Agent Jones held Singing’s face in his hands. “I’m going to make balloon animals. People need balloon animals.”“How right you are, strange delusional man,” Singing said.

— Libba Bray

Agent Jones switched to the big screen and a grainy video of Memo sitting at his enormous desk, a swivel-hipped Elvis clock ticking behind his bewigged head. 'Death to the capitalist pigs! Death to your cinnamon bun-smelling malls! Death to your power walking and automatic car windows, and I'm With Stupid T-shirts! The Republic of Cha-cha will never bend to your side-of-fries -drive -through-please-oh-would-you-like-ketchup-with-that corruption! Memo B. Cha-cha defies you and all you stand for, and one day, you will crumble into the sea, and we will pick up the pieces and make them into sand art.

— Libba Bray

Ain't that a sight? With all the things we know and learn, we still ain't touched the big mysteries -- where we come from, where we go next, why we even her. And when something truly miraculous happens, we run and hide in our caves. We deny.

— Libba Bray

A man bumps me on his busy way without so much as an apology. But that is all right. I forgive you, busy man about town with the sharp elbows. Hail and farewell to you! For I, Gemma Doyle, am to have a splendid Christmas in London town. All shall be well. God rest us merry gentlemen. And gentlewomen.

— Libba Bray

America had invented itself. It continued to invent itself as it went along. Sometimes its virtues made it the envy of the world. Sometimes it betrayed the very heart of its ideals. Sometimes the people dispensed with what was difficult or inconvenient to acknowledge. So the good people maintained the illusion of democracy and wrote another hymn to America. They sang loud enough to drown out dissent. They sang loud enough to overpower their own doubts. There were no plaques to commemorate mistakes. But the past didn’t forget. History was haunted by the ghosts of buried crimes, which required period exorcisms of truth. Actions had consequences.

— Libba Bray

And now if you'll excuse me, I should like to finish my book, alone, without the presence of a single ringleted girl to disrupt me. If you should come for me at dinner and find me in my chair, gone to the angels at last, you shall know that I died alone, which is to say in a state of utter bliss.

— Libba Bray

And please, stay away from those books you devour. They are putting the most fantastical tales into your head.

— Libba Bray

And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. Furthermore, one moment at a time.

— Libba Bray

And when it comes, her kiss is like something not so much felt as found.

— Libba Bray

Any good world would allow for us to have free will, yes?" he continued. "Can we agree to this point? But once human beings have free will, they also have the ability to make choices - and commit evil. Thus, this very good thing, free will, allows the possibility of evil into our fine world.

— Libba Bray