Embassy Row Quotes

Keep your chin up. Eventually, you will meet someone who cares about your opinion. I'm so sorry I'm not her.

Ok," he says. "First lesson." Noah broadens his stance, taking his place firmly on the embassy side of the threshold. "in the United States," he says. Then, with both feet, he leaps on to the sidewalk. "Out of the United States." Quickly, he jumps back toward me. "In the United States." Another jump across the threshold. "Out of the United States. In. Out. In --" "Is this the part where I hit you?

Mom’s Israeli. Dad’s Brazilian. What can I say? I am Embassy Row personified. You really lucked out in the best friend department

I have to smile. He's such a dork. But I'm starting to realize the one good thing that's happened: he's my dork.

The obvious," Noah goes on, a little out of breath, "being that he is probably some super secret assassin or something. And I'm not as tough as I look." "That's OK," I tell him. "I'm way tougher than you look.

Friends help each other when they are...you know...going up international hit men and stuff.

I’m not an idiot! I’m just twelve. I’m a twelve-year-old girl and neither of those facts are my fault.

Congratulations," I tell her with a slight bow. "I hope you and your power trip will be very happy together. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to go.

You’re following me,” I say. “Yes, I am.” “That’s really annoying.” “I’m sure it probably feels that way, yes.” I stop. “I can take care of myself.” Overhead, the gas in the streetlamp surges. It grows brighter, harsher. There are no shadows anywhere as he looks at me. “That’s exactly what worries me.

She really wants to be my friend, I realize, and suddenly I feel very sorry for her. She doesn't know what a terrible thing it is she's asking for.

I've been back less than two weeks, and already I've turned the sweetest girl on Embassy Row into a thief and a conspiracy theorist. Even for me, it is an impressively quick act of corruption.

For the first time I realize how perilous peace can be. I appreciate the tightrope that my grandfather has spent his whole life trying to walk. And now, more than ever, I grow terrified that I'm going to make us all fall down.

No! I need to go home," I say, but then the realization comes: My mother was my home. My mother is dead.

I know not all people with scars are evil,” I snap. “I’m not living in a cartoon.

I've attended seven schools in ten years," I explain. "So you can rest assured I know you. You're the girl who thinks being cruel is the same thing as being witty. You think being loud is the same thing as being right. And, most of all, you're the girl who is very, very pretty. And also very, very...common. trust me. There's at least one of you in every school." I watch her features shift. "Oh. Wait. Did you think you were unique?

He's been looking at me like I've been drinking, and I can't blame him. My dress is ripped and my words slur. I'm not myself, I think, bu then I realize something even scarier: I am exactly myself.

Don't let the glitter fool you." She wiggles her shiny nails in the air, then taps her temple. "I'm up here" "I see that," I say as Noah whispers a very soft, "I love you." "What?" Megan asks. "Nothing," Noah says, then pulls back and walks to the other side of the desk.

You are my best friend. And sometimes I like to check and make sure my friends aren’t dead.

that history almost always repeats itself. And it is almost always written by men.

I'm a man without a country. Or I'm a man with too many countries-you pick. Ultimately, in both global politics and the high school power hierarchy, they amount to the same thing.

Alexei has known me for most of my life. And he still sees me as a child. But t could be worse,I realize. He could see what I turned into.

Power has always corrupted, my dear. Even the promise of power. It is a hard thing to look at through the fence for hundreds of years without wondering what it would be like on the other side.

My life is a never ending conversation of the things that people do not say

Hope is a delicate thing. A dangerous thing.

So you’re a secret society … of librarians?

It's not safe out there," he says, too close to my ear. "Yeah...well..." I look at him. "Maybe it's not safe in here either.

Because that's the thing about hope- you can never kill it yourself.

Not all people with scars are evil.

Some people, after all, don’t care who they yell at as long as they have a reason to keep shouting.

-I'm your girlfriend? - "No." Alexei shakes his head, then pulls me to him again, holds me closer. "There's not a word in either of our language for what you are to me".

I've never heard of it. And, I don't like to brag, but I read a lot. I mean a lot. And most of it is classified. - Megan

No, you misunderstand, Madame Prime Minister. I'm not just good at staying alive. I'm also really, really good at drugging people. - Grace

I know. I'm sorry." And the bizarre part is that I really am. I want to be good, to use the right fork and wear a pretty linen dress to breakfast. I want to be the girl in the pictures upstairs. But I can't be. That girl is dead.

But that's the thing about being the girl who's spent years convincing the world she's not afraid of anything: At some point, someone is going to find out you're afraid of everything.

