's one of the three he's got, the other two being Pissed Off and Blised Out on ESPN. — Barry Lyga

Billy Dent stared in the mirror. He didn't quite recognize himself, but that was nothing new. Billy had almost always seen a stranger in mirrors, ever since childhood. At first he had hated and feared the figure that seemed to pursue him everywhere, stalking him through mirrors and store windows. But eventually Billy came to understand that what he saw in the mirror was what other people saw when they looked at him.
Other people somehow did not see the real Billy. They saw something that looked like them. Something that looked human and mortal. Something that looked like a prospect. — Barry Lyga

What if a puppet could cut its own strings, and in that act of defiance and strength of will become truly alive? Become is own puppetmaster? — Barry Lyga

And it's true. It's so true. All those years of loving Zik because he never asked about Eve ... I never realized, I never understood. It was his job as my best friend not to ask.
But it was my job as his best friend to tell him without being asked. — Barry Lyga

Dr. Kennedy talked me out of killing myself
for now
without saying a single words or even knowing what was going on. Which, I've decided, is the mark of a totally kick-ass therapist. — Barry Lyga

This is why I forgive, but I don't forget. When you forget someone, the forgiveness doesn't mean anything anymore. — Barry Lyga

Yes, pain meant life. But life did not mean pain. — Barry Lyga

Don't be stupid. You're a child. You don't know what it means to be in love. And she flung open the car door as if she wished she had the strength to rip it from the hinges, and stalked off to the house through the rain.
That night, I lay in bed, troubled by what she'd said, blocking out the sounds of argument from my parents' room. Was love what my parents had? Yelling at eachother, worrying about money? Never smiling? Never happy? If that was love, then I didn't want it. — Barry Lyga

In a way, i feel sorry for boys. They're weak. You show them boobs or a butt and they just fall apart.
But I feel sorry for girls, too. Because girls get screwed, even when they're not naked with a guy. Everyone hates girls
even other girls. I mean, "girl" is like an insult, you know? "That's so girly." "Stop being a girl." "You're like a little girl."
Hey, you know what? I was a little girl once and I kicked ass. I was awesome. — Barry Lyga

Yes, pain meant life. But the symmetric property did not apply; Life did not mean pain. — Barry Lyga

Look, my dad has a saying - we'll burn that bridge when get to it. OK? You get it? Worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. — Barry Lyga

She knew all about the cops and their trigger fingers and their predilection for dealing with those who would attack their brethren. Her father had drummed such stories into her from a young age; more so into Whiz, who bore the burden of being a black boy about to grow into a black teen. "If the police even look at you funny," Dad had said, "you hit the ground and put your hands over your head. Don't talk back. Don't try to run. Don't try to explain. They're just looking for an excuse to shoot you. Don't give it to them. — Barry Lyga

It's not an easy choice, but that's OK. Easy doesn't equal good. Difficulty doesn't equal bad.
It's just life, is all. — Barry Lyga

I was going to bake you a cake with a hacksaw in it," he said without preamble, " but-"
"But you realized it wouldn't work."
"Well, no. I realized I don't know how to bake. — Barry Lyga

No matter what his birth certificate said or didn't say, he was Billy Dent's son. — Barry Lyga

Howie swore translated to "I am strong and mighty in the wind," but which Jazz feared actually translated to "Another dumbass white kid with Asian tats. LOL. — Barry Lyga

Are you stalking me, Mr. Fulton? The idea both amused and horrified Jazz. — Barry Lyga

Like a serial killer, the house blended in. It suited its place and its place suited it. — Barry Lyga

The best revenge is living well, my dad told me once. — Barry Lyga

Length isn't as important as what you say and how you say it. — Barry Lyga

But you know, sometimes the fight itself is worthwile, even if the prize at the end ain't. — Barry Lyga

They put on fresh gloves and got back to business. Jazz wiped up the blood splatters in the freezer and tossed the tissues in with Howie's waste. It bothered him that he was leaving evidence behind without some sort of oxygenated bleach, those blood splatters would still show up under Luminol. Of course, the odds of anyone deciding to spray down the morgue freezer and switch on an ultraviolet light were pretty minimal, so it's not like it was evidence that anyone would ever find or use. Still: Billy Dent's First Commandment was Thou shalt not leave evidence. — Barry Lyga

Fear can keep you alive. The trick is not to let it overwhelm you. Not to let it rule you. If you're afraid, that's the universe trying to tell you something. Get away. Don't run; don't panic. Just pick up and walk out, calm as you please. Panic makes you stupid. — Barry Lyga

Luck, though, as Billy had said it so many times, was like lightning
it struck sinners and saints in equal measure, and it did to on its time-table, not yours. — Barry Lyga

His safe haven had turned into an ambush. — Barry Lyga

He didn't dislike New York with the simple diffidence of a small-town kid or the tragic ignorance of a yokel
he hated it with what he hoped was his soul. — Barry Lyga

Don't crap where you eat — Barry Lyga

Anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth. — Barry Lyga

And if it's locked, I'll knock it the hell down."
He thinks when he busts out "hell" I take him more seriously. Yeah. Insert eye roll here. — Barry Lyga

