Beth Fantaskey

“I like pink."Lucius sniffed. "It's just red's sorry, weak cousin.”

“On the stage Tristen bent over the piano, his fingers swift and sure, his blond hair gleaming under the spotlight. I glanced around at the audience, watching their faces, gratified that they were as captivated as I was by the dark, thunderous song that Tristen conjured.”

“As you wish, of course." Lucius lowered the volume on an old record player, which spun a warped vinyl disk that wailed unfamiliar music, scratchy and whiny, like cats fighting. Or a coffin with rusty hinges opening and closing over and over again in a deserted mausoleum. "Do you like Croatian folk?" heasked, seeing my interest. "It reminds me of home.""I prefer normal music.""Ah, yes, your MTV with all the bumping and grinding. Like a shot of raging adolescent hormones administered via television. I'm not averse.”

“As you know, I have always been curious about our immortality... how it feels to live on and on through time....I need speculate no longer, I have sampled eternity in Miss Campbell's fifth period "social studies" class. Three days on the concept of "manifest destiny," Vasile. THREE DAYS. I yearned to stand up, rip her lecture notes from her pallid hands, and scream, 'Yes, America expanded westward! Is that not logical, given that Europeans settled on the Eastern shore? What else were they to do? Advance vainly into the sea?”

“You're a wrestler, right, Jake?" Dad asked, passing Jake more saag. My parents were in an Indian food phase. The evening's entree consisted of limp spinach. God forbid we'd throw a few burgers on the grill and just have a barbecue when guests came over.Jake gave the bright green, mushy contents a wary glance but accepted the bowl. "Yeah. I wrestle. I'm captain this year.""How Greco-Roman of you," Lucius said dryly, lifting a glob of spinach and letting it drip, slowly, from his fork. "Grappling about on mats.”

“Happiness makes people beautiful”

“Stupid Romanian bloodsucker. He was lucky I hadn't bestowed another exalted scar on his imperial body.”

“Fear is the worst kind of grave, because it buries one alive.”

“I knew that most people would consider us too young to talk about lifelong commitments or marriage, but I couldn’t imagine taking her to bed without that promise. Even if it meant never being with her, I didn’t want to have one desperate, hurried, hidden night. I wanted to put a ring on her finger. I wanted a future—or nothing. I knew, in her heart, that she would want that, too”

“Why do humans always look at these things from the wrong perspective? Predators deserve our sympathy, too.”