I was thirteen when I saw my mother die, when I told my story. When I started “having a hard time,” as my grandfather likes to say. Would they have locked me up if I’d been thirty? If I’d been a boy? It’s a question I do not dare to ask.

The only way to silence the cries is by making no sound at all

So are you going to tell me what happened last night?" "You were there. You saw what happened." "No. Last night...that wasn't you." "The last time you saw me I was jumping off the wall, Megan." Megan's gaze burns into me. She isn't backing down. "You were always a daredevil, but you never had a death wish. The girl I knew was always running towards something. Last night...you were running away.

The man is strong. He's huge. But Alexei has something to fight for. And i realise with a start that the something is me. - Grace

And no matter how many people surround you, that is still the loneliest place on earth.

For how easy life must be for him. I wish I were bigger, stronger. Male. I wish I could make people stop worrying about me and my so called frailness.

But guilt isn't smart. It isn't logical. It doesn't only live in the places it belongs.

Every girl thinks about growing up in a palace. Few ever ponder living in a cage.

For the first time he's not looking at me like I'm dangerous. He's looking at me like I'm broken. It's a look I know too well.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., the summer I turned

I can sleep anywhere. Planes. Trains. Sofa. Lawn chairs. Call it the upside to my life as an army brat. Never having a home means, I guess, that everywhere is your home. There is absolutely no place I'm anxious to return to. But this is different. I'm not trying to fall asleep in someplace new; I'm trying to fall asleep in someplace that's old.

Did you see Grace is back with us?" Megan did see me. She saw me jump off a cliff and crawl under an Iranian fence. Megan has seen plenty. And I can't help but hold my breath, waiting on her answer. "Hi," Megan says, turning to me. "Welcome home." Home. The word hits me. I've spent all my life thinking that I didn't have one, but now that I'm back I can't deny that I've spent more my life on Embassy Row than in any other place-that maybe it just wasn't my mother's childhood home. In a way, it's mine, too.

Oh, can I? Because what I want to do is strangle you. I want to tie you up and throw you over my shoulder and jump out of a moving train. I want to take you to the coldest place in Siberia, to the darkest part of the moon. I want to keep you safe, Gracie. So the question is, why are you so determined to stop me?" - Alexei

You want to hear that, right? ? I mean that's what they told you. That's why Jamie is so worried about his crazy kid sister. Because-news flash-she really is crazy." The last part I say softly. They're the words I have been carrying for so long that they have a weight of their own. Physical. I should feel lighter now that I've released them, but there is no relief from the truth.

I don't understand boys.

I smile. I lie.

I've been wrong, and I've been crazy. But this is the first time I've ever truly felt like a fool.

But Alexandra Petrovic did not become the most powerful politician in Adria by taking no for an answer. "You seem to think that I'm asking, Ms Blakely. Which I'm not." I stop and turn. "And you seem to think that you scare me, Ms Petrovic. Which you don't.

Grace, if you have used an iron within the last six months, I will eat that fork," Ms. Chancellor says. "Which one?" I try to tease. "You've got a lot of forks to choose from." "From which to choose, Grace. Do not end your sentences in prepositions, dear." "Of course, I totally see what you're getting at. I mean, at what you're getting.

Are you ashamed of me or ashamed of him?” “Both,

These are the things I never say to anyone anymore. Not because I don’t want to say them — I want to scream them. But these are the things that no one else can bear to hear.

Why are you here?" I demanded, but the PM only smirks again. "You've been a very bad girl, Ms Blakely." I ease closer. "You're under the impression that I care, Ms Petrovic.

Honor is overrated.

I have heard this all before. I have done this all before. I have ignored this all before.

I don't answer. I'm not staging a rebellion here. I stay quiet because I don't want to break down, and I learnt a long time ago that, sometimes, the only way to silence the cries is by making no sound at all.

I'm sure I don't know what you mean.

Beyond the wall, the sea stretches out, dark and vast, and I know why – once upon a time – it would have been easy to think the world was flat.

I have never been one to fall when I can jump.

given enough rope, eventually, I am bound to hang myself.

I am the Girl Who Cried Wolf. And now I am the only one who can save the lambs.

But the woman smiles, unable to hear the things I don't say.

I am my own worst enemy. But if there were to be a second place, it would go to this girl.

We are students of a twelve-year-old ninja. And we have a lot to learn.

Hush, little princess, wait and see. No one's gonna know that you are me.

I don't play any game that I can't win.

They stayed in the Shadows. But shadows are the perfect place from which to watch, to see.

According to my sources," Megan says, which I'm pretty sure is code for I hacked into the police mainframe, but please don't tell my mom...

