Czerny Quotes

Depending on where you began the story, it was about Noah Czerny.

Noah crouched over Gansey's body. He said, for the last time, 'You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.' Gansey died. 'Goodbye,' Noah said. 'Don't throw it away.' He quietly slid from time.

It was not just a touch, an action. It was a simplification of both of them: They were no longer Noah Czerny and Blue Sargent. They were now just him and her. Not even that. They were only the time that they held between them.

Adam's response was buried in the sound of the first-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window!" Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead!

He mumbled, "I'd ask you out, if I was alive." "I'd say OK," she replied.

Adam thinks he saw an apparition at his place." Ronan eyed Noah. "I'm seeing an apparition right now." Noah made a rude gesture [...].

Noah had wandered down the aisle, but now he gleefully returned with a snow globe. He stood behind Ronan until he pushed off the shelf to admire the atrocity. "Glitter," whispered Noah reverentially, giving it a shake.

As Gansey led the way out, Noah said to Ronan, “I know why you’re mad.” Ronan sneered at him, but his pulse heaved. “Tell me then, prophet.” Noah said, “It’s not my job to tell other people’s secrets.

He said, “I know somebody you could kiss.” “Who?” She realized his eyes were amused. “Oh, wait.” He shrugged. He was maybe the only person Blue knew who could preserve the integrity of a shrug while lying down. “It’s not like you’re going to kill me. I mean, if you were curious.” She hadn’t thought she was curious. It hadn’t been an option, after all. Not being able to kiss someone was a lot like being poor. She tried not to dwell on the things she couldn’t have. But now— “Okay,” she said. “What?” “I said okay.” He blushed. Or rather, because he was dead, he became normal colored. “Uh.” He propped himself on an elbow. “Well.” She unburied her face from the pillow. “Just, like—” He leaned toward her. Blue felt a thrill for a half a second. No, more like a quarter second. Because after that she felt the too-firm pucker of his tense lips. His mouth mashed her lips until it met teeth. The entire thing was at once slimy and ticklish and hilarious. They both gasped an embarrassed laugh. Noah said, “Bah!” Blue considered wiping her mouth, but felt that would be rude. It was all fairly underwhelming. She said, “Well.” “Wait,” Noah replied, “waitwaitwait.” He pulled one of Blue’s hairs out of his mouth. “I wasn’t ready.” He shook out his hands as if Blue’s lips were a sporting event and cramping was a very real possibility. “Go,” Blue said. This time they only got within a breath of each other’s lips when they both began to laugh. She closed the distance and was rewarded with another kiss that felt a lot like kissing a dishwasher. “I’m doing something wrong?” she suggested. “Sometimes it’s better with tongue,” he replied dubiously. They regarded each other. Blue squinted, “Are you sure you’ve done this before?” “Hey!” he protested. “It’s weird for me, ‘cause it’s you.” “Well, it’s weird for me because it’s you.” “We can stop.” “Maybe we should.” Noah pushed himself up farther on his elbow and gazed at the ceiling vaguely. Finally, he dropped his eyes back to her. “You’ve seen, like, movies. Of kisses, right? Your lips need to be, like, wanting to be kissed.” Blue touched her mouth. “What are they doing now?” “Like, bracing themselves.” She pursed and unpursed her lips. She saw his point. “So imagine one of those,” Noah suggested. She sighed and sifted through her memories until she found one that would do. It wasn’t a movie kiss, however. It was the kiss the dreaming tree had showed her in Cabeswater. Her first and only kiss with Gansey, right before he died. She thought about his nice mouth when he smiled. About his pleasant eyes when he laughed. She closed her eyes. Placing an elbow on the other side of her head, Noah leaned close and kissed her once more. This time, it was more of a thought than a feeling, a soft heat that began at her mouth and unfurled through the rest of her. One of his cold hands slid behind her neck and he kissed her again, lips parted. It was not just a touch, an action. It was a simplification of both of them: They were no longer Noah Czerny and Blue Sargent. They were now just him and her. Not even that. They were only the time that they held between them.

