Libba Bray Quotes (254 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 338
Context: Balder holds up a completely blank rune. Wyrd. The beginning and the end. Fate.
I don't know what that means, but it's not doing anything to uncreep me.

“Here is our favorite equation: Us plus Them equals All of Us. It is very simple math. Try it sometime.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 428
Context: In our travels, we have come across many equations — math for understanding the universe, for making music, for mapping stars, and also for tipping, which is important. Here is our favorite equation: Us plus Them equals All of Us. It is very simple math. Try it sometime. You probably won’t even need a pencil.

“People always think they know other people, but they don’t. Not really.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 178
Context: People always think they know other people, but they don’t. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won’t eat doughnuts or they like action movies or whatever. But they don’t know what their friends do in their rooms alone at night or what happened to them when they were kids or if they feel fucked up and sad for no reason at all.

“My favorite word is "redemption." I like both its meaning and the sound.”

Libba Bray

Twenty-One Things You Don't Know About Me
Context: My favorite word is "redemption." I like both its meaning and the sound. My least favorite word is "maybe." "Maybe" is almost always a "no" drawn out in cruel fashion.

“And just like that, something in the cosmos shifts. A butterfly flaps its wings in South America. Snow falls in Chicago. You give an idiot a stupid magic screw and it turns out to be a necessary part after all.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 389
Context: Marisol does a silly dance with Balder and the screw, one in each hand, so that nobody gets the idea that she takes tins — or anything else, for that matter — seriously. And just like that, something in the cosmos shifts. A butterfly flaps its wings in South America. Snow falls in Chicago. You give an idiot a stupid magic screw and it turns out to be a necessary part after all.

“You’ve been assigned an identity since birth.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 253
Context: You’ve been assigned an identity since birth. Then you spend the rest of your life walking around in it to see if it really fits. You try on all these different selves and abandon just as many. But really it’s about dismantling all that false armor, getting down to what’s real.

“There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

“But we can't go back. We can only go forward.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Variant: One can never go back. One always has to move forward.
Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

“When I dream, I dream of him. For several nights now he’s come to me, waving from a distant shore as if he’s been waiting patiently for me to arrive. He doesn’t utter a word, but his smile says everything: I’ve missed you.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

“Because you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty