Rose Christo Quotes & Sayings

I'm always gonna protect you. And I'm always gonna protect that little girl. There's no way in hell I'll let that woman get her hands on her."
"Rafael," I said.
"Yeah?"
"You are the most wonderful person I've ever known."
It took him a moment to answer me
and when he did, I though he sounded bashful.
"I'd better be," he said. "Because, you know. That's what you deserve. — Rose Christo

I want you. I want you so much. I think I want you more than anything and that scares me, sometimes. — Rose Christo

I kissed him like he was air and I couldn't breathe. — Rose Christo

Each person is just an imprint of the many people who have crossed paths with us over the years, some more than others. Most of us never think to say thank you. I know I never had. — Rose Christo

The shaman helps you figure it out. I already know what I'm going to be."
I prodded him in the ribs. He couldn't just leave me hanging like that.
"A speech therapist." he said.
The whole world could have stopped. I wouldn't have noticed.
Rafael gave me an unusually stoic look. "I'm going to get your voice back someday," he said. "I though that was obvious. — Rose Christo

Julius Caesar burned down a library?" I asked. "Fucker. — Rose Christo

We'd better go," I say. "It's time for you to make Hmong babies."
Toua pulls free from my grasp. "You little
"
"Go. Further the great Flower Clan. The mountainous homeland will sing from your victorious loins."
"You're disgusting! — Rose Christo

I liked Rafael. I liked listening to Rafael. I liked touching him. I liked it when he took me in his arms and made me feel like I belonged to him, like our hearts ran together as one, indistinct. Rafael was beautiful. Rafael was my heart's friend. I didn't understand how that meant I liked boys. As far as I knew, it only meant I liked Rafael.
More than liked Rafael. — Rose Christo

He always knew what I would have liked to say, and with startling and increasing accuracy as we spent more time together. One time, for example, I was wondering exactly how he had lost that tooth at the back of his mouth when he saw my eyes on his waning grin and replied, "Ran into a fence when I was twelve." And then I wondered how the heck he could have missed the giant fence standing right in front of him and he said, "Shut up. — Rose Christo

It's not blood that makes us who we are," Dad said. "It's family. And it's not blood that makes us family. It's love. — Rose Christo

You ought to sue."
"I don't know how to sew. I tried it once and I almost put my eye out."
If there is one thing Sahara Soto and Kerry Thompson have in common, it's their complete idiocy. In the girl's case, it's endearing. — Rose Christo

Do not regret the things you didn't do," Tamika said. "If you're going to regret something, it has to be the things you have done. We are not made up of the inverse of our experiences. If we were what we didn't do, I would be a ballerina. — Rose Christo

You can't change who you are, can you? That would require changing the people who made you along the way. That would mean discrediting everything they ever gave you. — Rose Christo

Children are remarkably cruel in their candor. In their cruelty, they are innocent — Rose Christo

It struck me as kind of crazy, kind of amazing, that one person could make me feel so serene just by being. — Rose Christo

He swore loudly, confused. I won't repeat the word here. I'm a gentleman. — Rose Christo

But then even if my atoms were a sin, so what? It was like Dad had said. As far as sins went, the sin of loving another human being made for a pretty damn excellent one. — Rose Christo

All the problems in this world, he had told me, stem from the precept that we ought not to care about one another just because we are strangers.

Why should we not care about what happens to strangers? Could you imagine the sort of world we might inhabit if we honestly and genuinely wanted to see one another living good, safe lives? Can you even think what it might look like if we all cared about strangers as much as we cared about loved ones, so that the line between the two faded over time, and the precept - the crippling precept - disappeared altogether? — Rose Christo

The world doesn't really change, does it? We come and we go, and we think we're so important, we can't possibly comprehend how the world doesn't come tumbling down when our lives do. It's so cold, so heartless. So beautiful. It doesn't matter how many of us walk across the surface of the planet. The sun will still rise when we've finished rising with it. The earth is no less warmer for our absence on it. — Rose Christo

You're not ugly. Sky, you're
You know when you first came to the reservation, and everyone was like, 'Holy crap, it's a white boy'? My thoughts were more like, 'Holy crap, why can't I stop looking at him?' And it wasn't because you were ugly. — Rose Christo

I was going to punch the shit out him," he told me. I could feel his voice vibrating against my skin. "Luke. I didn't though. You know why?"
I'd wondered about that.
"You asked me not to. Last summer. Remember? You gave me that note. 'Stop punching people.' It's the only thing you've ever asked me to do. I can do that much for you. I think I'd do anything for you. — Rose Christo

Relieved and overjoyed, I felt kind of like a five-year-old, too. I felt like a lamb that's found its way home again, or the small child each of us secretly hides at heart. — Rose Christo

What?" he said. "You let me draw all over your arm in permanent ink, but I hand you a vegetable and you chicken out? — Rose Christo