Noah Czerny had died. This was all that was left. That was the truth. Blue’s body was a riot of shivers. She had kissed this. This thin, cold memory of a human.

MURDERED The writing continued until the driver's side glass was clear, entirely swept clean by an invisible finger, until there were so many words that none of them could be read. Until it was only a window into an empty car with the memory of a burger on the passenger seat. 'Noah,' Gansey said, 'I'm so sorry.' Blue wiped away a tear. 'Me too.' Stepping forward, leaning over the hood of the car, Ronan pressed his fingers to the windshield, and while they watched, he wrote: REMEMBERED.

I want you to know,” Noah said, pressing the carved bone against his Adam’s apple, hard, as if it would squeeze the words from him, “I was … more … when I was alive.

What's happening here?" This last bit was hissed to Ronan and Noah. "Noah took a personal day." "I lost..." Noah struggled for words. "There wasn't air. It went away. The - the line!" "The ley line?" Gansey asked. Noah nodded once, a sloppy thing that was sort of a shrug at the same time. "There was nothing ... left for me." Releasing Ronan, he shook out his hands. "You're welcome, man," Ronan snarled. He still couldn't feel his toes. "Thanks. I didn't mean to ... you were there. Oh, the glitter." "Yes," Ronan replied crossly. "The glitter.

When he turned his head she saw him swallow. He mumbled, 'I'd ask you out, if I was alive.' Nothing was fair. 'I'd say okay,' she replied. She only had time to see him smile faintly. And then he was gone. She rolled back in the middle of the suddenly empty bed. Above her, the rafters glowed with the summer sun. Blue touched her mouth. It felt the same way as it always did. Not at all like she has just gotten her first and last kiss.

I want you to know," Noah said, pressing the carved bone against his Adam's apple, hard, as if it would squeeze the words from him, "I was...

Oh,” said Blue. It was hollow eyes dead and teeth-bared lips and soul threaded through naked bones. It had not been alive for years. It was impossible to not see how decayed the soul was, how removed from humanity, how stretched thin from time away from a pulse. Noah Czerny had died. This was all that was left. That was the truth. Blue’s body was a riot of shivers. She had kissed this. This thin, cold memory of a human.

-Hej! - ryczał Yarpen Zigrin siedzący na koźle, wskazując na Yennefer. - Coś się tam czerni na szlaku! Ciekawe, co to? Wygląda jak kobyła! - Bez ochyby! - odwrzasnął Jaskier, odsuwając na tył głowy śliwkowy kapelusik. - To kobyła! Wierzchem na wałachu! Niebywałe!

The voice came first, then the chill across her skin. A moment later, Noah Czerny joined her, dressed as always in his navy Aglionby sweater. Joined was perhaps the wrong verb. Manifested was better. The phrase trick of the light was even more superior. Trick of the mind was the best. Because it was rare that Blue noticed the moment Noah actually appeared. It wasn’t that he gently resolved into being. It was that somehow her brain rewrote the minute before to pretend that Noah had been slouching beside her all along.

Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven.

Hi, I’m Adele Czerny. I don’t really have a long speech. I mean, I sat through these things when I was your age, and they’re boring. I’m just going to say a few things about Noah and Raven Day. Did any of you guys know him?” In unison, Gansey and Adam started to lift their hands and just as quickly dropped them. Yes, they knew him. No, they had not known him. Noah, alive, had been before their time here. Noah, dead, was a phenomenon, not an acquaintance. “Well, you were missing out,” she said. “My mom always said he was a firecracker, which just meant he was always getting speeding tickets and jumping on tables at family reunions and stuff. He always had so many ideas. He was so hyper.” Adam and Gansey looked at each other. They had always had the sense that the Noah they knew was not the true Noah. It was just disconcerting to hear how much Noahness death had stripped. It was impossible to not wonder what Noah would have done with himself if he had lived. “Anyway, I’m here because I was actually the first one he told about his idea for Raven Day. He called me one evening, I guess it would’ve been when he was fourteen, and he told me he’d had this dream about ravens fighting and battling. He said they were all different colours and sizes and shapes, and he was inside them, and they were, like, swirling around him.” She motioned around herself in a whirlwind; she had Noah’s hands, Noah’s elbows. “And he told me, ‘I think it would be a cool art project.’ And I told him, ‘I’ll bet if everybody at the school made one, I bet you’d have enough.’ ” Gansey was aware that his arm hairs were standing up. “So they’re swooping and careening and there’s nothing but ravens, nothing but dreams all around you,” Adele said, only Gansey wasn’t sure if she had actually said it, or if he’d heard her wrong and he was just half-remembering something she’d already said. “Anyway, I know he’d like what it is like nowadays. So, um, thanks for remembering one of his crazy dreams.

