Lucy Christopher Quotes & Sayings

There is no need to put your heart in a bottle, then you will die.
- Ty from Stolen — Lucy Christopher

I was surprised at her gentleness, her willingness to give in. — Lucy Christopher

Ninja chicken isn't he?" You grinned at me, rolling your sleeves up."We'll see about that."
You reached into the cage. Instantly Dick was onto your hand, clawing at you, biting chunks with his beak.
"Godamn rooster! — Lucy Christopher

Who says I'm not Superman?" You were looking at me with one eye closed against the sun. I shrugged
"You would have recued me by now if you were Superman." I said quietly.
"Who says I haven't?
" Anyone would say you haven't.
Anyone's just looking at it wrong then." You pushed yourself up a little, onto your elbows."Anyways, I can't steal you and rescue you. That would give me multiple personalities."
And you don't have them already? — Lucy Christopher

I remember the lights turning into blurs of blazing fire. I remember the air-conditioning chilling my arms. The smell of coffee smudging into the smell of eucalyptus. — Lucy Christopher

I thought you didn't want to let me go. — Lucy Christopher

But without humans, the wild would take over. It would only take a hundred years or so for nature to win again. — Lucy Christopher

How would she find her herd? How would she find you? — Lucy Christopher

It sounded weird to hear you talk so much; normally you only said a few words at a time. I'd never imagined that you'd have a story, too. Until that moment, you were just the kidnapper. You didn't have reasons for anything. You were stupid and evil and mentally ill. That was all. When you started talking, you started changing. — Lucy Christopher

They've already gone to the gate; they're waiting for me there." I felt nervous then so I added, "I said I wouldn't be long - just getting a coffee. — Lucy Christopher

You'd picked me up, so gently, as if I were a leaf you didn't want to crush. You'd carried me somewhere. And I'd curled into your arms, tiny as a stone. — Lucy Christopher

I mean, that star over there is blinking at me madly now, but for how long? An hour or two, or for the next million years? And how long will we sit here like this? Just another moment, or the rest of our lives? You know which one I'd prefer ... — Lucy Christopher

Had you been lying all along? Mum gently stroked my hair. I whispered into her shoulder. "I can't go back. Not yet. I can't leave." And she held my head tight to her chest and wrapped her arms around me. "You don't have to," she said, rocking me. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, not anymore." And I cried. — Lucy Christopher

It was like I existed in a kind of parallel universe, thinking thoughts and feelings that no one else understood. — Lucy Christopher

You smiled then, and your whole face changed with it. It kind of lit up, like there were sunbeams coming from inside you. — Lucy Christopher

The dark eyes are for the villains ... the Grim Reaper,the Joker, zombies. All dark. — Lucy Christopher

Your beautiful mouth was moving like a caterpillar. I reached out and tried to catch it. — Lucy Christopher

People love what they're used to, I guess."
"No." You shook your head. "People should love what needs loving. That way they can save it. — Lucy Christopher

You carried it in your hand like it was the most precious thing. It reminded me of what I used to be like, when I lived out here ... It reminded me of finding something wild and knowing it was important somehow, to something." You drew another circle over your knee, then filled it in with specks. "It made me realize where I belonged ... not in a city park with cheap store-bought spirits, but out here in the land I knew, with the real ones. — Lucy Christopher

But I'll tell them of your other side, too. The side I saw sometimes when you spoke softly to the camel, and when you gently touched the leaves of the saltbush,only picking what you needed. And the times you rescued me. I will tell them how you chose prison rather than let me die. Because you did, didn't you? You knew, right from when that snake bit me, it was all over. When I asked you to stay with me in the plane, you did it knowing you were turning yourself in. — Lucy Christopher

I ate the roll, and forced down some more sparkling wine. When your eyes closed against the sun again, and I had nothing else to look at I glanced quickly at your chest, curious, really. I'd only seen chests like that in magazines. I wondered if that's how you'd got all your money ... modeling. I looked down at my stomach. I grabbed at it, seeing how much fat I could lift up in a roll.
"Don't worry," you said, one eye open again like a crocodile, watching me. "You're beautiful." You tipped your head back again "Beautiful," you murmured. "Perfect."
"You wouldn't know. You're built like some sort of supermodel." I bit my lip, wishing I hadn't complimented you like that. "Or a stripper," I added. "Prostitute."
"I wouldn't want you to think I'm repulsive," you said, half smiling.
"Too late."
You opened your other eye to squint at me. "Will you ever give me a break? — Lucy Christopher

I called the rooster Dick, after you. — Lucy Christopher

The people we care for aren't always the one we should — Lucy Christopher

There were tiny stars behind my eyelids, a whole galaxy of tiny, spinning stars. — Lucy Christopher

