Jennifer Donnelly

“There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I.The memory of it makes me laugh now, but not from happiness.Be careful what you show the world.You never know when the wolf is watching.”

“Cry your grief to God. Howl to the heavens. Tear your shirt. Your hair. Your flesh. Gouge out your eyes. Carve out your heart. And what will you get from Him? Only silence. Indifference. But merely stand looking at the playbills, sighing because your name is not on them, and the devil himself appears at your elbow full of sympathy and suggestions. And that's why I did it....Because God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.”

“Only the hopeless love God.”

“Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.”

“He pressed himself into me and kissed my neck, and it was as if everything strong and solid inside me, heart and bones and muscle and gut, softened and melted from the heat of him.”

“French Louis Seymour of the West Canada Creek, who knew how to survive all alone in a treacherous wilderness, and Mr. Alfred G. Vanderbilt of New York City and Raquette Lake, who was richer than God and traveled in his very own Pullman car, and Emmie Hubbard of the Uncas Road, who painted the most beautiful pictures when she was drunk and burned them in her woodstove when she was sober, were all ten times more interesting to me than Milton's devil or Austen's boy-crazy girls or that twitchy fool of Poe's who couldn't think of any place better to bury a body than under his own damn floor.”

“Turn away. From the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and look at the light.”

“It has an L on it. L for love. See? It's the key to the universe, Dad. You said you were looking for it. You told Mom you were. I found it for you so you don't have to look anymore. So you can come home at night.”

“When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can.”

“The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.”

“Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.”

“Most people, if they were generous, were so because they thought life was short and that one must make the most of it. Sid Baxter was generous because he knew that life was long. It went on and on even when you had no use for it anymore. It was happiness, not life, that was short, and when it visited - in the form of a fine evening spent talking with a friend - he honoured it.”

“My father had put these things on the table.I looked at him standing by the sink. He was washing his hands, splashing water on his face. My mamma left us. My brother, too. And now my feckless, reckless uncle had as well. My pa stayed, though. My pa always stayed.I looked at him. And saw the sweat stains on his shirt. And his big, scarred hands. And his dirty, weary face. I remembered how, lying in my bed a few nights before, I had looked forward to showing him my uncle's money. To telling him I was leaving. And I was so ashamed.”

“There were nights when I got nothing, [but] I still played. With no one to hear me and no one to pay me, and it did not matter.On those nights, the words were for me alone. They came up unbidden from my heart. They slipped over my tongue and spilled from my mouth. And because of them I, who was nothing and nobody, was a prince of Denmark, a maid of Verona, a queen of Egypt. I was a sour misanthrope, a beetling hypocrite, a conjurer's daughter, a mad and murderous king.It was dark and it was cold on those nights. The world was harsh and I was hungry. Yet I had such joy from the words. Such joy.There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I.The memory of it makes me laugh now, but not from happiness.Be careful what you show the world.You never know when the wolf is watching.”

“It's a good thing you and your pills weren't around a few hundred years ago or there never would have been a Vermeer or a Caravaggio. You'd have drugged "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "The Taking of Christ" right the hell out of them.”

“He's wearing boots, a kilt, and a long-sleeve tee. No coat, even though it's December. Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.”

“I have done this—made the sad prince laugh. Made his grieving parents smile. None but me. Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands. Make them laugh with a gesture, cry with a word. Make them love you. And you will know what power is.”

“As I nodded and smiled and umm-hmm'd and oh, my'd my way down the drive, I wondered if boys had any sort of magazine that told them how to attract women and, if so, did it ever tell them to put the girls' interests first?”

“What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. Books. Not just one or two dozen, but hundreds of them. In crates. In piles on the floor. In bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling and lined the entire room. I turned around and around in a slow circle, feeling as if I'd just stumbled into Ali Baba's cave. I was breathless, close to tears, and positively dizzy with greed.”

“You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible? Hmm?"I will tell Him that His press agents could have done with a writing lesson or two, I said. To myself.”

“A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping.”

“Cripes Miss Wilcox, they're not guns,' I said. No, they're not Mattie, they're books. And a hundred times more dangerous.”