I can´t remember when I stopped being alive

They were no longer Noah Czerny and Blue Sargent. They were now just him and her. Not even that. They were only the time that they held between them.

Można oskarżyć człowieka o tchórzostwo, jeśli ucieka przed wszelkiego rodzaju fizycznymi zagrożeniami. Ale gdy już nie tylko jego bezpieczeństwu i dobremu samopoczuciu, ale wręcz jego zdrowiu i jego najtajniejszemu jestestwu zaczynają zagrażać zjawiska nadprzyrodzone, bezcielesne i niewytłumaczalne, wtedy odwrót jest oznaką nie słabości, ale tego, że wybrał rozsądną linię postępowania.

New York was home for Czerny, the same way Chicago was home for me. You don’t really know how attached you are until you move away, until you’ve experienced what it means to be dislodged, a cork floating on the ocean of another place.

(...) człowiek nie może pozostawać bez końca w stanie wielkiego przerażenia. Albo emocje rosną do tego stopnia, ze pod naciskiem coraz okropniejszych wypadków i skojarzeń ono ogarnia go tak bardzo, że ucieka bądź popada w szaleństwo. Lu też wewnętrzne poruszenie zacznie go stopniowo opuszczać, ustępując miejsca rosnącemu opanowaniu.

I want you to know," Noah said, pressing the carved bone against his Adam's apple, hard, as if it would squeeze the words from him, "I was...more...when I was alive." Adam chewed his lip, looking for a response. Blue thought she knew what he meant, though. Noah's resemblance to the crookedly smiling photo on the driver's license Gansey had discovered was akin to a photocopy's resemblance to an original painting. She couldn't imagine the Noah she knew driving that tricked-out Mustang. "You're enough now," Blue said. "I missed you.

Adam hadn't even realized the ancient tape deck worked, but after a hissing few seconds, a tape inside jangled a tun. Noah began to sing along at once. "Squash one, squash two--" Adam pawed for the radio at the same time as Blue. The tape ejected with enough force that Noah stretched a hand to catch it. "That song. What are you doing with that in your player?" demanded Blue. "Do you listen to that recreationally? How did that song escape from the internet?" Noah cackled and showed them the cassette. It boasted a handmade label marked with Ronan's handwriting: Parrish's Hondayota Alone Time. The other side was A Shitbox Singalong. "Play it! Play it!" Noah said gaily, waving the tape. "Noah. Noah! Take that away from him," Adam said.

The important parts of my story, I was realizing, lay less in the surface value of my accomplishments and more in what undergirded them—the many small ways I’d been buttressed over the years, and the people who’d helped build my confidence over time. I remembered them all, every person who’d ever waved me forward, doing his or her best to inoculate me against the slights and indignities I was certain to encounter in the places I was headed—all those environments built primarily for and by people who were neither black nor female. I thought of my great-aunt Robbie and her exacting piano standards, how she’d taught me to lift my chin and play my heart out on a baby grand even if all I’d ever known was an upright with broken keys. I thought of my father, who showed me how to box and throw a football, same as Craig. There were Mr. Martinez and Mr. Bennett, my teachers at Bryn Mawr, who never dismissed my opinions. There was my mom, my staunchest support, whose vigilance had saved me from languishing in a dreary second-grade classroom. At Princeton, I’d had Czerny Brasuell, who encouraged me and fed my intellect in new ways. And as a young professional, I’d had, among others, Susan Sher and Valerie Jarrett—still good friends and colleagues many years later—who showed me what it looked like to be a working mother and consistently opened doors for me, certain I had something to offer. These were people who mostly didn’t know one another and would never have occasion to meet, many of whom I’d fallen out of touch with myself. But for me, they formed a meaningful constellation. These were my boosters, my believers, my own personal gospel choir, singing, Yes, kid, you got this! all the way through. I’d never forgotten it. I’d tried, even as a junior lawyer, to pay it forward, encouraging curiosity when I saw it, drawing younger people into important conversations.

