Natalie Babbitt > Quotes

“Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“dont be afraid of death, be afraid of the unlived life.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Nothing seems interesting when it belongs to you, only when it doesn't."---Tuck Everlasting”
― Natalie Babbitt

“Life's got to be lived, no matter how long or short. You got to take what comes.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Everything's a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it is.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“You can't have living without dying. So you can't call it living, what we got. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt

“For some, time passes slowly. An hour can seem like an eternity. For others, there was never enough. For Jesse Tuck, it didn't exist.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“And suddenly, she longed for a thunderstorm.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“How old are you, anyway?' she asked, squinting at him.
There was a pause. At last he said, 'Why do you want to know?'
I just wondered,' said Winnie.
All right. I'm one hundred and four years old,' he told her solemnly.
No, I mean really,' she persisted.
Well then.' he said, 'if you must know, I'm seventeen.'
Seventeen?'
That's right.'
Oh,' said Winnie hopelessly. 'Seventeen. That's old.'
You have no idea,' he agreed with a nod.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“For, through the twilight sounds of crickets and sighing trees, a faint, surprising wisp of music came floating to them and all three turned toward it, toward the wood.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“The ownership of land is an odd thing when you come to think of it. How deep, after all, can it go? If a person owns a piece of land, does he own it all the way down, in ever narrowing dimensions, till it meets all other pieces at the center of the earth? Or does ownership consist only of a thin crust under which the friendly worms have never heard of trespassing?”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“No connection, you would agree. But things can come together in strange ways. The wood was at the center, the hub of the wheel. All wheels must have a hub. A ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calendar. Fixed points they are, and best left undisturbed, for without them, nothing holds together. But sometimes people find this out too late.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“(I)n reading . . . stories, you can be many different people in many different places, doing things you would never have a chance to do in ordinary life. It's amazing that those twenty-six little marks of the alphabet can arrange themselves on the pages of a book and accomplish all that. Readers are lucky - they will never be bored or lonely.”
― Natalie Babbitt

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“But it's enough, just having this day. It's the knowing there's something different, something special up there waiting. It's the knowing you could choose to change your days--climb up there and throw yourself right down the throat of the only and last and greatest terrible secret in the world. Except you don't climb up.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Kneeknock Rise

“Don't fear death, fear the un-lived life”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Well, thought Winnie, crossing her arms on the windowsill, she was different. Things had happened to her that were hers alone, and had nothing to do with them. It was the first time. And no amount of telling about it could help them understand or share what she felt. It was satisfying and lonely, both at once.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“I was having that dream again, the good one where we're all in heaven and never heard of Treegap.”
― Natalie Babbitt

“...with white dawns and glaring moons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Nothing ever seems interesting when it belongs to you - only when it doesn't.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Everything's a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thush, too.
And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. Thats the way it's suppose to be. That's the way it is.
If we didn't move it out ourself, it would stay here forever, trying to get loose, but stuck. That's what us Tucks are, Winnie.
We ain't part of the wheel anymore.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Here, child, said Mae hastily Hide your eyes. Boys? Are you decent? What'd you put on to swim in? I got Winnie Foster in the house?
For goodness sake ma said Jesse emerging from the stairwell . You think were going to march around in our altogether with Winnie Foster in the house?
And Miles behind him sain we just jumped in with our clothes on too tired to shed them
It was true. They stood there side by side with their wet clothes plastered to their skins, little pools of water collecting at their feet.”
― Natalie Babbitt

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“They've really begun the war," he said to himself. "And all over a word in a dictionary, the ninnies!”
― Natalie Babbitt, The Search for Delicious

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever. You just have to live.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“You dont have to live forever just live.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Time is like a wheel. Turning and turning - never stopping. And the woods are the center; the hub of the wheel. It began the first week of summer, a strange and breathless time when accident, or fate, bring lives together. When people are led to do things, they've never done before. On this summer's day, not so very long ago, the wheel set lives in motion in mysterious ways.”
― Natalie Babbitt

“I love the book tuck everlasting it was so sad at the end because.... sorry no spoiler alerts.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Facts are the barren branches on which we hang the dear, obscuring foliage of our dreams.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Kneeknock Rise