“There were lives in those books, and deaths. Families and friends and lovers and enemies. Joy and despair, jealousy, envy, madness, and rage. All there. I reached out and touched the cover of one called The Earth. I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.”

“There was a basket at her feet. She reached into it and lifted out the head of a young woman, a marquise. She wore Bourbon white to her death, but wears the tricolor now - white cheeks, blue lips, red dripping from her neck. Long live the revolution.”

“If I had coal and fireAnd metal fine and trueI’d make an iron band An iron band for you I’d pick up all the pieces From where they fell that dayFit them back togetherAnd take the pain awayBut I don’t have the ironAnd I don’t have the steel To wrap around your broken heartAnd teach it how to healSomewhere in the fire Somewhere in the pain I’d find the magic that I need To make you whole againI’d make the iron band so strongI’d make it gleam so bright I’d fix the things I’ve broken I’d turn my wrongs to right But I don’t have the steel To wrap around your broken heart Wish I could make it heal Wish I could make it heal (Ch. 27)”

“Sometimes, when you catch someone unaware at just the right time and in just the right light, you can catch sight of what they will be.”

“Voice is not just the sound that comes from your throat, but the feelings that come from your words.”

“Men are the weak ones, luv. Didn't you know? Oh, you make a lot of noise, but its the women who are strong. Where it counts. In 'ere,”

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

“...Listen to your own thoughts and feelings very carefully, be aware of your observations, and learn to value them. When you're a teenager—and even when you're older—lots of people will try to tell you what to think and feel. Try to stand still inside all of that and hear your own voice. It's yours and only yours, it's unique and worth of your attention, and if you cultivate it properly, it might just make you a writer.”

“Why do you write?' Because I love words and stories so much. Because I would be grief stricken every day of my life if I couldn't write. Because I'm obsessed and compelled. Because I'd be utterly useless at anything else.”

“I grew up on a mixed diet of mass and class, and I still read that way. I hate it when people apologize for what they read. Some bestsellers aren't exactly literary. So what? They're fun and rip-roaring, Who instituted the book police and why do we have to answer them? Grrrrr!”

“Funny, 'ow you can 'old a jewel in your 'and, and toss it away, and not even know what you 'ad until it's gone.”

“We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them.”

“There is only one thing I fear now - love. For I have seen it and I have felt it and I know that it is love, not death, that undoes us.”

“The world goes on, stupid and brutal, but I do not. Can't you see? I do not.”

“I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people.”

“It goes on, this world, stupid and brutal. But I do not. I do not.”

“For the first time, I saw what was in his heart, and I wondered if he might ever want to look deep enough to see mine.”

“Most of the mess that is called history comes about because kings and presidents cannot be satisfied with a nice chicken and a good loaf of bread.”

“I'm wishing he could see that music lives. Forever. That it's stronger than death. Stronger than time. And that its strength holds you together when nothing else can.”

“I don't like hope very much. In fact, I hate it. It's the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard. It's bad news. The worst. It's sharp sticks and cherry bombs. When hope shows up, it's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.”

“I will go out again this very night with my rockets and fuses. I will blow them straight out of their comfortable beds. Blow the rooftops off their houses. Blow the black, wretched night to bits. I will not stop. For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.”

“Who knew that listening to a guy sleep could be so much deeper than sleeping with a guy.”

“Life’s all about the revolution, isn’t it? The one inside, I mean. You can’t change history. You can’t change the world. All you can ever change is yourself.”

“Stop yelling. If everyone’s yelling, no one can be heard.”

“History is a Rorschach test, people. What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.”

“It's not pride I'm feeling. It's another sin. Worse than all the other ones, which are immediate, violent, and hot. This one sits inside you quietly and eats you from the inside out like the trichina worms the pigs get. It's the Eighth Deadly Sin. The one God left out. Hope.”

“Lots of things are true. Doesn't mean you have to go around saying them.”

“Break a promise to the dead and they'll haunt you, Ada says. Keep the promise and they'll haunt you just the same.”