Jennifer Donnelly > Quotes

“Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get--a cold sick feeling, deep down inside--when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, for the very first time, that there will now be a before and an after, a was and a will be. And that you will never again quite be the same person you were.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“I know it is a bad thing to break a promise, but I think now that it is a worse thing to let a promise break you.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

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

“Stop yelling. If everyone’s yelling, no one can be heard.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“Voice is not just the sound that comes from your throat, but the feelings that comes from your words.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“Cripes Miss Wilcox, they're not guns,' I said.
No, they're not Mattie, they're books. And a hundred times more dangerous.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

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

“Words fail me sometimes. I have read most every word in the Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language, but I still have trouble making them come when I want them to. Right now I want a word that describes the feeling you get – a cold sick feeling deep down inside – when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don’t want it to, but you can’t stop it. And you know you will never be the same again.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“Who knew that listening to a guy sleep could be so much deeper than sleeping with a guy.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“I will rain down silver and gold for you. I will shatter the black night, break it open, and pour out a million stars. Turn away from the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and know that I am here. That I remember and hope. Open your eyes and look at the light.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“If I had coal and fire
And metal fine and true
I’d make an iron band
An iron band for you
I’d pick up all the pieces
From where they fell that day
Fit them back together
And take the pain away
But I don’t have the iron
And I don’t have the steel
To wrap around your broken heart
And teach it how to heal
Somewhere in the fire
Somewhere in the pain
I’d find the magic that I need
To make you whole again
I’d make the iron band so strong
I’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)”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“It's another sin. Worse than all the other ones, which are immediate, violent and hot...It's the eighth deadly sin. The one God left out, Hope.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, The Tea Rose

“She's got a big belt around her hips. It has a shiny buckle with PRADA on it, which is Italian for insecure.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

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

“She was his soulmate, as much a part of him as the very flesh and bone that made him. She was with him, in him, in everything he did. She was everything he wanted from his life, the very measure of his dreams.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, The Tea Rose

“Becuse God loves us, but the devil takes an interest. pg 248”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

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

“For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“I play until my fingers are blue and stiff from the cold, and then I keep on playing. Until I'm lost in the music. Until I am the music--notes and chords, the melody and harmony. It hurts, but it's okay because when I'm the music, I'm not me. Not sad. Not afraid. Not desperate. Not guilty.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“...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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“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?”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“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!”
― Jennifer Donnelly

“The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, The Winter Rose

“Why is it that weeks and months and years go by so quickly, all in a blur, but moments last forever?”
― Jennifer Donnelly

“Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“There is an advantage to be found in most everything that happens to you, even if it is not immediately apparent.”
― Jennifer Donnelly

“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.”
― Jennifer Donnelly

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

“Make them care, Mattie,' she said softly. 'And don't you ever be sorry.'
-Emily Wilcox”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light