Night Of Cake And Puppets Quotes

Life doesnt need magic to be magical.

I will do just as you wish,' said no cat ever.

Which is what one always hopes will happen: for life to take over and be bigger and more marvelous than what we can dream up on our own. Life doesn’t need magic to be magical. (But a little bit sure doesn't hurt.)

What a lovely display of personhood. He's like a good book cover that grabs your gaze. Read me. I'm fun but smart. You won't be able to put me down.

I want to touch with my mouth. His mouth, with my mouth. Maybe his neck, too. But first things first: Make him aware I exist. It’s possible that he is already aware, if only in a ‘don't step on the small girl’ kind of way.

I start to wonder if I’m being creepy. I mean, I am creeping. Does creep-ing automatically make one creep-y? Or are there dispensations for…romance? I bet all stalkers believe they’re being romantic. I did it for love, officer.

It’s like losing gravity and falling into space – the moment of pitching headlong when the endlessness of space asserts itself and there is no more down, only an eternity of up, and you realize you can fall forever and never run out of stars.

It’s not stalking if you don't follow them home, right?

His eyes are blue, and blue eyes up close are a celestial phenomenon: nebulae as seen through telescopes, the light of unnamed stars diffused through dusts and elements and endlessness. Layers of light. Blue eyes are starlight.

There are boys you look at and want to touch with your mouth, and there are boys you look at and want to wear one of those surgical masks everyone in China had during bird flu. There are a lot more bird-flu boys at large.

I want to build spires in their minds and dance shadows through like marionettes, chased by whispers and hints of the unspeakable.

... and holy hell the chocolate is so intense and pure it should be named an element and given a spot on the periodic table. It would be Ch, which isn't even taken.

I have not yet elected to bestow the grace of my saliva upon another human being. I have never… kissed anyone.

Let me tell you something about me. I love vengeance like normal people love sunsets and long walks on the beach. I eat vengeance with a spoon like it's honey. In fact, I may not even be a real person, but just a vow of vengeance made flesh.

It's like all my life I've been this tower standing at the edge of the ocean for some obscure purpose, and only now, almost eighteen years in, has someone thought to flip the switch that reveals that I'm not a tower at all. I'm a lighthouse. It's like waking up. I am incandescent.

I don’t believe in prayer, but I do believe in magic, and I want to believe in miracles.

So here we are, talking about Roman unicycles and alien sandwiches and my sister’s Italian misfortunes, while hanging in between us is: MY EPIC FAILURE TO CARPE. What’s wrong with me?

What's my problem? I have so many, but violent tendencies and probable demonic origins are the ones that should concern you.

Music. Close your eyes and it's a rosebush blooming in time lapse so that it shoots and blossoms flow outward in a swift choreography of growth and collapse, twine and coil, release and fade. Close your eyes and music paints light vines and calligraphy on the darkness within you.

My phone buzzes. It’s from Karou: a list of conversation openers that I won’t be needing. —a) Hi. I’m Zuzana. I’m actually a marionette brought to life by the Blue Fairy, and the only way I can gain a soul is if a human falls in love with me. Help a puppet out? —b) Hi. I’m Zuzana. The touch of my lips imparts immortality. Just sayin’. —c) Hi. I’m Zuzana. I think I might like you.

EVERYTHING IS A MIRACLE. IT IS A MIRACLE THAT ONE DOES NOT MELT IN ONE’S BATH. —PICASSO

I have never in my life typed a heart symbol. Those are for milquetoast girls. Karou will probably think my phone’s been stolen – or possibly my body, by a lovelorn alien. I send the text anyway. This is what comes back: …who is this??

And there's no better way to thaw a face, as it turns out, than with another face.

Me & Mik. I've never been part of an ampersand before.

I’m not looking for fate. I’m seventeen. I’m looking for kissing, and to move forward a few paces on the game board. You know, do some Living. (With my lips.)

