Ann Aguirre Quotations

Maybe I was just one of those people who couldn't rest easy unless things went catastrophically wrong.

Yet sometimes being a friend meant letting people do things that hurt, like putting distance between you, just because it made them happy.

Too often, women are portrayed in two ways: as prizes to be won by men or as damsels in distress.

The people I write are real to me, and basically, they tell me about their environments on a need-to-know basis.

Since becoming aware of the need to be inclusive, I've tried to make my stories broader and more representative of our world.

My life experiences are different than the average person because I've spent the last 10 years living in Mexico. I generally don't know what's going on in America, and when I do visit for work, I'm often interrogated about my life choices by random strangers.

I am a woman. I write SF. And it's not acceptable to treat me as anything less than an equal. I won't stand for it.

I remember when I was a kid, I could never find anything positive about chubby girls. If a girl was pudgy in books, she wasn't okay. She couldn't be happy or make friends unless she lost weight.

People are capable of incredible gallantry and terrible cruelty in situations of extreme duress. I tried to showcase that range in 'Enclave.'

People need to believe they can make a difference - that one person standing strong can turn the tide.

My process seems to be unusual in the sense that I don't create worlds before characters. With me, character is king.

He’s worth fighting for, but I won’t change who I am for any man. No more than he should alter himself to suit me.

Dying isn’t like living; it requires no effort at all.

His reply offers infinite solace in a single word. Always.

I admired Stalkers style. He was incredibly fast using two small blades strapped to the backs of his hands. Slash slash slash. Fighting him you wouldn’t die of one great wound but instead bleed out slowly surprised to find yourself weak and dying after a thousand cuts.

I'm Sirantha Jax, and I have had enough.

... Where did you go?” “Down below.” “Ugh,” she said. “I’ve heard they’re little better than animals.” Funny. I thought the same thing about most Topsiders I encountered. Tegan touched my hand in silent sympathy, and I set my jaw. ... I stepped forward and pasted on a false smile. We were in her home, after all. The least I could do was be polite. “I’m Deuce, animal from the underground.

My heart shifted a little in my chest; it seemed to swell and beat against my bones until I couldn't hear.

A curve of silver hung amid the brighter specks; it looked to me like a curved dagger, pretty but deadly, as if it might slice the sky in two.

He went in, lean and deadly, and ended the creature with a lightning-fast spike of his blade. It shrieked, likely altering the rest. The death call carried like a mournful song.

Here in the enclave, one didn't prosper by demonstrating too much independent thought.

He'd said the sun could burn me. It certainly looked angry enough, all orange and glowing mad.

There were different kinds of strength. I knew that now. It didn't always come from a knife or a willingness to fight. Sometimes it came from endurance, where the well ran deep and quiet. Sometimes it came from compassion and forgiveness.

Are you afraid of falling, baby? No, I’m afraid of landing. [He’s laughing, and I’m smiling.] Stupid idiot smile, don’t you know what comes next?

You could miss someone, but it did no good to fixate on loss. I wished I had the ready words of a Breeder or the ability to comfort with a soft touch. I didn't. Instead I had daggers and determination. That would have to do.

Survival feels like cowardice.

I imagine the ones we’ve lost as ghosts who prowl about the edges of the light, waiting for us to join them. Sometimes that’s terrifying, and sometimes it’s reassuring, a promise of homecoming.

I shake my head, but I can’t change this. I can only bear the scars, as I have always done, as I ever do.

I know just how he feels that it’s come to this. Sometimes, love isn’t enough, even when it’s all you have.

She carries chaos like an overcoat.

I always have someplace else I’d rather be, even if I don’t know where that is, yet.

But I miss the woman I was, even as I learn to accept the new creature I’ve become.

Each love is unique. Special. Giving to one never takes away from another.

Right now, I wish I’d stayed because I want you at my side. That sounds pretty selfish, but I don’t mean it that way. You just never needed me that way; I said it to you once as I was leaving—that you love me, but you don’t need me. You don’t lean. But I admire that about you, and I could use some of your strength right now.

For I need this scar over my heart to remind me. Crazy as it sounds, if I can bear the wound on my body, it lessens what I must carry on my soul. How he knew that about me, I cannot fathom.

So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.

. . . and I don’t expect him to suborn his life into mine any more than I would change my dreams for him. We’re not one soul, one being, however much we love each other.

For love to flourish there has to be trust. Promises don’t matter as much as personal choice.

We stood back-to-back, blocking and striking in harmony; sometimes it felt like his arms and legs were an extension of me. I could count on him to keep them off me from behind.

He is not the same person as when we met, but . . . neither am I. Time has refined us, but instead of pushing us apart, we’re closer than ever.

I never belonged anywhere until I met you.

He's never going to sit at my feet and write me poems, which is good because I hate poetry, except dirty ones that rhyme.

Show, not tell, right? Action, not words. You don’t want to hear how sorry I am or how things will be different this time. You want to see it with your own eyes. And until I can show you that, you won’t tell me what I want to hear.

There’s a reason I hate jigsaw puzzles. I don’t have the patience to find all the border pieces, especially when they’re all the same shade of gray.

I don’t like anyone knowing anything about me that I didn’t choose to tell them.

Most people weren’t aware enough to fear the things that could really hurt them.

Sometimes when you meet someone, there’s a click. I don’t believe in love at first sight but I believe in that click. Recognition.

Is that love? It seems like a pale word, too easily tossed about by people who don’t know the meaning of it, who twist it for their own ends. I’m afraid of it now, right up there with clowns, close spaces, and open flames.

You ever have that feeling? Like you’ve known someone your whole life but you don’t know them at all.

He would bear scars because of me, as I carried them for him.

Sometimes broken things heal crooked. The pieces didn’t fit anymore.

Men can be very stupid. We cease to value what we have until it's gone, and only then do we realize the gold we glimpsed in distant hills pales as dross compared to treasure we had in hand.

His face held a certain impassivity; you see it in all waiters and valets. They might want to jam a knife through your left eye socket, but you'd never know it from their expression. Working retail, I've acquired a similar look myself.

Mother Mary of Anabolic Grace, we got Teras incoming?” He levels angry blue eyes on me. “You’re a hex, lady, dark luck, powerful bad juju, ken?” “Only to people who try to kidnap me,” I tell him sweetly, and March snorts, so I feel obliged to add, “Or rescue me…” And then Dina makes a pfft sound. “Or who travel with me…” My gaze sweeps around the darkened interior, trying to find an ally, but nobody will hold my eyes more than two seconds, it seems. “Fine, frag you all, I’m dark juju, bad luck, and you’re all doomed.

As I dive between the legs of a big Gunnar, I see Mair wind up and slam her shockstick hard as she can between the V of another guy’s thighs. Falling, he makes a noise that I can’t say I’ve heard a human utter before, sort of like I imagine a puppy would sound being put through a juicer.

I wanted proof, not promises.

Life…never gave me a chance to be soft.

I’m sick of asking questions everyone else already knows the answers to.

Have you ever watched a child learning to walk? Before this week, I never had, but there's a certain grace to it. Well, if not grace, then tenacity. Fall down nine times--get up ten. And the tenth time you get where you're going, you don't stop, not for obstacles, not for other people telling you to stop. You don't listen to anything but that inner voice until you arrive where you want to be.

After people have gone, you forget their faults, and you recall the ideal more than the person.

We're broken in complementary ways, thus rendering our damage comprehensible to each other.

Now I know there are ways to belong to someone that don’t take anything away. A relationship shouldn’t impose limits—and if it does, then it’s wrong. A lover should help you exceed your potential, not clip your wings.

Just . . . love me, and let tomorrow look after itself.

Nobility and self-sacrifice sound wonderful in theory, but now he’s seen how it feels. A dead hero is still dead at the end of the day, and you’re still alone.

My heart should be breaking, too, but there comes a point when you’re so inured to loss that you no longer feel the lash.

Love can make us do dreadful things.

There are quiet ways to die where the body just doesn’t notice that the heart is gone.

I’m as forgiving as the wall you hit at two hundred kilometers an hour.

No matter how interminable something feels, there is always, always an ending. Sometimes that's good, and sometimes it's bad; sometimes it's a matter of indifference, and sometimes it's heartbreaking, and your life is never the same thereafter.

Sometimes you find your heroes in the unlikeliest places.

Through the damp fabric of my coverall, bundled in my blanket, I feel naked. Raw. He sees more than I want, more than I can bear. It’s like standing before him ... while he stares at my scars, pitiless and unmoved.

I’m not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. I’ve seen a chunk of the universe, true, but there’s still so much more to see. I doubt I’ll ever cure this wanderlust, and I’m content with dedicating my life to failing to sate it... He’s never going to sit at my feet and write me poems, which is good because I hate poetry, except dirty ones that rhyme.

I have had passionate kisses and fierce ones, kisses so sweet they tasted like pure honey and kisses that cut like knives, but until this moment, I’ve never had one that said both hello and good-bye.

But wishes were empty thoughts, cast down a dark hole. They didn't come true unless you worked for them. I'd learned that about the world, if nothing more.

Each time Stalker called you 'dove', I wanted to hit him. Because you're not a little gray bird... you're all the light in the world.

If this is the last time, let me say it so you never forget. I will always love you, Deuce. No matter where souls go, mine will be looking for you, solnyshko moyo." "No. I want a promise instead. Promise you'll fight like you never have, so when the dying stops, you'll be on your feet looking for me here." "I swear.

Did he die well?" No, I thought. Nobody did. They just died.

In the enclave, the strong and the physically perfect survived, but if you were strong, you protected the weak until they had an opportunity to grow into their own power.

Caring too much could be dangerous; I saw that now. But the alternative was no better.

Then in the interest of full honesty, I really wish you'd kiss me right now.

What was the good of having such a fine home if you weren't willing to fight for it?

I couldn't help what I'd done before I learned it was wrong. I could only do better in the future.

Sometimes I could almost hate you because you don't understand how much you mean to me, how dark and empty I was before. Solnyshko moyo.

You can live without me." "I don't want to." I feared a love like this - that made us incomplete without each other. It was beautiful but treacherous, like snow that looked white and pure and lovely from the safety of your window, but when you stepped out to touch the softness, the cold first stole your breath, and then your will to move, until you could just lay down in it and let the numbness take you. yet I didn't want to be without him either, so I didn't chide him for the statement.

With my partner beside me, I fear nothing, not even death.

But courage wasn't an absence of fear; it was fighting despite the knot in your stomach.

Beautiful. And ugly. The world is always both.

People grew lazy. They knew too many blessings, and so lost the ability to appreciate what they had

Because I love you.' It was easy to say it this time now that I understood what it meant. Then I quoted his own words back to him. 'Not just when it's easy. All the time.

Don’t let them see you weak.

Every army has a beginning, no matter how humble.

I sighed. 'It's hard. You're the only one who listens to what I have to say.' Longshot dropped a gentle, comforting arm around my shoulders. 'Then speak louder, girl. Don't let them put out your spark.

I so enjoy it when people assume I'm stupid." "Not that, just very focused on killing.

If so, I couldn't imagine how the opposite gender managed to get out of bed in the morning. They might be lovely to look at, but clear thinking wasn't their strong point.

I found it curious that people kept animals for companionship and not food. When I'd asked Mama Oaks when she planned to cook the fat creature that slept in a basket in the kitchen, her eyes almost popped out of her head. Since then, she'd kept her pet away from me, like she suspected I meant to turn it into stew. Clearly, I had a lot to learn.

My body was a machine, plain and simple. I worked it to stay strong; I fed it to keep it running.

Love sounded terrible if it made you so weak, you couldn't survive with out it.

The whole world is like Whitewall's razors I burst out. It cuts us, and we bleed but there's no purpose to it.

Brown bird welcomes white wave. Wander no more, dear traveler.

This is not a love story. It is my life, and as such, there is love, loss, war, death, and sacrifice. It's about things that needed to be done and choices made. I regret nothing.