Joan Lowery Nixon
Author of more than one hundred books, Joan Lowery Nixon is the only writer to have won four Edgar Allan Poe Awards for Juvenile Mysteries (and been nominated several other times) from the Mystery Writers of America. Creating contemporary teenage characters who have both a personal problem and a mystery to solve, Nixon captured the attention of legions of teenage readers since the publication of her first YA novel more than twenty years ago. In addition to mystery/suspense novels, she wrote nonfiction and fiction for children and middle graders, as well as several short stories. Nixon was the first person to write novels for teens about the orphan trains of the nineteenth century. She followed those with historical novels about Ellis Island and, more recently for younger readers, Colonial Williamsburg. Joan Lowery Nixon died on June 28, 2003—a great loss for all of us.
“Sometimes it's easier not to try to understand people.”
“To my way of thinking, the slavery issue is just an excuse to allow some people to do hateful things and feel righteous about it.”
“...each of us from the seance stood alone. Like so many pillars of salt, we had tried to look back and failed. And in the eyes of the others who shared the pale, flat sky with us, there was sometimes suspicion, sometimes a little fear.”
“Dates are convenient hooks on which we can hang our memories of events. But history is all about people - people like you and me who did things to change the world.”
“Don't matter if you believe in them or not. If they're there, they're there,' Mrs. Phipps said.”
“Virtual reality is a self-created form of chosen reality. Therefore it exists.”
“There's more to getting to where you're going then just knowing there's a road.”
“Life is not easy. We all have problems-even tragedies-to deal with, and luck has nothing to do with it. Bad luck is only the superstitious excuse for those who don't have the wit to deal with the problems of life. ”
“Having a baby is part of a woman's life, and it is surely a great waste to be afraid of life.”
“I know why people die of hopelessness. It comes on like a thick blanket, covering your thoughts, your confidence, creeping into your mind and filling the corners. I lie in the dark, suffocating under horrible dispare, wishing I were dead. I sleep, then wake, then sleep. The sleep is filled with monstrous dreams that attack, cry out, and vanish, leaving me once more awake and staring into the darkness. Help me! My mind is screaming, but there is no one to hear.”
“Any other mislabeled underachievers around here? Speak up now or suffer the consquences," he said. Emily blinked. "other mislabeled underachievers?" That's correct," Maxwell said. "I, for one, have definitely been mislabeled. I am not an underachiever. I simply refuse to waste my time on subjects which will be of no use to me in my future, such as math and science.”
“There are 2 ways of crying-on the outside or from the inside-and I've been crying on the inside most of my life.”