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Quote by Amie Kaufman

“Promise me that no matter what you hear, you won’t go off on your own to investigate. I want your word.” There’s a command in his voice, soft as it is.”

Quote by Amie Kaufman

Book:These Broken Stars
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These Broken Stars

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Amie Kaufman

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Book:The Golden Pot and Other Tales
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“Remember that ladylike behaviour of yours?” I call out, letting her hear the smile in my voice. “This is the time for it. No pushing, shoving, screaming, or—“ I don’t get any further. She’s heard the shift in my voice and crossed the hallway in a heartbeat. She wastes only a moment in gaping, then shoves past me to dash across the pile of clothes, laughing. “Tarver, Tarver. There are—can you see them all?” She’s running the flashlight over the offerings, revealing swaths of fabric of every colour. I’ve got my mouth half open to reply when she starts unzipping the mechanic’s suit, and then my mouth falls the rest of the way open by itself. It’s dark inside the room, but I catch a quick glimpse of pale skin beneath the remnants of her dress before I remember myself, and decide to take a good, hard look at my boots. To judge by the sounds over on the other side of the room, she’s forgotten I exist. The mechanic’s suit must have been really uncomfortable, even wearing it over her dress, if she’s that eager to get it off while I’m standing here. “There’s dresses,” she whispers, and I catch a movement in my peripheral vision. Oh, God, come on. It’s the mechanic’s suit and the ruined green dress being kicked across the floor away from her. So what does that mean she’s wearing right now? She didn’t actually say I couldn’t look. “Don’t look,” she cautions me, as though she just read my mind. Dammit.”

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Author:Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
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“My heart threatening to slam its way out past my rib cage, I put my head down on my knees and focus on my breathing. Anything but the thought of what waits for me outside, the dead eyes and bloated corpses. One. Oh, God. Two. Three. Four. Something snapped when I fell on that body. I broke something in it. It was like a wet branch. No. No. Five. Six. Seven. He would have despised me for running. Eight. What if one of those bodies was Anna’s? Oh, God. No. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Pull yourself together, Miss LaRoux. Twelve. You’re no use to anybody cowering in a broom cupboard. Thirteen. Fourteen. Don’t sell yourself short. I don’t know many soldiers who’d have done better. Fifteen.”

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Book:These Broken Stars
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“It does no good to run. And it does no good to hide. But I know what it's like. Your brain shuts down, and you follow your instincts. Or, at least, you think you do. But you know what you're really doing? When you flee through the night, or crawl into your little bolt-hole? You know what's really guiding you? Controlling you? Pushing you on? Genre conventions.”

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Book:The Unwritten, Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity
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“In a whodunnit, when a detective hears that Sir Somebody Smith has been stabbed thirty-six times on a train or decapitated, they accept it as a quite natural occurrence. They pack their bags and head off to ask questions, collect clues, ultimately to make an arrest. But I wasn't a detective. I was an editor—and, until a week ago, not a single one of my acquaintances had managed to die in an unusual and violent manner. Apart from my own parents and Alan, I hardly knew anyone who had died at all. It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery and what is it that attracts us—the crime or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable? I made a mental note to check out Alan's sales figures in San Pedro Sula in Honduras (the murder capital of the world). It might be that they didn't read him at all.”

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“...I’ve never understood the logic that says a work doesn’t need to be judged on the quality of its writing or characters simply because its genre. On the other hand, I’ve also never understood the logic of excusing a work from the need to tell a story worth telling about people worth knowing simply because the author writes pretty language or has some insights to offer.”

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Author:Glen Hirshberg
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