My eyelids are heavy as stone. But when I sleep, I'll have that dream again. I haven't wanted to tell you about it, until now.
I'll be in the Separates, and I'll be digging with my bare hands. When I've made a hole deep enough to plant a tree, I'll place my fingers inside. I'll slip off the ring you gave me. It will catch the light and glint a rainbow of colors over my skin, but I will take my hands away, leaving it there. I'll sprinkle the earth back over it, and I will bury it. Back where it belongs.
I'll rest against a tree's rough trunk. The sun will be setting, it's dazzling color threading through the sky, making my cheeks warm.
Then I will wake up.
Good-bye, Ty,
Gemma — Lucy Christopher

You won't be able to hurt me, or touch me. — Lucy Christopher

Nobody's bought this land. And no one's going to want it either. It's dying land, lonely land."
"Like me, then," I said.
"Yes, like you." You chewed the corner of your lip. "You both need saving. — Lucy Christopher

I looked down at my stomach. I grabbed at it, seeing how much fat I could lift up in a roll.
"Don't worry," you said, one eye open again like a crocodile watching me. "You're beautiful." You tipped your head back. "Beautiful," you murmured. "Perfect. — Lucy Christopher

Doesn't that hurt?" I said. "Yep." "How do you keep them in there?" "I'm stubborn." You grinned. "Stubborn as a waddywood. And anyway, pain means it's healing." "Not always. — Lucy Christopher

Right at that moment it was as if we were the only two people left in the world. And I don't mean that to sound corny; it just honestly did. The only sounds were the droning crickets and chip-chips of the bats, the farawy wind against the sand, and the occasional distant yowl of a dingo. There were no car horns.No trains. No jack-hammers. No lawnmowers No planes. No sirens. No alarms. No anything human. If you'd told me that you'd saved me from a nuclear holocaust, I might have believed you. — Lucy Christopher

It was so big, that view. I'll never remember it properly. How can anyone remember something that big? I don't think people's brains are designed for memories like that. They're designed for things like phone numbers, or the color of someone's hair. Not hugeness. — Lucy Christopher

You said you knew the perfect place to run to. A place that was empty of people, and buildings, and far, far away. A place covered in blood-red earth and sleeping life. A place longing to come alive again. It's a place for disappearing, you'd said, a place for getting lost ... and for getting found.
I'll take you there, you'd said.
And I could say that I agreed. — Lucy Christopher

Then your fingers moved down to my chin. You pushed it up with your thumb to look at me, almost like you were studying me in the artificial lights above my head. And, I mean, you really looked at me ... with eyes like two stars. [ ... ] And I had wings fluttering away inside me all right. Big fat moth wings. You trapped me easily, drew me toward you like I was already in the net. — Lucy Christopher

I stayed there, curled up into the warmth of your body, under the blankets, like something soft in a shell. Your arms were firm as rock around me. — Lucy Christopher

Where are you going?" I asked.
"The middle of nowhere."
"I thought this was it."
"Nah." You shook your head. "This is just the edge. — Lucy Christopher

You moved too much like a hunter, padding silently next to the row of plastic plants as you made your line toward me. — Lucy Christopher

Those blue, blue eyes, icy
blue, looking back at me as if I could
warm them up. They're
pretty powerful, you know, those eyes, pretty beautiful, too. — Lucy Christopher

Because it's magic, this place ... beautiful. And you're beautiful ... beautifully separate. It all fits. — Lucy Christopher

I didn't want the person standing there, beside the bed, to have the same face I'd found so attractive at the airport. But you were there all right: the blue eyes, blondish hair, and tiny scar. Only you didn't look beautiful this time. Just evil. — Lucy Christopher

I'd seen you before ... somewhere ... . But who were you? My eyes kept flitting back to your face. — Lucy Christopher

It's funny, isn't it?" you started quietly. "How you look up there and find a city, and I look at London and see a landscape?"

I frowned, glancing back at you. "What do you mean 'landscape'?"

"Just everything underneath, I guess." You rubbed your fingers against your beard, thinking. "All that earth and life, always just under the concrete, ready to push back through the pavement and take over the city at any time. All that life beneath the dead."

"London's more than just a pile of concrete," I said.

