Дім дивних дітей

У меня в животе возникло тошнотворное ощущение. Так, наверное, чувствуют себя дети, когда родители собираются сообщить им о разводе, но те знают об этом еще прежде, чем кто-то успеет открыть рот.

Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries—but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was.

I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.

They were orphans of war, washed up on that little island in a tide of blood. What made them amazing wasn't that they had miraculous powers; that they had escaped the ghettos and gas chambers was miracle enough.

To have endured all the horrors he did, to have seen the worst of humanity and have your life made unrecognizable by it, to come out of all that the honorable and brave and good person I knew him to be— that was magical.

When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking.

Because we weren’t like other people. We were peculiar.”
“Peculiar how?”
“Oh, all sorts of ways,” he said. “There was a girl who could fly, a boy who had bees living inside him, a brother and sister who could lift boulders over their heads.

Когда тебя долго не впускают, ты отчаиваешься и перестаёшь стучаться.

Я поблагодарил его и сделал большой глоток, слишком поздно осознав, что секретный рецепт основан на первосортном виски. Мне показалось, что по моему пищеводу в желудок устремился напалм.