Favorite Lines
~ “Oh, they told me about the palm trees. Yeah, they told me plenty about the palm trees, all right. But nobody ever said a word about this poison oak business” (p. 1).
~ “When one’s spiritual liaison takes one’s head and slams it into a locker door…well, you can see how that kind of behavior might not build the sort of trust we’d like to establish with our troubled brothers and sisters” (p. 2).
~ “The one thing I’ve learned from all this is that we don’t have very much time here on Earth. So why waste it putting up with other people’s crap? Particularly people who are already dead, anyway” (p. 9).
~ “When I pointed out the fallacy in her thought process, however, all she said was, ‘Just do it,” Only not the way they say it in Nike ads. She said it in the way the Wicked Witch of the West said it to the winged monkey when she sent them out to kill Dorothy and her little dog, too” (p. 11).
~ “Why me? I mean, really. To be interrupted while having a dream about Bryce Martinsen just because some woman wants a guy named Red to know he didn’t kill her…I swear, sometimes I am convinced my life is just a series of sketches for America’s Funniest Home Videos, minus all that pants-dropping business” (p. 16).
~ “‘And try to remember what we discussed, Susannah. A mediator is someone who helps others resolve conflicts. Not someone who, er, kicks them in the face.’ I smiled at him. ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ I said. And I would, too. Right after I’d kicked Red’s butt. Whoever he was” (p. 25).
~ “Once the receptionist knew I was a kid, she got even nicer. ‘Sure thing sweetheart,’ she said to me in this sugary voice. ‘I’ll let Mr. Beaumont know. Buh-bye.’ I hung up. Buh-bye bite me. Mr. Beaumont was going to be plenty surprised when he called me back, and got the Queen of the Night People, instead of Lois Lane” (p. 31).
~ “She probably thinks I’m a mental case. Back in New York she used to send me to her therapist, who told her I wasn’t a mental case, just a teenager. Boy, did I pull one over on old Doc Mendelsohn, let me tell you” (p. 46).
~ “Ghosts. They just can’t take a joke” (p. 60).
~ “I think he just believes I’m the type of girl buildings fall on top of all the time. No wonder he doesn’t want me in his car” (p. 62).
~ “In fact, the whole place had kind of a Disney feel to it. You know, really big, and kind of modern and fake” (p. 68).
~ “He also had on green corduroy pants. Green! Really, if you ask me, that was the weirdest thing of all” (p. 78).
~ “And I’m sure that in Poland, or somewhere, it is considered cool to drive a Porsche and wear necklaces and black silk, but at least back in Brooklyn if you did those things you were either a drug dealer or from New Jersey” (p. 88).
~ “‘I may have been dead for the past hundred and fifty years, Susannah,’ Jesse said, ‘but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how people say goodnight. And generally, when people say goodnight, they keep their tongues to themselves’” (p. 92).
~ “Father Dominic in particular had no idea how a mouse worked, and was constantly sweeping it from one side of his desk to the other, no matter how many times I told him all he had to do was keep it on the mouse pad. It would have been cute if it hadn’t been so frustrating” (p. 97).
~ “‘Come in,’ Cee Cee’s aunt Pru called. ‘Please come in! I’ve been expecting you!’ Cee Cee, not even glancing in her aunt’s direction, muttered, ‘I just bet you have, you psychic freak.’ Remind me never to tell Cee Cee about the whole mediator thing” (p. 109).
~ “Ghosts aren’t dogs. They don’t come if you call them” (p. 112).
~ “‘Of course, querida,’ he said, and my heart gave a little flip-flop inside my chest at the caressing tone he always gave that word. I didn’t even know what it meant. Why am I so pathetic?” (p. 125).
~ “Tad’s father was clearly a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal. I don’t think he could have killed a cockroach, let alone another human being” (p. 153).
~ “It would never work out between the two of us. I mean, I’m a mediator. His dad’s a vampire. His uncle’s a killer. What if we got married? Think how our kids would turn out…Confused. Way confused. Kind of like Tad” (p. 155).
~ “I do not consider myself a slouch in the fighting department. I actually kind of like it, if you haven’t figured that out already. Of course, usually I’m fighting ghosts, not live human beings. But if you think about it, there’s really not that much of a difference. I mean, nasal cartilage is nasal cartilage. I was willing to give it a go” (p. 172).
~ “I was hoping one of them would notice us and decide that two guys on one girl wasn’t quite playing fair – even if the girl did look a bit like a hooker” (p 174).
~ “Well, he’d already said he was going to kill me. I didn’t figure it mattered whether or not I was polite to him” (p. 181).
~ “There was no sign of Mr. Beaumont – he was probably in bed recovering from my brutal attack on him the night before. Poor thing. If I’d known it was Marcus who was the blood-sucking parasite and not his brother, I’d have shown the old guy a little compassion” (p. 183).
~ “There really was something wrong with him, I decided. I mean, he’d just given up a chance to see a total babe like me in the buff. The guy clearly had a nacho platter where his brains should have been. Well, that’s what I told myself, anyway” (p. 189).
~ “I positioned the swivel chair in front of the aquarium. Then I lifted a foot and balanced it on top of the seat. From one finger, I dangled the bathing suit. ‘Sorry,’ I said, apologetically. ‘But dead’s never been my color.’ Then I grabbed that chair, and flung it with all my might at the glass of that giant fish tank” (p. 192).
~ “I think maybe when the water hit me, I’d banged my head against something. Wow, I thought. Amnesia. Cool. I’d get out of tomorrow’s Geometry quiz for sure” (p. 194).
~ “The shouting up the elevator shaft was growing louder. The thicker the smoke grew, apparently, the more frantic the thugs became. God forbid one of them should think to dial 911. Then again, considering the career choices they’d made, that number probably didn’t hold much appeal for them” (p. 202).
~ “Seriously. If I’d gone Banana Republic instead of Betsey Johnson, none of this might have happened” (p. 207).
~ “‘You,’ Dopey said, ‘are…so…busted’” (p. 230).
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