Casey McQuiston

Quotes

1. "It's public knowledge. It's not my problem you just found out," his mother is saying, pacing double-time down a West Wing corridor. "You mean to tell me," Alex half shouts, jogging to keep up, "every Thanksgiving, those stupid turkeys have been staying in a luxury suite at the Willard on the taxpayers' dime?"

   "Yes, Alex, they do-"

   "Gross government waste!"

   "-and there are two forty-pound turkeys named Cornbread and Stuffing in a motorcade on Pennsylvania Avenue right now. There is no time to reallocate the turkeys."

   Without missing a beat, he blurts out, "Bring them to the house."

   "Where? Are you hiding a turkey habitat up your ass, son? Where, in our historically protected house, am I going to put a couple of turkeys until I pardon them tomorrow?"

   "Put them in my room. I don't care."

   She outright laughs. "No."

   "How is it different from a hotel room? Put the turkeys in my room, Mom."

   "I'm not putting turkeys in your room."

   "Put the turkeys in my room."

   "No."

   "Put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room-"

   That night, as Alex stares into the cold, pitiless eyes of a prehistoric beast of prey, he has a few regrets.

   p. 66

2. 

   "I was hoping you two would start talking dirty," Pez says. "Please, do go on." "I don't think you could keep up, Pez," Alex tells him. "Oh really?" The picture returns to Pez. "What if I put my co-" "Pez," comes the sound of Henry's voice, and a hand with a signet ring on the smallest finger covers Pez's mouth. "I beg of you. Alex, what part of 'nothing he cannot do' did you think was worth testing? Honestly, you are going to get us all killed." "That's the goal," Alex says happily. "So what are y'all gonna do today?" Pez frees himself by licking Henry's palm and continues talking. "Frolic naked in the hills, frighten the sheep, return to the house for the usual: tea, biscuits, casting ourselves upon the Thighmaster of love to moan about Claremont-Diaz siblings, which has become tragically one-sided since Henry took up with you. It used to be all bottles of cognac and shared malaise and 'When will they notice us'-"

   "Don't tell him that!"

   "-and now I just ask Henry, 'What is your secret?' And he says, 'I insult Alex all the time and that seems to work.'"

   "I will turn this car around."

   p. 160

3. 

   Chloe Green is going to put her first through a window. Usually when she has a thought like that, it means she's spiritually on the brink. But right now, squared up to the back door of the Wheeler house, she's actually physically ready to do it. Her phone flashes the time: 11:27 a.m. Thirty-three minutes until the end of the late service at Willowgrove Christian Church, where the Wheelers are spending their morning pretending to be nice, normal folks whose nice, normal daughter didn't stage a disappearing act at prom twelve hours ago.

   It has to be an act, is the thing. Obviously, Shara Wheeler is fine. Shara Wheeler is not missing. Shara Wheeler is doing what she does: a doe-eyed performance of blank innocence that makes everyone think she must be so deep and complex and enchanting when really, she's the most boring bore in this entire unbearably boring town.

   Chloe is going to prove it. Because she's the only one smart enough to see it.

   p. 1

4. 

   Alex rolls his eyes and sends back, the harrowing struggle of managing the empire's blood money. Henry's response comes a minute later. That was actually the crux of the meeting- I've tried to refuse my share of the crown's money. Dad left us each with more than enough, and I'd rather cover my expenses with that than the spoils of, you know, centuries of genocide. Philip thinks I'm being ridiculous.

   Alex scans the message twice to make sure he's read it correctly. i am low-key impressed. He stares at the screen, at his own message, for a few seconds too long, suddenly afraid it was a stupid thing to say. He shakes his head and puts the phone down. Locks it. Changes his mind, picks it up again. Unlocks it. Sees the little typing bubble on Henry's side of the conversation. Puts the phone down. Looks away. Looks back.

   One does not foster a lifelong love of Star Wars without knowing an "empire" isn't a good thing.

   He would really appreciate it if Henry would stop proving him wrong.

   p. 64

5. 

   "So, as I've warned you," Henry says as they approach the doors to the Royal Box, "Philip will be there. And assorted other nobility with whom you may have to make conversation. People named Basil." "I think I've proven that I can handle royals." Henry looks doubtful. "You're brave. I could use some of that."

   p. 184

6. 

   "Someone else's choice doesn't change who you are."

   p. 198

7. 

   Even before Alex's parents split, they both had a habit of calling him by the other's last name when he exhibited particular traits. They still do. When he runs his mouth off to the press, his mom calls him into her office and says, "Get your shit together, Diaz." When his hard-headedness gets him stuck, his dad texts him, "Let it go, Claremont."

   p. 74

8. 

   "You listen to me," she says. Her jaw is set, ironclad. It's the game face he's seen her use to stare down Congress, to cow autocrats. Her grip on his hand is steady and strong. He wonders, half-hysterically, if this is how it felt to charge into war under Washington. "I am your mother. I was your mother before I was ever the president, and I'll be your mother long after, to the day they put me in the ground and beyond this earth. You are my child. So, if you're serious about this, I'll back your play."

   Alex is silent. But the debates, he thinks. But the general. Her gaze is hard. He knows better than to say either of those things. She'll handle it. "So," she says, "Do you feel forever about him?" And there's no room left to agonize over it, nothing left to do but say the thing he's known all along. "Yeah," he says, "I do." Ellen Claremont exhales slowly, and she grins a small, secret grin, the crooked, flattering one she never uses in public, the one he knows best from when he was a kid around her knees in a small kitchen in Travis County. "Then, fuck it."

   p. 283

9. 

   Alex wouldn't say he likes Henry, but he does enjoy the quick rhythm of arguments they fall into. He knows he talks too much, hopeless at moderating his feelings, which he usually hides under ten layers of charm, but he ultimately doesn't care what Henry thinks of him, so he doesn't bother. Instead, he's as weird and manic as he wants to be, and Henry jabs back in sharp flashes of startling wit.

   p. 60

10. 

    There are no fireworks out here, no music, no confetti. Just sleeping, single-family homes, TVs switched off. Just a house where Alex grew up, where he saw Henry's picture in a magazine and felt a flicker of something, a start. "Hey," Alex says. Henry turns back to him, his eyes silver in the wash of the streetlight. "We won." Henry takes his hand, one corner of his mouth tugging gently upward. "Yeah. We won." Alex reaches down into the front of his dress shirt and finds the chain with his fingers, pulls it out carefully. The ring, the key. Under winter clouds, victorious, he unlocks the door.

    p. 361

11. 

    "Well. It will matter, you know. It will always matter."

    p. 226

12. 

    Alex groans. "Please, for the love of God, do not ask me. I'm on vacation. I want to get drunk and eat barbecue in peace."

    His dad laughs ruefully. "You know, in a lot of ways, your mom and me were a stupid idea. I think we both knew it wouldn't be forever. We're both too fucking proud. But God, that woman. Your mother is, without question, the love of my life. I'll never love anyone else like her. It was wildfire. And I got you and June out of it, best things that ever happened to an old asshole lke me. That kind of love is rare, even if it was a complete disaster." He sucks his teeth, considering. "Sometimes you just jump and hope it's not a cliff."

    p. 221