He didn't always remember why he was doing this, but he remembered what he was doing: looking for the first time Gansey had died. He couldn't remember the first time he'd made this choice. It was hard, now, to remember what was remembering and what was actually repeating. He wasn't even certain now which he was doing. Noah just knew he had to keep doing it until the moment. He only had to stay solid long enough to make sure it stuck. Here he was: Gansey, so young, twitching and dying in the leaves of a wood at the same time that Noah, miles away, had been twitching and dying in the leaves of a different wood. All times were the same. As soon as Noah died, his spirit, full of the ley line, favored by Cabeswater, had felt spread over every moment he had experienced and was going to experience. It was easy to look wise when time was a circle. Noah crouched over Gansey's body. He said, for the last time, "You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not." Gansey died. "Good-bye," Noah said. "Don't throw it away." He quietly slid from time.

Ronan's bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey had first met him. "Is Noah out here?" "Hold on," Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: "Why would he be?" "No reason. Just no reason." Ronan slammed his door. Adam's response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window!" Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead!

Ronan’s bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey had first met him. “Is Noah out here?” “Hold on,” Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: “Why would he be?” “No reason. Just no reason.” Ronan slammed his door. Gansey asked Adam, “Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?” Adam’s response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!” Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!

up with work I found meaningful. As a young person, I’d explored exactly nothing. Barack’s maturity, I realized, came in part from the years he’d logged as a community organizer and even, prior to that, a decidedly unfulfilling year he’d spent as a researcher at a Manhattan business consulting firm immediately after college. He’d tried out some things, gotten to know all sorts of people, and learned his own priorities along the way. I, meanwhile, had been so afraid of floundering, so eager for respectability and a way to pay the bills, that I’d marched myself unthinkingly into the law. In the span of a year, I’d gained Barack and lost Suzanne, and the power of those two things together had left me spinning. Suzanne’s sudden death had awakened me to the idea that I wanted more joy and meaning in my life. I couldn’t continue to live with my own complacency. I both credited and blamed Barack for the confusion. “If there were not a man in my life constantly questioning me about what drives me and what pains me,” I wrote in my journal, “would I be doing it on my own?” I mused about what I might do, what skills I might possibly have. Could I be a teacher? A college administrator? Could I run some sort of after-school program, a professionalized version of what I’d done for Czerny at Princeton? I was interested in possibly working for a foundation or a nonprofit. I was interested in helping underprivileged kids. I wondered if I could find a job that engaged my mind and still left me enough time to do volunteer work, or appreciate art, or have children. I wanted a life, basically. I wanted to feel whole. I made a list of issues that interested me: education, teen pregnancy, black self-esteem. A more virtuous

An old man wearing a red seed cap was saying, "Little lady, one day you'll remember the days people told you that you had nice legs as a good memory." Adam braced for the explosion. It was nails and dynamite. "Good--memory? Oh, I wish I were as ignorant as you! What happiness! There are girls who kill themselves over negative body image and you--" "Is there a problem here?" Adam broke in. The man seemed relieved. People were always pleased to see clean, muted Adam, the deferential Southern voice of reason. "Your girlfriend's quite a firecracker." Adam stared at the man. Blue stared at Adam. He wanted to tell her it wasn't worth it--that he'd grown up with this sort of man and knew they were untrainable--but then she'd throw the thermos at Adam's head and probably slap the guy in the mouth. It was amazing that she and Ronan didn't get along better, because they were different brands of the same impossible stuff. "Sir," Adam started--Blue's eyebrows spiked--"I think maybe your mama didn't teach you how to talk to women." The old man shook his head at Adam, like in pity. Adam added, "And she's not my girlfriend." Blue flashed him a brilliant look of approval, and then she got into the car with a dramatic door slam Ronan would have approved of. "Look, kid," the old man started. Adam interrupted, "Your fuel door's open, by the way." He climbed back into his little, shitty car, the one Ronan called the Hondayota. He felt heroic for no good reason. Blue simmered righteously as they pulled out of the station. For a few moments, there was nothing but the labored sounds of the little car's breathing. Then Noah said, "You do have nice legs, though." Blue swung at him. A helpless laugh escaped Adam, and she hit his shoulder too.

Placing an elbow on the other side of her head, Noah leaned close and kissed her once more. This time, it was more of a thought than a feeling, a soft heat that began at her mouth and unfurled through the rest of her. One of his cold hands slid behind her neck and he kissed her again, lips parted. It was not just a touch, an action. It was the simplification of both of them: They were no longer Noah Czerny and Blue Sargent. They were now just him and her. Not even that. They were only the time that they held between them.

She let him kiss her, and kissed him back until he pulled back on an elbow and clumsily wiped away some of her tears with the heel of his fist. His smudge had gotten very dark, and he was cold enough that she shivered. Blue gave him a watery smile. "That was super nice." He shrugged, eyes doleful, shoulders curled in on themselves. He was fading. It wasn't that she could see through him. It was that it was hard to remember what he looked like, even while she was looking at him. When he turned his head, she saw him swallow. He mumbled, "I'd ask you out, if I was alive." Nothing was fair. "I'd say okay," she replied. She only had time to see him smile faintly. And then he was gone. She rolled onto her back in the middle of the suddenly empty bed. Above her, the rafters glowed with the summer sun. Blue touched her mouth. It felt the same as it always did. Not at all like she had just gotten her first and last kiss.

I can't believe you didn't tell us," muttered Noah. "We could have gone for gelato." Noah couldn't eat, but he liked the gelato parlor in town for reasons that escaped Blue.

After a long pause, Blue said, in a different voice, "I'm going to go sing myself to sleep. See you tomorrow. If you want company." The phone went quiet. It was never enough, but it was something. Gansey opened his eyes. Noah sat against the doorjamb of the kitchen-bathroom-laundry. When Gansey thought about it, he thought that possibly he had been sitting there for a long time. There was nothing inherently guilty about the moment except that Gansey burned with guilt and thrill and desire and the nebulous feeling of being truly known. It was on the inside of him, and the inside was all Noah ever really paid attention to. The other boy wore a knowing expression. "Don't tell the others," Gansey said. "I'm dead," Noah replied. "Not stupid.

Adam hadn't even realized the ancient tape deck worked, but after a hissing few seconds, a tape inside jangled a tune. Noah began to sing along at once. "Squash one, squash two--" Adam pawed for the radio at the same time as Blue. The tape ejected with enough force that Noah stretched a hand to catch it. "That song. What are you doing with that in your player?" demanded Blue. "Do you listen to that recreationally? How did that song escape from the internet?" Noah cackled and showed them the cassette. It boasted a handmade label marked with Ronan's handwriting: Parrish's Hondayota Alone Time. The other side was A Shitbox Singalong. "Play it! Play it!" Noah said gaily, waving the tape. "Noah. Noah! Take that away from him," Adam said.

Then Whelk’s mother had called and told Whelk that his father had been arrested for unethical business practices and income tax evasion. It turned out the company had been trading with war criminals, a fact his mother knew and Whelk had guessed, and the FBI had been watching for years. Overnight, the Whelks lost everything. It was in the papers the next day, the catastrophic crash of the Whelk family fortune. Both of Whelk’s girlfriends left him. Well, the second one was technically Czerny’s, so perhaps that didn’t count.

He also became better acquainted with Czerny, who invited him to his house to play some music for two pianofortes. “He is a good fellow, but nothing more,” Chopin remarked of the renowned pedagogue. And he added the revealing comment, “There is more feeling in Czerny himself than in all his compositions.

But my hesitancy only triggered something in Czerny that I will forever associate with New Yorkers—an instinctive and immediate push back against thinking small.