We'd held each other before, on lazy summer days, between private kisses and languid touches, but never anything that I would have considered a true hug: selfless support not instigated by desire, comfort for comfort's sake. This was different. — Rose Christo

You don't pray?" Ram asks.
"Which one should I pray to," I say flatly, "the dragon, or the fairy?"
Ram stares at me.
I tug on my ponytail. "That's our religion," I explain, suddenly self-conscious. "A mountain fairy married a dragon. That's where we all come from."
I can see the shy smile poking at Ram's lips. "You're half-fairy?"
"And half-dragon," I remind him.
"Right. Definitely. — Rose Christo

If we can die at any minute," I said, "why are you wasting your life dreading it? Why don't you just live while you have the chance? — Rose Christo

Everything's a painting, anyway," Fawn said. "That's what I think. We live inside a giant painting, only we can't see who's holding the paintbrush. Any time something strange happens in your life it's because the painter added a new brushstroke you can't see. The big picture keeps changing, but we're stuck in the small one. — Rose Christo

Each time someone laughed, each time Annie elbowed me or Rafael prodded me or Aubrey asked me, wheedling slightly, to take his side in an argument, I had this feeling of floating on air, miles and miles above the clouds. Each laugh was like a song I'd always wanted to learn without ever realizing I didn't already know it. Each laugh was a new experience on its own, and yet a familiar one, and I felt that I should be thanking someone for it, but I didn't know who. — Rose Christo

Maybe things don't really happen for a reason," Kenneth said. "Or maybe they do. But I think it doesn't matter either way. Because we can only experience those things as humans. And because we're humans, we're going to think they mean one thing, even if they mean another. — Rose Christo

I don't know how your dad could have left you alone, anyway," Rafael said indignantly. "It's obvious you're the coolest person on the planet. — Rose Christo

We linked arms, and the Titan-man led us in prayer. He called out to the Great Mystery of the universe and thanked it for the bounty by which we all lived, the generosity of the growing land and of the animals who gave us their lifeblood, and most importantly, he said, the compassion of the human heart. The prayer, I thought, was profoundly touching, and maybe more meaningful than anything I had ever heard in a church. — Rose Christo

His words slow my pulse. His fingers, square and even, feel nonpareil entwined with mine. He is symmetry. He is color.
"Never," I tell him. "I will never go away."
"You're sure about that?"
"I'm sure I can't live with a Ram-sized hole in my chest."
"That would be a pretty big hole, I think," Ram says.
"Don't be so sure. You're short."
"Hey," Ram protests.
"I worry for you on carnival rides."
"I get on carnival rides just fine, thanks."
"The operator doesn't stop you?"
"Tim," He pauses. "Sometimes. — Rose Christo

Just don't eat all of it," Ram fusses. "It could be tampered with. You should show it to your dad first, he'll know
"
"Ram has Seahorse Syndrome," Sahara tells me wisely.
"What's that?" I ask.
"In seahorses the dad's the one who gets pregnant and has babies. We learned about it in life science class. Ram thinks he's a mother hen. So he must be a seahorse. — Rose Christo

I don't understand the idea that people shouldn't care about each other just because they're strangers. I think that kind of mindset is responsible for most of the world's problems. — Rose Christo

Patches of hair stuck to his wet cheekbones. His ears were threaded with tiny little wampum earrings, except at the cartilage, where the rings were turquoise. His stubby nose ended abruptly at the bottom of a short bridge. His face tapered with a round chin, a white birthmark under his jaw. He was my favorite picture. He burned into the backs of my eyes. — Rose Christo

You can't change the past, you know? You can't change who you were, but you can change who you're going to be. — Rose Christo

Every year we get together and throw a big feast for the winter solstice, a festival in which every game and every confectionary you could possibly imagine suddenly become a reality. The children put on a play about the Black Bear and the Gray Bear, an age-old story that relates the Gray Bear's trip to eternity through the freezing white snow of the north. At the very end of the celebration the men and the women perform the warm dance, a giant, joyful circle dance the Shoshone invented thousands of years ago in order to send blessings to the wild animals who — Rose Christo

He's like ... 'I thought you were just friends.' You are my friend. You're my best friend. Why doesn't he get that? Anyway ... I think he wants your dad to rally with him. I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a damn about the dry rot in the basement."
I quirked the corner of my mouth dubiously. Dad rallying with Gabriel was pretty unlikely, considering the lengths he had gone to in proving his approval.
Rafael took one look at me, horrified, and I knew we were on the same wavelength. He whispered: "If your dad gives my uncle the safe sex talk ... — Rose Christo

In Shoshone, there's a saying. It's a long one, and it doesn't have an English equivalent, so bear with me.
Sutummu tukummuinna. It means, I don't speak your language, and you don't speak mine. But I still understand you. I don't need to walk in your footsteps if I can see the footprints you left behind. — Rose Christo