Hell is being alone. — Barry Lyga

Special kinda warm, — Barry Lyga

The best way to support the troops is to not send them off to die in the first place. And the second best way to support them only to send them off to die when you absolutely have to. And the only way to know that you've done that is to talk about it, debate it, examine it, and make damn sure. — Barry Lyga

Disappointment is part of parenthood, Jasper. The trick is learnin' to love your kids even when they disappoint you. — Barry Lyga

But there's a restraining order in place.' She speaks slowly, choosing her words carefully. 'I'm not supposed to be this close to you.' You were never supposed to be this close to me,' I say, and I have no idea why. — Barry Lyga

See, forgiveness doesn't happen all at once. It's not an event
it's a process. Forgiveness happens while you're asleep, while you're dreaming, while you're inline at the coffee shop, while you're showering, eating, farting, jerking off. It happens in the back of your mind, and then one day you realize that you don't hate the person anymore, that your anger has gone away somewhere. And you understand. You've forgiven them. You don't know how or why. It sneaked up on you. It happened in the small spaces between thoughts and in the seconds between ideas and blinks. That's where forgiveness happens. Because anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth. At least, that's what I hope. — Barry Lyga

When you feel like things are out of control, you take control.
Yeah, that's what you do. Take control.
So, yeah.
Oh, yeah. — Barry Lyga

It just means that if someone hates you, they still have feelings for you. If they really didn't care about you, they'd just forget about you. They wouldn't even waste the time hating you. — Barry Lyga

Cars are little privacy cocoons that we take with us. If you could refuel while driving you could, theoretically, stay moving forever. — Barry Lyga

Sometimes hope could be the most frightening thing in the world. — Barry Lyga

Like that.
It's all right.
It's not all right.
It's right. — Barry Lyga

All I have to do is wake up in the morning and go to bed at night, Jazz. Everything else is optional. — Barry Lyga

I'm a complicated man, with complicated taste buds. — Barry Lyga

Any man worth having will wait for his woman to be ready. How can I not return the favor? — Barry Lyga

In baseball, when you get into the batter's box, that's it. It's just you. It's one man against the world. All that matters in that moment is your individual achievement and your individual skill. There is literally nothing that anyone else on your team can do for you. Hell, they're all sitting on the bench, waiting to see what happens, just like the fans in the crowd! It's just you and your bat.
And the ball. — Barry Lyga

What was the opposite of linkage blindness? What described being certain of something without any kind of evidence?
... The term was faith. — Barry Lyga

The world pretty much sucks most of the time. But the point of life isn't to live in a world that doesn't suck. The point is to try to make it suck a little bit less. — Barry Lyga

I'm going to die. This is how I'm going to die, and this is where I'm going to die. Because I did all the stupid things you yell at stupid people for doing in stupid movies. — Barry Lyga

If I think she' hot and it turns out she's a psychopath, then what does that say about me? I'm totally not ready for that kind of therapy. — Barry Lyga

He wasn't just dead; he was severely dead. He was one of the deadest people Hughes had ever seen, and Hughes had seen quite a few. — Barry Lyga

That's what I thought I was. A stalker of stalkers. A predator preying on predators. — Barry Lyga

Even the lies were true. — Barry Lyga

Teens had the world's best built-in poker face: a hormone-fueled, constant glare of bored contempt. — Barry Lyga

Psychologist: "This, ah, is a new sort of, ah, psychopathology that we're only now beginning to, ah, understand. These, ah, super-serial killers have no, ah, 'type' but, ah, rather consider everyone to be their 'type.'"
Gramma: "Did you hear that? Your daddy's a superhero! — Barry Lyga

You can never completely escape your DNA. — Barry Lyga

Not according to this," Jazz said, taking the report. "No evidence of sexual activity or anything like it."
"Well, there's that," Howie said, sounding relieved. Jazz wondered at that - was it really so much better to be unmolested, but still murdered in a horrible fashion? To die in pain and terror, stripped, left in a field, your fingers cut off? But as long as you weren't raped, well, that was alright, then? Did it really matter at that point? — Barry Lyga

I don't know and I don't care anymore. I was supposed to have my way for once, just once in my life. I did everything right and I got nothing for it.
I want to kill them all. no, better yet, I want to die. No, even bettter than that: I want to kill them all then die. — Barry Lyga

Women always cried. It was their last, best weapon. It made boyfriends apologize and husbands fold them in their arms. It made Daddy spend the extra money on the prom dress. — Barry Lyga

[She] was made up of skin and bones and hate and crazy, and hate and crazy don't weigh anything. — Barry Lyga

Someone's on the rag," she chides, then grabs her crotch as if adjusting a cup. "And it's not me. — Barry Lyga

He fucked my wife!" George wailed. "He ruined my life!"

