Jennifer Donnelly

“C'est pas assez que tous tu dis c'est de la merde, François? Tu veux coucher dans la merde, aussi?”

“...we woke as if from a nightmare only to find that the ugly are still not beautiful and the dull still do not sparkle.”

“Yet I had such joy from the words.”

“You are a ghost. Almost gone. Come back to us.”

“Usually the last thing anyone or anything needs is me.”

“It's all about the pain, isn't it?”

“Because just for a few seconds, someone else hurts, too. For just a few seconds, I'm not alone.”

“People drink more when they're sad.”

“History is fiction.”

“Namaste. It was a Nepalese greeting. It meant: The light within me bows to the light within you.”

“A heart is made of proteins built by amino acids, animated by electrical impulses.”

“Bravery is feeling fear but doing the thing anyway.”

“She'd long ago learned that only those with something to lose were afraid of dying.”

“It is hope, not despair, that undoes us all.”

“I look around myself wildly, my heart bursting with grief and fear and joy. I am leaving, but I will take this place and its stories with me wherever I go.”

“They sat quietly together for a few minutes, Joe holding Fiona's hand, Fiona sniffling. No flowery words, no platitudes passed between them. Joe would have done anything to ease her suffering, but he knew nothing he might do, or say, could. Her grief would run its course, like a fever, and release her when it was spent. He would not shush her or tell her it was God's will and that her da was better off. That was rubbish and they both knew it. When something hurt as bad as this, you had to let it hurt. There were no shortcuts.”

“I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.”

“I was agitated something fierce.”

“What happy man has need of Shakespeare?”

“You learned good, Uncle Fifty," Lou said, shoveling beans onto her plate. "You get an A-plus. Will you teach Mattie how to cook? She can only make mush and pancakes. And a pea soup that's so bad, it's more pee than soup."Uncle Fifty roared. My sisters laughed. Especially Lou. Pa raised an eyebrow at her, but that didn't quiet her. She knew she was safe because our uncle was laughing. "Don't mind them, Mattie," Abby said, petting me."You like my pea soup, don't you Ab?" I asked, hurt.She looked at me with her kind eyes. "No, Mattie, I don't. It's awful.”

“I read it: "A man earned daily for 5 days and 3 times as much as he paid for his board, after which he was obliged to be idle 4 days," it said. "Upon counting his money after paying for his board he found that he had 2 ten-doller bills and 4 dollers. How much did he pay for the board, and what were his wages?""All right. Think now," Weaver said. "How would you begin to solve it? What's your X?"I thought. Very hard. For quite some time. About the man and his meager wages and shabby boardinghouse and lonely life. "Where did he work?" I finally asked."What? It doesn't matter, Matt. Just assign an X to-""A mill, I bet," I said, picturing the man's threadbare clothing, his worn shoes. "A woolen mill. Why do you think he was obliged to be idle?""I don't know why. Look, just-""I bet he got sick," I said, clutching Weaver's arm. "Or maybe business wasn't good, and his boss had no work for him. I wonder if he had a family in the country. It would be a terrible thing, wouldn't it, if he had children to feed and no work? Maybe his wife was poorly, too. And I bet he had...""Damn it, Mattie, this is algebra, not composition!" Weaver said, glaring at me."Sorry," I said, feeling like a hopeless case.”

“I don't know what I was hoping for. Some small praise, I guess. A bit of encouragement. I didn't get it. Miss Parrish took me aside one day after school let out. She said she'd read my stories and found them morbid and dispiriting. She said literature was meant to uplift the heart and that a young woman such as myself ought to turn her mind to topics more cheerful and inspiring than lonely hermits and dead children."Look around yourself, Mathilda," she said. "At the magnificence of nature. It should inspire joy and awe. Reverence. Respect. Beautiful thoughts and fine words."I had looked around. I'd seen all the things she'd spoken of and more besides. I'd seen a bear cub lift it's face to the drenching spring rains. And the sliver moon of winter, so high and blinding. I'd seen the crimson glory of a stand of sugar maples in autumn and the unspeakable stillness of a mountain lake at dawn. I'd seen them and loved them. But I'd also seen the dark of things. The starved carcasses of winter deer. The driving fury of a blizzard wind. And the gloom that broods under the pines always. Even on the brightest days.”

“I'm not snapping," I snapped.”

“What had I seen? Too much. What did I know? Only that knowledge carries a damned high price. Miss Wilcox, my teacher, had taught me so much. Why had she never taught me that?”