I shudder to think. I might wear lace collars and laugh flower petals and pearls. People might try to pat me. I see them think it. My height triggers the puppy-kitten reflex- Must touch-and I've found that since you can't electrify yourself like a fence, the next best thing is to have murderer's eyes.

Kindly confirm: If someone’s evil, then killing them isn’t murder. It’s SLAYING, and not only legal but encouraged. Correct?

I want to do mysterious and improbable things alongside a fierce and beautiful girl who looks like a doll brought to life by a sorcerer.

I feel liquefied, like a cucumber forgotten in the crisper drawer, and I want to hold myself at arm's length and carry me to the trash. Who is this sack of slush masquerading as me? It's intolerable.

My face responds without authorization from my brain, so the resulting smile feels like the biggest, most unguarded, goofiest smile I’ve ever unleashed in my entire life. I didn’t even know my face could do this. It’s like there were hidden zippers in my cheeks. Jesus. This must be what feelings are. This is why people write poems! I get it now. I get it, and I want more.

There’s a long pause. But it’s not a bad pause, because Mik is looking at me like I’m the treasure from the high shelf that someone’s just taken down and put into his hands. I find I don’t mind being looked at like this. I don’t mind it at all.

Around Mik, my powers desert me. I lose basic motor function, like my brain focuses all neural activity on my lips and shifts into kiss preparedness mode way too early, to the detriment of things like speech, and walking.

You almost hold up your piece of paper and say, ‘The girl I like just gave me a treasure map to herself.’ But you don’t. You just don’t.

And I’ve found that since you can’t electrify yourself like a fence, the next best thing is to have murderer’s eyes.

I want to terrify little kids, too! I want to build spires in their minds and dance shadows through like marionettes, chased by whispers and hints of the unspeakable. I want to torture future generations with the Puppet That Bites.

It’s my personal theory that only 27 percent of perceived confidence is actual confidence, and the rest is sham. The key is: If you can’t tell the difference, there is no difference.

The eye’s perception of texture is pale compared to the lips’, and I didn’t know what velvety was until I knew it with my lips. Oh, kissing. Oh, violin boy.

My head feels like a snow globe that’s been shaken, and glitter is swirling around in it like unmoored stars.

Milquetoast girls raised on princess stories might sit tight and bat their eyelashes in desperate Morse code--notice me, like me, please--but I am not that girl.

I have been known to say that the devil gave me my first violin.

I have scuppies in my pocket and lust in my heart. Tonight's the night.

Which is what one always hopes will happen: for life to take over and be bigger and more marvelous than what we can dream up on our own.

You see, in the Czech Republic, on December fifth, St. Nicholas goes around bringing candy and small gifts to children, accompanied by an angel and a devil. In a holiday tradition that is the stuff of nightmares, the devil threatens to scoop bad children into his sack and carry them to hell. (And you thought coal in your stocking was harsh?)

It’s an open horizon before us, as far as the eye can see: no angst and no games, just mutual delight. So simple, but so rich. Like chocolate. Not a gold-dusted truffle or a foofy pastry tower teetering on a crystal platter, but a plain, honest bar of the best chocolate in the world.

Seeing her shiver, I want to take her into my coat and button it around her. I want to warm my face against her neck and steam her up like a mirror and write my name on her with my fingertip.

I want to be the guy in a movie who's, I don't know, out walking his rabbit on a leash (I don't have a rabbit) and knows exactly how to strike up a quirky, compelling conversation. Though maybe if you're walking a rabbit on a leash, you don't even have to speak; the rabbit does the work for you. Not that Zuzana seems like the rabbity type. Maybe if I were walking a fox on a leash. Or a hyena. Yeah, if I had a hyena, I'd probably never have to start a conversation again. Except for, "Sorry my hyena ate your leg.

It seems right that Mik should be awakened in the same way. That we should lose our magic virginity the same way. To creepy puppets, during snowstorms. (Okay. That sounds so wrong. But you know what I mean.)

Me, sweep him off his feet? I know. The laws of the jungle and romance novels would have it the other way around, but I’m not going to wait one more second for that.

