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Barry Lyga

Barry Lyga Books

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Boy Toy

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I Hunt Killers

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Game

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Hero-Type

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Lucky Day

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“And Jazz snapped. He didn't snap the way a normal person might snap. A normal person would fling his arms around and stomp his feet and rant at the top of his lungs, bellowing to the sky. There might be tears, from a normal person. Jazz went quiet. He darted out one hand and grabbed the wrist of the paramedic who had been trying to cuff him and pulled the man close, holding his gaze. In a moment, he channeled every last drop of (his father). "Who am I? I'll tell you. I'm the local psychopath, and if you don't save my best friend's life, I will hunt down everyone you've ever cared about in your life and make you watch while I do things to them that will have you begging me to kill them. That's who I am.”

“For his part, Jazz knew he was handsome. It had nothing to do with looking in the mirror, which he rarely did. It had everything to do with the way the girls at school looked at him, the way they became satellites when he walked by, their orbits contorted by his own mysterious gravity. If attention could be measured like the Doppler effect, girls would show a massive blue shift in his presence. In the last year or so, he had even remarked the scrutiny of older women—teachers, cashiers at stores, the woman who delivered UPS packages to his house. What had once been a maternal flavor in their glances had taken on a lingering, cool sort of appraisal. He could almost hear them thinking, Not yet. But soon. Despite his upbringing, despite the infamy of his father, they still watched him. Or maybe because of it. Maybe Howie was right about bad boys.”

“Psychologist: "This, ah, is a new sort of, ah, psychopathology that we're only now beginning to, ah, understand. These, ah, super-serial killers have no, ah, 'type' but, ah, rather consider everyone to be their 'type.'" Gramma: "Did you hear that? Your daddy's a superhero!”

“Here's the thing: Everyone's different, right? And sure, there are common experiences, but everyone sees the world at least a little differently. Everyone filters it in their own way. You know your...experience, and you know so much more than I'll ever know, but you can't know everyone's experience. Because if you think people are the same, if you think our experiences are interchangeable, well....We are all individuals. People are real. People matter. Each one of us matters, for our differences as much as for our similarities.”

“There was some kind of X-men emergency, so all the teachers were gone. This happens every now and then. It's one of the perks of having super heroes for your teachers - when the world is about to end (which is like at least twice a month), school gets canceled. Heck, three weeks ago there was a big chemistry final for the upperclassmen. Beast was the teacher - he's this big, burly guy who can do acrobatic stuff like a monkey, but he also happens to be a super-genius. He's, like, legendary for his tough finals, so there were kids walking through the halls, going, "Oh, God, please let Galactus try to eat the earth. Please please please let there be an alien invasion by the Skrulls!”

“You think you're gonna find your soul. Ever since I've known you, you've been thinkin' that someday you're gonna crack and end up like your daddy. And you're been looking for proof that you won't. What you don't realize is this: the looking is the proof. Trust me when I tell you that Billy Dent never had a moment's doubt in his life about what he was and what he was doing. Your doubt is your soul”

“Sometimes I can't tell the difference between living and dead. Sometimes I look at a pretty little girlie and I think to myself, Is she a living, breathing thing? Or is she just a doll? Are those actualy tears she's crying? Are those real creams coming out of her mouth? And it's like a fog in my mind, like I get all confused and frustrated and mixed up, so I start doing things. Start small at first, like maybe with the ears or the lips or the toes. And then move on to the bigger things, and there's blood, so I keeping going and my hands are wet and my mouth is warm and I keep going and then something magical happens, Jasper. It's real magical and special and beautiful. See, they stop moving. They stop struggiling. All the fight just goes away and that's when it's all clear to me: She's dead. And if she's dead, then that means that she used to be alive. So then I know: This was a living one, a real one. And I feel good after that 'cause I figured it out.”

“In baseball, when you get into the batter's box, that's it. It's just you. It's one man against the world. All that matters in that moment is your individual achievement and your individual skill. There is literally nothing that anyone else on your team can do for you. Hell, they're all sitting on the bench, waiting to see what happens, just like the fans in the crowd! It's just you and your bat. And the ball.”

“Love makes you weak. This I know for sure. Mom loved Roger. Roger loved Mom.And look what happpened there. She died. She thought her love made her strong. She kept telling me-after she was diagnosed-she ket telling me, "I'm going to beat this Kyra. I'm going to come out of it. I love you and I love your father and that love is my strength. You're my strength.”

“Don't be stupid. You're a child. You don't know what it means to be in love." And she flung open the car door as if she wished she had the strength to rip it from the hinges, and stalked off to the house through the rain. That night, I lay in bed, troubled by what she'd said, blocking out the sounds of argument from my parents' room. Was love what my parents had? Yelling at eachother, worrying about money? Never smiling? Never happy? If that was love, then I didn't want it.”

“Here’s the thing about baseball-it’s not the individual sport I thought it was. Turns out I was wrong about that. Yeah, the batter is a lone man against the world. He stands in the batter’s box like a soldier and it’s up to him-and him alone-what happens next. But here’s the thing I didn’t understand until I was forced to, until recently: In order to hit a home run… Someone else has to pitch the ball.”

“You and your scars. Please! You don't kill youself like this!" I gesture, holding a wrist turned up to the ceiling, then pretending to cut across it with my other hand. "That's just a cry for help. That's just attention. Everbody knows that. Cutting across just gets you to the hospital. That's just from movies and TV shows and stuff like that. You didn't really try to kill yourself. you just wanted attention, but you screwed up. Try harder next time.”