"Maybe." Your eyes glinted in the dark. "But without humans, the wild would take over. It would only need a hundred years or so for nature to win again. We're just temporary, really. — Lucy Christopher

You saw me before I saw you — Lucy Christopher

It didn't make me glow. I felt more like I was fading away, like the world had forgotten me. — Lucy Christopher

When the darkness gets easier, you know you're sinking deeper, becoming dead yourself. — Lucy Christopher

Listen," you said.
"To what? There's nothing."
"There is. Maybe not shopping centers and cars, but other things ... buzzing insects, racing ants, a slight wind making the tree creak, there's a honeyeater up there, scuttling around, and the camels are coming. — Lucy Christopher

I made it," you said, gruffly, "for you."
You shoved it onto my finger. It was roughly carved, shaped from a lump of something colourful and cold ... a ring made entirely from a gemstone. It was beautiful. It glinted emerald greens and blood reds over my skin, and had tiny flecks of gold catching the light. I couldn't stop staring at it.
"Why?" I asked.
You didn't answer that. Instead you touched the ring gently and looked piercingly at me, unsaid questions in your eyes. — Lucy Christopher

The sand stretched out gray and ghostlike and illuminated, a column of light leading forward. It was like something a dead person would see, a tunnel leading toward heaven. — Lucy Christopher

The land wants you here. I want you here," you called. "Don't you care about that at all? — Lucy Christopher

It happened like this. I was stolen from an airport. Taken from everything I knew, everything I was used to. Taken to sand and heat, dirt and danger. And he expected me to love him. This is my story. A letter from nowhere. — Lucy Christopher

In a moment, when I'm ready, I will turn off this computer and that will be it. This letter will be finished. A part of me doesn't want to stop writing to you, but I need to. For both of us. — Lucy Christopher

There were tiny rainbows in that glass. I turned it so a rainbow danced across my hand. — Lucy Christopher

One day they'll let you out of that dry, empty cell. You'll return to the Separates, and you'll feel the rain once more. And you'll grow straight, this time, toward this sunlight. I know you will. — Lucy Christopher

You moved my head so that it was lying in your lap.
"Keep your eyes open," you said. "Stay with me."
I tried. It felt like I was using every muscle in my face. But I did it. I saw you from upside down, your lips above my eyes and your eyes above my lips.
"Talk to me," you said.
My throat felt like it was closing up, as if my skin had swollen, making my throat a lump of solid flesh. I gripped your hand.
"Keep watching me, then," you said. "Keep listening. — Lucy Christopher

Your eyes were too intense to stare into for long. — Lucy Christopher

I'd never seen a man cry before, only on TV. I'd never even seen Dad close to crying. Those tears looked so odd on you. It was like the strength of you just seemed to sap away. The surprise of it stopped me from being so scared. — Lucy Christopher

Ty?" I said, trying out your name, liking the way it sounded. "So what's it like anyway? Australia?"
You smiled then, and your whole face changed with it. It kind of lit up, like there were sunbeams coming from inside you.
"You'll find out," you said. — Lucy Christopher

I thought you wanted to catch a camel," you tried again.
"No."
"I want to."
"Well, you go then."
You laughed. "I want your beautiful face where I can see it — Lucy Christopher

You looked at me, your eyes huge. You we're like a dog then, waiting for me to throw you a bone ... waiting for something I could never give you. — Lucy Christopher

If there'd been an astronaut on the moon right then, I'm sure I could have seen him. Perhaps he could have looked down and seen me too ... the only one who could. — Lucy Christopher

You know, maybe if we'd met as ordinary people, one day, maybe ... maybe things might have been different. Maybe I could have loved you. — Lucy Christopher

Lets face it, you did steal me. But you saved my life too. And somewhere in the middle, you showed me a place so different and beautiful, I can never get it out of my mind. And I can't get you out of there either. You're stuck in my brain like my own blood vessels. — Lucy Christopher

Everyone will look. Even if they think it's impolite, still they will look. — Lucy Christopher

I guess whoever built and buried that IED out there in the desert will never know how far that blast traveled. But all things ripple out, cause shrapnel. — Lucy Christopher

I wish I had amnesia so I could forget what you look like. — Lucy Christopher

But what else can I do, other than to plead with you like this? Other than to write down my story, our story, to show you that what you've done ... to make you realize that what you did wasn't fair, wasn't right. — Lucy Christopher

I hate it, all of this," I screamed, my voice breaking. "I even hate him, even him." A huge sob came up from my chest.
And I did, right then. I hated you for everything; for making me feel so helpless everywhere I went, for making me lose control. I hated you for all the emotions in my head, for the confusion ... for the way I was suddenly doubting everything. I hated you for turning my life upside down and then smashing it into shards. I hated you for making me stand with a whirring fan in my hand, screaming at my mum.
But I hated you for something else, too. Right then, and at every moment since you'd left me, all I could think about was you. I wanted you in that apartment. I wanted your arms around me, your face close to mine. I wanted your smell. And I knew I couldn't-shouldn't-have it. That's what I hated most. The uncertainty of you. You'd kidnapped me, put my life in danger ... but I loved you, too. Or thought I did. None of it made sense. — Lucy Christopher