To the naked eye, he’s decent kissing height if I wear platforms, though of course a live test will be required before official certification of Kissing Compatibility can be issued. It will be issued. Soon. Or I might implode.

Love affair. Doesn’t that sound so middle-aged? And also ill-fated. Like ill-fated is an understood prefix to love affair. Well, ill-fated is fine, as long as it’s a meaty and fraught ill-fated love affair, not a pale and insipid one.

You know how some people were absolutely never children, but just came from a catalog fully grown, while other people you don’t even have to squint to imagine them charging down the stairs on Christmas morning in superhero pajamas? Mik’s the latter. It’s not that he’s “boyish,” though I guess he is a little—but only a little—it’s just that there’s something direct and real and electric and pure that hasn’t been lost, the intense, undiluted emotion of childhood. Most people lose it

My height triggers the puppy-kitten reflex—Must touch—and I’ve found that since you can’t electrify yourself like a fence, the next best thing is to have murderer’s eyes.

If this night is a fairy tale, then this is the happily ever after, right, or at least the beginning of it? And the thing about happily ever afters? Those princesses and woodcutter’s sons have bodies under their coats, too. I mean, what do you think happily ever after means? (I can’t be the only one who thinks this.)

Not that I'm not keen to talk to him. I am--in the fantasy version of tonight, anyway, in which I actually manage to string words into sentences, and not just random magnetic-poetry sentences, but sentences that don't lead to the logical conclusion that I have brain damage.

Once you know magic is real, it's really hard to remember what it was like not to know.

I want very much to carpe you," it says. "I may try to surprise you, though, if that's okay. Also, I can't feel my face and hands.

And… it’s like all my life I’ve been this tower standing at the edge of the ocean for some obscure purpose, and only now, almost eighteen years in, has someone thought to flip the switch that reveals that I’m not a tower at all. I’m a lighthouse.

I didn’t even know my face could do this. It’s like there were hidden zippers in my cheeks. Jesus. This must be what feelings are. This is why people write poems! I get it now. I get it, and I want more.

The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Life doesn’t need magic to be magical. (But a little bit sure doesn't hurt.)

He’s a man, but he’s got, like, cartoon princess skin. Don’t ever tell him I said that, even though I mean it in the best possible way. He’s got the manliest cartoon princess skin.

It’s a secret. My previous best friend suspected, and now she’s at the bottom of a well. (Not really. She’s in Poland. I had nothing to do with it

Yeah, buddy, that’s a hand. You’ve got two of those bad boys. Good for you.

Have I crossed the line? I'm about to peer in through a window at Mik. For some reason, this feels worse than peering out a window, as I was just doing with a fairly clear conscience. After all, peeping toms peep in, not out. But this is still a public space, I argue to myself. I'm not peeping in his window. I would never do that. This is a cafe. Moreover, it's kind of my cafe. Mine and Karou's. In no legally recognized way, of course. We don't own it, except spiritually. Which is a much higher court than actual real estate ownership.

To eat or not to eat, that is the question: whether 'tis Nobler in the stomach to suffer the Slings and Arrows of outrageous Hunger (while keeping mouthparts in pristine kissing condition) or to take Spoon against Slice of cake, and-- "Yes, please," my stomach pipes up.

Seize the night. And I blink and feel a surge of certainty and excitement, because of course that's what one does when one wants something. One seizes it. Well, maybe not all things. Cats, for example, do not respond well to seizure. Probably girls don't, either. So this might not be a good credo in life, but for Saturday nights in general and this one in particular, it works.

My heart feels zested. Finely shredded and ready to add to cake batter. It doesn’t hurt, because it’s not there anymore. Like the angel’s chest, with her empty heart hole—but without the sparkler.

Or possibly “I like cake.” (She likes cake. This is one of four things I know about her. The others are: 2. Her name is Zuzana, 3. she’s in her last year at the Lyceum, so is probably eighteen, which is young but not heinously young, and 4. she can freeze a person’s blood with a look. I’ve seen it happen, though I have not been on the receiving end. She has voodoo eyes, and is more than slightly terrifying.

No, I have to lure him out, like a will-o’-the-wisp, tease him deeper and deeper into the forest until he is lost and doomed. Without the forest or the doom—just the luring. Like a Venus flytrap that says I am a delicious flower come taste me and then snap! Devour. Without the devouring. Well, maybe a little devouring.

And this totally normal conversation unspools from there, covering the basics: family, siblings, school, favorite composers, favorite movies, favorite wood (for carving puppets), the prehistory of the sandwich, and whether the ancient Romans got their togas caught in the spokes of their unicycles

Our eyes meet. And…it’s like all my life I’ve been this tower standing at the edge of the ocean for some obscure purpose, and only now, almost eighteen years in, has someone thought to flip the switch that reveals that I’m not a tower at all. I’m a lighthouse. It’s like waking up. I am incandescent.

But my family has always stuck to fabrication, with the idea that you can be decent at two high art forms or you can excel at one. We excel. Excellently.

I bet all stalkers believe they’re being romantic. I did it for love, officer.

Aah! Eye contact. Look away!

In a holiday tradition that is the stuff of nightmares, the devil threatens to scoop bad children into his sack and carry them to hell. (And you thought coal in your stocking was harsh?)

I cup the bead in my hand and smile as I drift toward sleep, wondering what my rainy days are going to look like now. As good as my snowy ones, I think. I’m going to need a bigger umbrella.

Curious. (You know, if curious means “impossible” or “freaky” or…“indelibly awesome.”) And now my head feels all full of moonlight or starlight or something. Or snow. My head feels like a snow globe that’s been shaken, and glitter is swirling around in it like unmoored stars.

Mi sento liquefatta, come un cetriolo dimenticato nel cassetto della verdura, e ho solo voglia di buttarmi nella spazzatura tenendomi il più possibile in punta di dita. Chi è questo sacco di melassa che finge di essere me? Intollerabile. Se Karou riesce a partire alla ricerca della gente più tremenda per rubargli i desideri, figurarsi se io non riesco a incontrare un maledetto ragazzo. Sono una fata idrofoba. Sono una pianta carnivora. Sono Zuzana. E il ragazzo del violino non avrà seppure il tempo di capire chi gli è piombato addosso.

You know how some people think cool equals bored, and they act like they’re alien scientists who drew the short straw and ended up assigned to observe this lowly species, humans, and they just lean against walls all the time, sighing and waiting to be called home to Zigborp-12, where all the fascinating geniuses are? Yeah, well, Mik doesn’t sigh or lean, and his eyes are fully open like something awesome might happen at any time and he doesn’t want to miss it. If he’s an alien, he’s an alien from a gray planet without pizza or music, and he freaking loves it here.

well, Mik doesn’t sigh or lean, and his eyes are fully open like something awesome might happen at any time

It's like all my life I've been this tower standing on the edge of the ocean for some obscure purpose, and only now ,almost 18 years in, has someone thought to flip the switch and reveal that I am not a tower at all. I am a lighthouse. It's like waking up. I am incandescent. I never knew I could admit heat and light.

But it’s not a bad pause, because Mik is looking at me like I’m the treasure from the high shelf that someone’s just taken down and put into his hands.

(And PS, if you use the word grown-up, you probably aren’t one.)

It feels like a door opening, and lungfuls of fresh air rushing in.

The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, ‘First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.’ Good old Epictetus. I would be Confident Girl, and that means unplastering myself from the side of this building, for starters.

Have you tried this treatment for female baldness? I hear it’s life-changing.

Tengo un presentimiento sobre Zuzana. Creo que no es buena o mala, si no las dos cosas -la mezcla perfecta de ambas, un enroscado cono de helado de bondad y maldad.

Жизни не нужна магия, чтобы быть волшебной.

Life doesn’t need magic to be magical.

It’s not copying, though. It’s an homage. Of course, that’s what artists always say when they steal from other artists.