“...Fran? Frances Hill, you stop that right now! What the devil's got into you? Ada, you should be ashamed! Braying like a mule, you are! And you, Mattie Gokey...would you like to tell me what could possibly be so funny?”

“God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.”

“Be careful what you show the world. You never know when the wolf is watching.”

“The driver's on me in an instant. She's crying and trembling. She grabs the front of my jacket and shakes me. "You crazy bitch!" she screams. "I could have killed you!""Sorry," I say"Sorry?" she shouts. "You don't look sorry. You-""Sorry you missed," I say.She lets go of me then. Takes a step back.”

“I want the key", he said. "The key to the universe. To life. To the future and the past. To love and hate. Truth. God. It's there. Inside of us. In the genome. The answer to every question. If I can find it. That's what I want," he finished, softly. "I want the key.”

“The rain comes down harder as I write. It sheets off the roof in torrents. I wish it would pound against me. Pound the life from my body. The flesh from my bones. The pain from my heart.”

“It was an amazing feeling, to succeed at something. It was a new feeling for her -- part happiness, part pride -- and she relished it.”

“I try to remember that hard knocks leave dents.”

“It's kind of beautiful, this scary world. I still want to go out of it as soon as possible, but when I look around and stop thinking about how insane it all is and just see it without freaking out, it's really beautiful.”

“I love you, too... I won't ever leave you again. I promise. I kept that promise. For love him I did. For nearly two years I spent almost every waking hour with him. Until he was taken from me. But I never left him. And I never will.”

“India said, 'But Mrs. Moskowitz, it just won't work. I still have to find a proper salaried position. I have to cover my expenses. Pay my rent.''You will stay with us.''Thank you. Truly. But it would be impossible.'Mrs. Moskowitz reached across the table. She covered India's hand with her own. 'With all respect, my dear India,' she said, 'I look to God to tell me what is possible. Not to you.”

“I did not want His cold love. I wanted human love—clasping, selfish, and hot. I wanted to smell the rank sweat of the men… I wanted love—reeking, drunken, hungry love.”

“Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, either”

“Maybe his quietness masked a great and boiling soul.”

“Only the Hopeless love God.Because God may love us, but the devil takes an interest.”

“Maximilien R. Peters! Incorruptible, ineluctable, and indestructable! It's time to start a revolution, baby”

“The guitar's still around me. I slip it off and put it down. I want to feel him. To feel his breath on my neck. The warmth of his skin. To feel something other than sadness.Hold me, I tell him silently. Hold me here. To this place. This life. Make me want you. Want this. Want something. Please”

“You are a ghost, Andi," she says. "Almost gone."I look at her. I want to say something but I can't get the words out.She squeezes my hands. "Come back to us," she says. And she's gone.”

“Because I'm on the phone, Mom!""Fooling around with your friends again! Who is that?""Ahmadinejad.""Oh, my goodness! What is he saying?""That he wants to see Jeezy at the Beacon tonight. Putin's going too. He scalped a ticket from Kim Jong Il. All tha gangstas are going.""Don't be so fresh, young man!""Gotta go," he says to me. "Enemy forces have dropped a Momshell.""Fall back, solider. Over and out.”

“God didn't have to punish him; he'd created his own hell. By himself and for himself.”

“For the first time in a long time, he didn't think of the past. And of all the things he'd lost. He thought only of the present, and what he had. And how it was so much more than he deserved. And he prayed then that he would never, ever lose it.”

“Well, it seems to me that there are books that tell stories, and then there are books that tell truths... The first kind, they show you life like you want it to be. With villains getting what they deserve and the hero seeing what a fool he's been and marrying the heroine and happy endings and all that... But the second kind, they show you life more like it is... The first kind makes you cheerful and contented, but the second kind shakes you up.”

“The world goes on, as stupid and brutal as tomorrow as it was today.And though I am shuddering with pain, and twisting with pain, and sobbing with pain, i laugh.Because I know now. I know the answer. I know the truth.Oh,dead man, you are dead wrong, I tell him.Can't you see? The world goes on, stupid and brutal, but I [do not. I do not.]”

“He loves the sparkling fountains and their cascades and says the strangest things as he watches them.they look like stars breaking.Or, They look like Mama's diamonds.Or, They look like all the souls in heaven.”

“The King walks. He nods. His glance is like God's touch - under it all things spring to life. A wave of his hand and a hundred musicians tear into the Handel, making a sound you've never heard before, and never will again. A sound that goes through you, through flesh and bone, and reorders the very beat of your heart.”

“Airports should all belong to the same country. The country of Crappacia. Or Bleakovania. Or Suckitan.”