Furthermore Quotes
"Soft and bright, rainlight fell through the sky, each drop tearing a neat hole in the season."
"Winter had been steady and predictable, but it was quite poked through now, and spring was peeking out from underneath it."
"Making sense was terribly important to these people who’d built their lives around magic."
"Alice was a young girl and, naturally, she was all the things you’d expect a young girl to be: smart and lively and passionate about any number of critical issues."
"Alice plucked a tulip from her pocket and bit off the top. She felt the petals pressing against her tongue; she could taste the velvet, the magenta of it all."
"Mother was soft and warm, and Mother’s smiles came easily when she looked at Alice."
"Alice always felt Mother was using her for the berries; she knew they were the only medicine that helped Mother’s heart in Father’s absence."
"Father was more than a parent to Alice; he was her friend and confidant."
"Alice had never been able to prove it, but she’d always known that Father was still alive."
"Alice lived in a time before proper maps, before street signs and numbered homes."
"Losing him had unzipped her from top to bottom, and yet, her love for him had solidified her spirit."
"Alice had made the biggest purchase of her life. At the time, her savings were a total of seven finks—just one fink short of a stoppick—and she used them to make an ever-binding promise: For as long as a single lie never left her lips, she could never be fooled by one."
"But no matter. Alice held her own hand, one clenched tightly in the other, and pushed her way through the throng."
"Unfold your heart. Sharpen your ears. And never say no to the world when it asks you to dance."
"The music found her the way it always did, and she let herself lean into it. She met the rhythm in her bones and moved the way she had a hundred times before."
"In her envelope was no card she’d ever seen before. It wasn’t yellow or even white. It was black. A simple rectangle cut from thick, heavy paper."
"Alice’s eyes nearly split in four as she shoved herself through the shop doors and ran for the books in the window."
"Father closed his eyes and smiled at the moon. 'Oh, Alice,' he whispered. 'Unfold your heart. Sharpen your ears. And never say no to the world when it asks you to dance.'"
"She tried to scream but spoke only in bubbles, blinking around at the sea she was drowning in."
"Alice had nothing left to lose and an entire father to find."
"Finally, Alice looked up. Oliver had his arms crossed against his chest, his eyebrows drawn tight and low. His eyes were focused on a piece of bark peeling off a nearby tree."
"Alice wanted to believe Oliver was joking, but she couldn’t suss out the humor in his words."
"Slumber is the entry point into all of Furthermore, and as such, the security measures are severe. Any visitors foolish enough to enter at sunlight are seen and snatched up in an instant."
"Patience, Alice. Best to introduce yourself to patience now, so that it might find you when you call upon it later."
"Well, if you don’t already know what to fear in Furthermore, I can’t imagine you’d want to change that now."
"It looked as though the night sky had tried to snow but the flakes had fallen upside down and gotten stuck."
"Only on special occasions are visitors allowed to eat anything in Furthermore. And this is not one of them."
"People are so preoccupied with making sense despite it being the most uninteresting thing to manufacture."
"In Furthermore, they eat more than just fruits and plants and nuts."
"Despite the many inconsistencies, following rules is very important in Furthermore."
"Time is the only thing in this land that’s actually regulated."
"If you force visitors to make hasty, hurried decisions, they’re bound to make poor choices more quickly, which will more efficiently lead to their demise. But going slowly won’t do, either."
"Loving Father meant loving all of him—his open windows as well as his dusty corners—and she refused to love him less for secrets unknown."
"Part of growing up meant growing tender, and that secrets were sometimes wrapped around tender things to keep them safe."
"Alice had already told so many small lies since arriving in Furthermore that she no longer noticed how easily she slipped into a few more."
"Alice knew this now, and somehow that changed everything."
"In Furthermore you sleep for the dream and eat for the taste."
"Oliver, have you never told Alice what you need her for? Does she not know why she’s here?"
"Breaking your father out of prison is a fine idea, but the problem is no one knows exactly where the prisons are located."
"Time is permitted until it is prohibited, that is, until it has expired."
"The illegal acquisition of Time shall be punishable by The Law of All Lands."
"Alice? Alice," Tim was saying. "Do you understand what you’ve just read?"
"Living off the land gives us our color; it’s the magic we consume that makes us bright."
"Without it—well, I’m sure you know better than anyone the effects of having little magic."
"So Father looks like me, now? He has no color at all?"
"He carries not a single bit of brightness, not in his eyes, not in his cheeks."
"The talent Alice hadn’t shared with anyone. The one she should have surrendered, and had not."
"Alice stood up carefully, collected her pamphlets, her dignity, and her broken heart."
"Alice had neither the maturity nor the self-awareness to wonder at Oliver’s ability to be such a consistently talented liar."
"Alice could change the colors of anything without lifting an eyelid."
"She was sure it was a magic that existed to mock her."
"Alice had no idea she was in danger—how could she?"
"Alice, having no color, was presumed to have no magic, either."
"You’re a blank canvas, Alice. No person is better primed for color than you are."
"Change the way we see. Don’t change the way you are."
"She felt infinitely powerless in the face of Father’s enslavement, but being angry gave her something to do."
"Furthermore has no interest in playing fair. They could snatch us up at any moment, Alice. They could kill us right now if they wanted to."
"Laughter was a silk that would soften even the roughest moments."
"And don’t you think, that what your father wants, more than anything else in the world, is for you to be happy?"
"What is the secret desire of your heart?... Color," she said, her voice catching. "I want color."
"It was impossible to describe her heart’s simultaneous pain and joy; so she was silently grateful she didn’t have to."
"Everyone is always going right, and if so many people are going right, it’s bound to be wrong, I think."
"No one would like me if I didn’t trick them into it."
"The people who love you wouldn’t care if you had giraffe skin."
"Her love for Father made her brave. It made her better."
"I can change the color of anything. The sky," she said. "The sun. The grass and trees and bugs and leaves. Anything I want," she said softly. "I could make day into night and night into day. I could change the color of the air we breathe, of the water we drink."
"Father probably wouldn’t mind," she said. "Father would probably love me no matter anything."
"My talent"—Oliver sighed—"is both a blessing and a burden."
"For a moment Alice even considered turning everything black again—after all, it had worked on the foxes—but they were not on flat land, which made everything more dangerous."
"Maybe they stayed put. Maybe they stayed here and bided their time, played nice with Paramint until they formed a real plan—until Oliver was feeling better and could persuade them to have someone else for dinner."
"Something inside of Alice screamed, but she didn’t say a word."
"Alice scanned the forest floor for options and found little solace in the thousand-foot fall below them."
"Was it possible? Was Ancilly trying to tell her how to escape?"
"They followed Isal deep, deep into the maze of the woods, but walking wasn’t without its challenges."
"Isal looked confused. 'Your companion is wearing my designs,' she said to him. 'And yet you do not know who I am?'"
"Isal managed to be beautiful in entirely her own way."
"Alice and Oliver swallowed their fear and said nothing."
"Alice knew that being different would always be difficult; she knew that there was no magic that would erase narrow-mindedness or iron out the inequities in life. But Alice was also beginning to learn that life was never lived in absolutes."
"Father lifted Alice’s chin and looked her in the eye. 'That’s nothing to be ashamed of. A black card just means you get another try the following year.'"
"Mother threw her arms around her daughter and pulled her tight to her chest and wept, long and loud."
"Love, it turned out, could both hurt and heal."
"Alice stepped backward to let Father step forward, and she wandered off in a daze, her head heavy and swimming with truths newly collected."
"I’m going to redo my Surrender, you know. In the spring. And I’ll finally have a task of my own."