"Your wife was a goddamn whore! — Barry Lyga

You know the expression 'As a crow flies,' don't you? People use it to mean a straight line. And that's very important. Because the way a capital-c Crow flies is a straight line. It may appear jagged to some, but the Crow flies in a straight line to its goal. — Barry Lyga

Do you think I was wrong to let that pitch go by?"
"Yes. Absolutely."
"You're right."
"Then why did you---"
"Because I didn't know it was wrong until I did it. I had to learn, don't you see? I had to see what would happen when I let my hatred for coach go like that. I had to take control completely, just for once in my life, and see where it led me. — Barry Lyga

For a fat guy, G. William sure could sustain a long burst of screaming and yelling. — Barry Lyga

They sent spies", Gramma went on, her voice a hush, "and they look like one man, but they can split into two, then four, and so on. I've seen it before. During the war. It's a Communist trick and they taught it to the Democrats so that they could take our guns. I would have fought them off, but they already made the shotgun disappear. — Barry Lyga

You don't swing at any pitch. You swing at the ones you can hit. — Barry Lyga

You won't even know you've crossed the line until it's way back in your rearview mirror. — Barry Lyga

I won't let myself be used or manipulated. I won't let myself be a hypocrite.
I am foe me.
I am not weak.
For anyone. — Barry Lyga

What's it like to go looking for your soul, only to learn you never had one to begin with? — Barry Lyga

At least he took the rest of the food I brought him. A growing boy fighting his insane father to the death has to keep the calorie count up there. Fighting to the death is sweaty work. — Barry Lyga

It was like playing checkers, only to learn that your opponent was playing chess all along. — Barry Lyga

It's like this," he'd explained once to Connie. "If someone gave you a single rose, you'd be happy, right?"
"Okay," he went on, "Now imagine someone gives you ten thousand roses."
"That is a whole lotta roses," she said. "That's too much."
"Right. Too much. But more than that, it makes each individual rose much less special, right? It makes it hard to pick one out and say, 'That's the good one.' And it makes you want to just get rid of them all because none of them seem special now."
Connie had narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying when you're at school you just want to get rid of everyone? — Barry Lyga

Violence suits you. — Barry Lyga

You and your scars. Please! You don't kill youself like this!" I gesture, holding a wrist turned up to the ceiling, then pretending to cut across it with my other hand. "That's just a cry for help. That's just attention. Everbody knows that. Cutting across just gets you to the hospital. That's just from movies and TV shows and stuff like that. You didn't really try to kill yourself. you just wanted attention, but you screwed up. Try harder next time. — Barry Lyga

Jazz felt as though his own life was a mindfield, one he'd lost the map for. One wrong step and he'd lose a foot or leg. or his mind. — Barry Lyga

We humans have the capacity to wreak horrors on each other. But we also have the capacity to survive those horrors. — Barry Lyga

And I think of nothing.
I think of nothing but Rachel.
What happens next is pure magic, and is for us and us alone. — Barry Lyga

And what? Accidentally cuts off three fingers postmortem? 'Oops, oh, no, my girlfriend just died! Clumsy me, in trying to perform CPR, I chopped off some fingers! Guess I'll just take them with me ... Oh, darn, where did that middle finger go? — Barry Lyga

For his part, Jazz knew he was handsome. It had nothing to do with looking in the mirror, which he rarely did. It had everything to do with the way the girls at school looked at him, the way they became satellites when he walked by, their orbits contorted by his own mysterious gravity. If attention could be measured like the Doppler effect, girls would show a massive blue shift in his presence. In the last year or so, he had even remarked the scrutiny of older women - teachers, cashiers at stores, the woman who delivered UPS packages to his house. What had once been a maternal flavor in their glances had taken on a lingering, cool sort of appraisal. He could almost hear them thinking, Not yet. But soon.
Despite his upbringing, despite the infamy of his father, they still watched him. Or maybe because of it. Maybe Howie was right about bad boys. — Barry Lyga

I have to stop getting shot — Barry Lyga

Josh Mendel has a secret.
Unfortunately, everyone knows what it is. — Barry Lyga

Oh, that was smooth. I'm as subtle as a fart. — Barry Lyga

I'm strong thanks to you, Kyra. You're my strength. And who the hell was she to put that burden on me? I was her strength? Then what did that mean as the cancer ate her from the inside out? What did that mean as she got weaker and weaker and weaker? When the cancer migrated her brain and made her forget things and space out randomly?
You can't rely on other people to be your strength.
You have to be your own strength. — Barry Lyga

You don't break up with someone just because of an argument, Josh. At least, I don't. — Barry Lyga

I suddenly realize that I'm naked, which shouldn't bother me since it's the phone, but for some reason it does.
"How's it hanging?" Kyra asks and now I think I'm blushing. It's just an expression, but jeez! — Barry Lyga

Him jump a little inside whenever they roamed his way. Her hair - off-limits to touch, but not to his other senses - entranced him, jet black, shoulder-length, tightly coiled like powerful springs, smelling slightly of chemicals and cinnamon, the beads at the end of each braid clicking together as she walked. — Barry Lyga

It was an ugly day.
It was an ugly room.
Except for the body. — Barry Lyga

I do what I've trained my whole life to do. I watch the ball. I keep my eye on the ball. I never stop watching.
I watch it as it sails past me and lands in the catcher's mitt, a perfect and glorious strike three. — Barry Lyga