I find there is a lack of international intrigue at the moment. - Rosie

I ease out my third-story window and drop onto the brick ledge below, but I’m not even a little bit afraid. I should be, I know. If I were normal. If I had good sense. If I were sane.

Five decades on the throne and this is how they treat me, Ms. Blakely. Makes me wish I'd been a teacher." His voice drops. He almost sounds a little wistful. "I would have liked to have been a teacher.

The sun is at the horizon now, and the sky streaks with reds and golds. The whole world seems to be wearing a halo, and for a second I let myself savor it. I let myself believe. Alexei's arm is warm around my shoulder and a cool breeze blows in off the sea. Between us, we speak seven different languages, but not a one of us says a word. We sit in silence as the sun sets, marking the end of this day. Marking the beginning of everything else.

The boy doesn’t wink, but he gives me the kind of smile that goes with one.

My breath is coming too hard. I want to cry. To scream. To die.

mostly it makes me want to pull Lila out of Alexei’s arms and toss her in the pool. I

I’m the solution to a two-hundred-year-old

I believe it has an entire staff of seamstresses and tailors. We can have anything altered—anything at all. It’s really no—

But what's going to haunt me more in the future- memories or regrets? I honestly do not know.

Put this on." "That's a duffel bag." "OK. Then put something else on. But that's a really nice bag. It would really bring out your- personality.

This is her world. Her domain. Politics and intricate back-alley deals, trade alliances formed over champagne and shrimp cocktail.

Cakes are done. People are finished,

Of course I believe in ghosts. I just don't think they'd waste their time haunting an Island where no one ever goes.

What was her idea?" I ask, my voice like ice. "For Amelia's heir to marry the prince. Your mother was the one who first thought of this solution... The only problem is... well... we got the heir wrong.

I know there are other couples around us, but they feel like distant blurs. Only Alexei is solid and sure. Between my tight dress and aching feet and swirling head, he may be the only thing keeping me steady.

And all around me, there are people. Beautiful people. Awkward people. People who are so engrossed with the person beside them that I highly doubt they even remember where they are. People who want to be anywhere but here.

And, most of all, these women remembered what their mothers and grandmothers had learned from the Romans, the Byzantines, the Turks, and the Mongols: that history almost always repeats itself. And it is almost always written by men.

I know there's no use in looking back. It's started now. And looking back won't do anything but make me turn to salt. I blame my new designer shoes for the fact that my footsteps are unsteady. I blame the fact that I can't breathe on the blue dress's tiny waste.

There was a time that [my mother's death] would have made me cry, but that's the good thing about being dead inside, I guess. Dead people don't feel pain.

Karina!” I yell,

I get it, even if Jamie can't put it into words. There are some books you can never get rid of, even if you don't like the ending.

I shouldn't be alive

I can't help but stare at his swollen eye and bruised jaw. He looks like the god of war, damaged and scarred, but still standing. I'm not thinking as I reach up and gently run a finger across his battered face.

Is that permanent?" I ask, reaching out to touch her new pink hair before she slaps my hand away. "I'm trying something new," she says, undaunted. She points to Barbie's Dream House and says, "We enter through the sky-light in the master bedroom. Here." Rosie points to the Barbie jeep and says, "Where are we going to get our mobile observation unit?" "Noah's going to borrow his mom's van," Megan says. Rosie nods, but Noah just says, "I am?" "You are," Megan says.

Noah is grinning at me, teasing, mocking just a little. He doesn't know that he should hate me. Fear me. Pity me. I should like him for that, but in the end I can't respect anyone who could be foolish enough to be sucked into all of my lies,

Noah is grinning at me, teasing, mocking just a little. He doesn't know that he should hate me. Fear me. Pity me. I should like him for that, but in the end I can't respect anyone who could be foolish enough to be sucked into all of my lies.

Ten minutes later, Charlie eased their black Buick Skylark onto Ferdowsi Avenue, dubbed “Embassy Row” by local diplomats. Were other Western missions under siege, he wondered, or just his own? The boulevard was as congested as ever, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. No protests. No demonstrations. No presidents or prime ministers being burned in effigy here, even though hideous mock-ups of President Carter were being torched just a few blocks away. It was odd. They were so close to the student mob, but here he could detect no hostilities of any kind. Still, Charlie could tell Claire was getting anxious. If they were going to get out of this city, they needed to do it quickly. “Where will we go?” she asked her husband. “I’m not sure,” Charlie conceded. “Even if we could make it to the airport, they’d never let us out of the country. Especially not with U.S. diplomatic passports.