Only other people can make you feel real.

— Lauren Beukes

She laughs, and that's really all he wanted.

— Lauren Beukes

She's even been practicing making out with the back of her hand. Which was about as effective as tickling yourself. It's why you needed other fingers, other tongues. Only other people can make you feel real.

— Lauren Beukes

So are you an inmate or a rubbernecker?" she asks." Rubbernecker," I answer without hesitation. "You?"" I'm a screw. Or on staff, anyway. Used to be an inmate. Repeat offender. Crimes against my body. Puking sickness followed by heroin, which led to more puking sickness." I'd be surprised at her forthrightness, but that's addicting for you. The twelve steps crack 'em open, and then they can't shut up.

— Lauren Beukes

The dream knows what they are waiting for, even if they don’t themselves. The end of everything. The moment when it reveals its miracle boy and all the eyes will look, and their seeing will be horror and glory and wonder, and it will pierce the skin of the world, collapse dimensions, and open the doors and the work will breathe and dance in his shoes and the dream will be able to escape.

— Lauren Beukes

The original stories are mined out, and all that’s left is fool’s gold.

— Lauren Beukes

There are patterns because we try to find them. A desperate attempt at order because we can't face the terror that it might all be random.

— Lauren Beukes

They burned this neighborhood down in the early 1900s to prevent the spread of bubonic plague, and it occurs to me that they should consider doing it again, to purge the blight of well-meaning hipsters desperately trying to paint it rainbow

— Lauren Beukes

This is my idea of family, actually, a sticky morass you can't chew your way out of.

— Lauren Beukes

Time heals. Crushes let up. Splinters work their way out. Doesn't mean they don't leave scars that itch.

— Lauren Beukes