Custer was a child once. He didn't spend his childhood killing Indians and stealing their homeland. Nero didn't spend his childhood burning Rome to the ground. Everybody was a child once. No child was born hating the world around him. You had to learn that trait. You had to pick it up from the worst pockets of the universe, the filthiest recesses of society, where the people who learned it before you deposited it when they were done. — Rose Christo

I don't know what you're talking about. I just like animals," Rafael said. "So does Sky, except he's kind of a hippie soulbonder about it. — Rose Christo

Nor had I realized until that moment how much of a group project it was to grow up. — Rose Christo

I grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street to a convenience shop. I abandoned him once inside and went down the stationery aisle. I'd already known I wanted to get him some colored pencils, but now I finally had the occasion to do it. Not long after I'd picked out a big box of them, I heard Rafael call out from another part of the store, "Trojans? Like The Iliad?"
I didn't waste a second finding him and pulling him out of that aisle. — Rose Christo

This is how you know somebody loves you. When you can't tie your own shoes and they don't mind tying them for you. — Rose Christo

Seventeen years. That's how long I've known him. That's how long I've loved him. Seventeen years later and he still makes my heart feel giddy and weightless. Seventeen years later and my favorite place in the world is still the safety of his arms.
Seventeen years later and I'm still a sappy idiot. Go figure. — Rose Christo

How horrible uncertainty was. How cruel. — Rose Christo

He turned his head and gazed at me, eyes dancing and blue, remnants of a smile dancing on his face.
How beautiful he looked. Unsullied by the world's darker secrets; privy to its innocent ones. I could almost believe he was inhuman and had never known anything beyond the profound simplicity of nature, tameless and wild, and the animal hearts that beat within each and every one of us. He was Pan and I was Daphnis. I never stood a chance. — Rose Christo

He broke away from my mouth and trailed his lips down the front of my throat. I felt his lips close around my scars. He kissed away their ugliness. His lips parted in tingling butterfly kisses that drained the strength from my knees. I realized he was mouthing words against my skin.
Not words. Just one word.
Mine. — Rose Christo

Some dumbass outside the reserve thinks you're wearing a butterfly on your arm, you'll get your ass kicked, Rafael said. — Rose Christo

I picked up my flute and smiled, eyebrows dancing. "Why don't you show her your straight dance?"
"Is there a gay dance, too?" Mickey asked. — Rose Christo

I was shaking when our lips parted and he leaned his forehead against mine, his fingers carding through my hair, my hands on his face.
"I won't let them," Rafael said. "I won't let anyone take you away. I'll protect you. I'll always protect you. I don't care how. I just will. — Rose Christo

Why did my husband have to die?"

I didn't answer her; because I'd realized a question like this was predicated on an illusion: the illusion that war can ever have a happy outcome. It's always someone's husband. It's always someone's son. It's always someone's brother. It's always someone's friend. — Rose Christo

Sometimes an adventure is a mundane thing. A trip to the shore with your best friend. Learning you can laugh in unearthly ways. — Rose Christo

We take it for granted that our parents are like trees. They never run out of boughs for us to pick fruit from. The thing is, if you pick a fruit when it's not ready, it grows back slower the next season. The more you do this, the less fruit you'll get. Keep it up, and in the end you'll have a fat belly and a barren tree. — Rose Christo

You'll have to forgive me," Dad said. His mouth was moving very little, a sign that he was tense. "I'm not ... familiar with ... the protocol. For boys like you. But I ... "
I felt my face turning red. No, no, no. Quit while you're ahead, Dad. Please.
"I'm sure you have ... urges," Dad went on. "All teenage boys have ... urges. I don't know whether you've ... tried anything
"
I said please!
"Just as long as you're safe. That's very important. You still have to be safe, even if you're both boys. I don't know what really ... um, entails. You know. How you ... do things. I could look it up for you
"
I clapped my hand over Dad's mouth. I took him by his arm, my face burning, and dragged him back to the field. — Rose Christo

Hope for the best," I said. "Prepare for the worst. — Rose Christo

Mr. Red Clay smiled; I had the impression it was meant to hide a smirk. "You'll forgive me for saying this," he said, "but I don't put much stock in this country's education system. There's a reason why American schools are ranked twenty-first in the entire world. Let me put it this way, Skylar. There are only three things you need to know in life. Who you are, how the world works, and how you can change it. — Rose Christo

I don't like this, Toua," I go on. "We're like birds that have flown a very long way from their nest. We're like nettles in a garden full of hops. We shouldn't have to hide who we are. Our faces are unseen. — Rose Christo

Coldness settles again in my stomach. I do not want a nice Hmong girl. I want a nice Egyptian boy who teaches me about colors and makes me appreciate poetry. I want the nice Egyptian boy who stops in the middle of the day to say Thank you, God. For everything. — Rose Christo