Don't do that again," you said.
I blinked.
"You'll hurt yourself."
"Does it matter?" My voice was only a whisper.
"Of course. — Lucy Christopher

I can't save you like that Ty.
What you did to me wasn't this brilliant thing, like you think it was. You took me away from everything - my parents, my friends, my life. You took me to the sand and the heat, the dirt and isolation. And you expected me to love you. And that's the hardest bit. Because I did, or at least, I loved something out there.
But I hated you too. I can't forget that. — Lucy Christopher

I could hear you, talking to the daffodils and tulips, whispering to the fairies that lived inside their petals. Each separate flower had a different family inside it. — Lucy Christopher

Everyone wanted answers I wasn't ready to give. — Lucy Christopher

When I write this in bed, I can almost hear the echo of the wind over the sand, or the groans of wooden panels around me. I can almost smell the dustiness of the camel, taste the bitterness of saltbush. And when I dream, your warm hands cover my shoulders. Your whispers carry stories and sound like the rustle of spinifex. I still wear that ring, you know ... at night, when no one is watching. — Lucy Christopher

You told me once of the plants that lie dormant through the drought, that wait, half-dead, deep in the earth. The plants that wait for the rain. You said they'd wait for years, if they had to; that they'd almost kill themselves before they grew again. But as soon as those first drops of water fall, those plants begin to stretch and spread their roots. They travel up through the soil and sand to reach the surface. There's a chance for them again. — Lucy Christopher

I remember that feeling of skin. It's
strange to remember touch more than thought. But my fingers
still tingle with it. — Lucy Christopher

It was like I'd stepped out into an afterlife. Only there were no angels. — Lucy Christopher

I love you," you said, simple as anything. — Lucy Christopher

How long will you keep me?" I asked. You shrugged. "Forever, of course. — Lucy Christopher

I wrapped my arms around me as tightly as I could, and stared up at the stars. Had I not been so cold and wanting to escape so badly, I could have stared at them forever: They were amazingly beautiful, so dense and bright. My eyes could get lost up there if I left them looking long enough. [ ... ] They swallowed me up. They were like a hundred thousand tiny candles, sending out hope. — Lucy Christopher

You nodded towards the cup. "Want
more?"
I shook my head. "What about the car?"
"Didn't find it. You were heading back towards me when I
found you."
"Towards ... ?"
You nodded. "So I reckoned the car had probably got stuck
or died somehow, and you were just coming home."
"Home?"
"Yeah." Your mouth twitched. "Back to me. — Lucy Christopher

And it's hard to hate someone once you understand them. — Lucy Christopher

A sign that a person could do something different ... that they could be hooked by a drug more wild than alcohol. — Lucy Christopher

I didn't look back, but I knew you were still watching. It probably sounds weird, but I could just feel it. The hairs on my neck bristled when you blinked. — Lucy Christopher

I craved your warmth. I hugged myself, rubbing my fingers up and down. I guess people are like insects sometimes, drawn to heat, A kind of infra-red longing. — Lucy Christopher

I want you to see that the person I glimpsed running beside the camel, running to save my life, is the person you can choose to be. — Lucy Christopher

This be OK?' I asked, innocently.
'You want me to have no skin left?' You rolled your eyes.
Actually, don't answer that one. — Lucy Christopher

Anyway, it's easy to be what people want: give them something to stare at, nod and smile, tell them they're gorgeous. — Lucy Christopher

I can't save you like that, Ty. — Lucy Christopher

You saw me before I saw you. You had that look in your eyes, as if you wanted something. Wanted it for a long time. — Lucy Christopher

Far, far away something made a single ghostly howl, like a banshee in the dark. — Lucy Christopher

It's hard to hate someone once you understand them. It felt so mixed up. — Lucy Christopher

The sun was bobbing on the horizon, just peeking over. Its light shimmered on the sand behind you, making your body look like it was glowing ... like it had a kind of aura. — Lucy Christopher

Right then, and at every moment since you'd left me, all I could think about was you. I wanted you in that apartment. I wanted your arms around me, your face close to mine. I wanted your smell. And I knew I couldn't - shouldn't - have it. That's what I hated most. The uncertainty of you. — Lucy Christopher

You're right, he's a killer," you said. "A rooster with some serious issues. — Lucy Christopher

The deep blue of your eyes had secrets. I wanted them. — Lucy Christopher

All I could think about was you. I wanted you in the apartment. I wanted your arms around me, your face close to mine. I wanted your smell. And I knew I couldn't - shouldn't - have it. That's what I hated most. The uncertainty of you. You'd kidnapped me, put my life in danger ... but I loved you, too. — Lucy Christopher