Quotes From "We Shadows" By Thomm Quackenbush

Her lips are like pillows of warm glass. It is strange to find her resistant for even a second, since she has been the kisser and not the kissed. It wasn't like the last time, which felt fumbling and unnatural. That time wasn't off-putting, just like kissing one's sister. This kiss, my kiss, was tingling sweetness, electric apple blossoms. Thomm Quackenbush

Tombstones covered the dale, the smooth marble surfaces bright. She had spent days here as a teenager, though not out of any awareness of mortality. Like every adolescent, she intended to live forever. Thomm Quackenbush

Time owed an alliance to the undying. Thomm Quackenbush

She mourned the history that the invisible intruder had erased, but not enough that she would spend a second more of her future feeling the emptiness. Thomm Quackenbush

Sex was this primal connection like no magick she had ever known, even separated by a millimeter of latex. She knew that some combined the two and, while she could see how this would improve the magick, it would dilute the sex. Thomm Quackenbush

It seemed inequitable at best that one could and did gain a reputation for things that left one both physically and emotionally unsatisfied. Thomm Quackenbush

There is little worse than when the person to whom you want to apologize is having great sex in your room. Thomm Quackenbush

Roselyn adored the scent of sex, the wafting aroma of angel fontanels before they earn their halos. Thomm Quackenbush

Private moments held not a candle to coitus, not even the expensive kind of candle that made the whole room smell of far off seasons. Thomm Quackenbush

Beyond these moments, she could hardly count the fumbling ministrations of boys in high school who, even to her senior prom, never went beyond sticky pleasantries. With one exception, it was just a sort of half-clothed handshake for bragging rights, none hers. Thomm Quackenbush

Whatever problems we encountered, we put there. If we trace the line back, every struggle derived from some decision we made. It is not chance, it is how we teach ourselves. Thomm Quackenbush

…He sounded as though he had just seen The Pokey Little Puppy meet the business end of The Little Engine That Could. Thomm Quackenbush

The seed of an urban legend find fertile soil at the corner of tragedy and imagination. Thomm Quackenbush

Shane never knew how to address her friends' parents. She wanted to call her Mrs. Eliot's Mom, but knew that the cutesiness would not be appreciated. “Mrs. Kaspar” sounded too like a phone solicitor, which would not do after having kissed the circumference of her son's neck. Thomm Quackenbush

Magic was not in glitter and sparks. Real magic didn't need to be. Thomm Quackenbush

Childhood is this time of magic and monsters; hoping for one and fearing the other... The worst part of being a kid is discovering which one exists... So, I chose to believe in magic. Thomm Quackenbush

None of us just pop into the world fully formed, so it's the little facts that make us. Thomm Quackenbush

Ethically, she couldn't cause the suffering of any living thing. Logically, bacon cheeseburgers were delicious. Thomm Quackenbush

Though denigrated by some outside academia and research, she embraced knowledge for its own sake and what better way to honor that than reveling in the intricacies of the brain? If there were any answers to the human condition, if an immortal soul made its home anywhere, it was in its spongy gray folds. Thomm Quackenbush

In the pause that followed, Shane understood why people said their hearts broke. She always thought it was a weak metaphor of strong emotion. She could feel each bit of shrapnel from her heart stab at her stomach and lungs. Her knees gave out beneath her as she heard the voice tell her what she already knew in her fragments of cardiac tissue. Thomm Quackenbush

Keep to the 'I-statements' and discuss your feelings, she lectured herself. I think, I feel. Don't be accusatory. Don't tell him that he is an insecure prick who should back off before you deck him. Instead, say, 'I feel you are acting like an insecure prick who should back off before I deck you. Thomm Quackenbush

I missed you, ” she cried into him. Standing on top of the snow gave him an additional few inches on her and she rested her head against his chest. She could hear nothing within, just her own heartbeat echoing. Thomm Quackenbush

Reason had no place to crash once Emotion came to town. Thomm Quackenbush

Like the discovery of most things - love and religion especially - she maintained the child's arrogant wonder than no one had understood it before her and, even if they had, they could not embrace it as passionately as she. Thomm Quackenbush

Being certain one is alive isn't something to which one pays mind. If you could ask the question, you were fine. If you could not, hopefully you had a cozy coffin. Thomm Quackenbush

A lonely person on a college campus is never more than a few minutes and a bad decision from company. Thomm Quackenbush

College is a blossoming new world of genital opportunity. Thomm Quackenbush

As long as she persisted in her belief that bafflement justified her actions, she felt confident no one would contradict her. Thomm Quackenbush