My Mechanical Romance Quotes
"Like most people, there are things I love in life—cheese, being right, the beautiful rarity of a well-timed clapback—and things I don’t."
"The top of that second list? Team sports, being asked what I’m doing with my life, and the faint but harrowing sensation that something critical may have slipped my mind."
"Like all girls who get told they talk like a grown-up from age six, Jamie Howard wants to be a lawyer."
"If you get a zero, that will reflect very poorly on me!"
"You have a mind that works, and works well. So use it."
"Everyone at this school has plans, and then they want me to have plans, and I’m just so overwhelmed by their good intentions that I constantly feel the need to lie down for a solid five minutes before trying again."
"It’s Friday after four p.m. and we’re still in school. Literally anywhere would be better than here."
"You didn’t see them in the hallway?" asks Neelam, using the special voice she reserves for when she thinks someone’s being an idiot. Usually me.
"Hi, everyone!" Lora says, smiling so brightly that several of the candidates visibly relax.
"Not to completely fail at words, but, like, bad."
"If you come to the den of vice, do as the serpents do."
"You know diet sodas are really bad for you," he says with a shrug, which I think is an attempt at...humility? Or he’s teasing me.
"When it’s just me and the thing I really want, the whole world goes quiet."
"Not a lot of people can carry the whole game on their backs, but I can."
"If you want something to be strong, it has to come from a strong foundation."
"The truth is she’s right. I have been kind of a dick to her, and it is because she saw problems with my design, but it’s not about her, not really. It’s just hard to see flaws in something you worked so hard on."
"I like being busy. I like being in charge. I like that people trust me with things—so yeah, it’s kind of driving me crazy that Bel doesn’t."
"You’re going to have it different than I did, kiddo. You’re Mateo Luna’s son. People expect things from you."
"There’s something interesting about most things, I think."
"Sometimes it’s really hard. Trying all the time—trying not to screw up—just makes me feel so tired."
"The only time I really like who I am is when I’m trying to make something work."
"It’s something you built, Bel, and you’re allowed to be proud of that."
"You’re more than good enough. You just have to figure a few more things out, and then we can really do something great. I promise."
"I’m right, but because I didn’t run it past them earlier, they’re all getting a free pass to ignore me."
"It wasn’t unanimous. Nor should it have been. If theirs hadn’t—"
"You know what you’re doing. You won us the last round. You’ll win again."
"You’re in mourning. Our bot died. It was sad and it was gruesome. It wasn’t pretty."
"But in fairness, I told you it wasn’t going to work."
"We need a new Dante for Nationals. Build it with me."
"Obviously there’s nothing we can do about Luke. He’s insisting on throwing away his future—"
"I’m trying to tell you that Luke’s clearly a lost cause, but you’re not."
"I just want you to know that you have one brother you can count on, Bel."
"The pressure to belong to one or the other—plus the idea that my dad thinks he and I are perfectly fine, and the fact that my mom is working so hard for me—leaves me hurling myself out the door."
"I think maybe he’ll like me when I’m an adult."
"My college application doc still has one line at the top: I don’t know what I want or why I want it."
"You don’t have to take my word for it—you don’t have to bank the rest of your life on it—but you should try."
"I’m supposed to go to Dartmouth like Gabe instead of doing nothing with myself like Luke, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do."
"And the sky erupts in an explosion of powder, all the colors soaring up to the sun and falling back down in an embrace of laughter, love, and light."
"By afternoon we’re exhausted and full of falafel fries and vegan curry."
"It’s like everything we’ve ever learned about force in physics, about materials that connect, about strong bonds and magnetic ones, about gravity and mystery."
"I’m in this," I promise him, feeling absolutely neon-bright.
"It’s not like we didn’t already know. You two are about as subtle as a brick through a window."
"Harmonic motion," I echo, opening my book to a random page. "It’s very...harmonious."
"You don’t have to make the world perfect just so people will love you."
"I think I’m just sad that things are ending."
"You’re the brightest kid I’ve ever taught, bar none."
"Get ready for I just don’t like her or she’s not likable."
"I like myself most when I’m with him, but that’s exactly the problem."
"If I’m still not enough with him—me, truly me, the MIT reject whose parents will never have a mansion, not ever, even if they work sixty hours a week until they die—then I’ll never be enough without him."
"Like with all breakups, it’s really, really hard at first, and then eventually it gets easier."
"Everything good with you? She just wants us to be happy."
"It’s not like anyone expects you to do anything cool, like, ever. But if it makes you happy, then that’s something we should be part of."
"But the truth is that even though it gets a little easier every day, it still really, really hurts."
"We built those bots together, and it shouldn’t have taken twenty-four hours of continuous vomiting for me to realize how much I trust them—all of them."
"You get ten minutes, Maier. Then you’re checking in with one of the chaperones outside."
"Life is long, with plenty of chances to start over."