Ms.Kalick > Ms.Kalick's Quotes

“Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It's like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to.”
― Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me

“Well, it's simple to love someone," she said. "But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.”
― Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me

“Mom says each of us has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world, like a bride wears on her wedding day, except this kind of veil is invisible. We walk around happily with these invisible veils hanging down over our faces. The world is kind of blurry, and we like it that way. But sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments, like there's a wind blowing it from our faces. And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love. But mostly we are happy not to. Some people learn to lift the veil themselves. Then they don't have to depend on the wind anymore.”
― Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me

“I swear, you are the only person I know who makes decisions based on what will provide the best material for a diary.”
― Rob Thomas, Rats Saw God

“The stage is not real life, and the stage is not a copy of real life. Just like the statue , the stage is only a place where things are made present. Things that would not ordinarily happen are made to happen on stage. The stage is a site at which people can access things that would otherwise not be available to them. The stage is a place where we can witness things in such a way that it becomes unnecessary for us to feel or perform these things ourselves.”
― Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal

“It’s awful, telling it like this, isn’t it? As though we didn’t know the ending. As though it could have another ending. It’s like watching Romeo drink poison. Every time you see it you get fooled into thinking his girlfriend might wake up and stop him. Every single time you see it you want to shout, 'You stupid ass, just wait a minute,' and she’ll open her eyes! 'Oi, you, you twat, open your eyes, wake up! Don’t die this time!' But they always do.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“How did you ever get here, Maddie Brodatt?"
"'Second to the right, and then straight on till morning,'" she answered promptly-it did feel like Neverland.
"Crikey, am I so obviously Peter Pan?"
Maddie laughed. "The Lost Boys give it away."
Jamie studied his hands. "Mother keeps the windows open in all our bedrooms while we're gone, like Mrs. Darling, just in case we come flying home when she's not expecting us.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“People are complicated. There is so much more to everybody than you realize. You see someone in school everyday, or at work, in the canteen, and you share a cigarette of a coffee with them, and you talk about the weather or last night's air raid. But you don't talk so much about what was the nastiest thing you ever said to your mother, or how you pretended to be David Balfour, the hero of Kidnapped, for the whole of the year when you were 13, or what you imagine yourself doing with the pilot who looks like Leslie Howard if you were alone in his bunk after a dance.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Things to do today:
1) Breathe in.
2) Breathe out.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“To be careful with people and with words was a rare and beautiful thing.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“From what we cannot hold the stars are made.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.”
― Charles M. Schulz

“Comme un fou se croit Dieu, nous nous croyons mortels.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading

“The truth is, deep ends cause drowning. Baptisms by fire cause third-degree burns.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“A cow of awkward pause mooed.”
― David Mitchell

“Listening to houses breathe makes you feel weightless.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“Run across a field of daisies at warp speed but keep your eyes on the ground. It's ace. Pedaled stars and dandelion comets streak the green universe.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“Listening's reading if you close your eyes. Music's a wood you walk through.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“Writing poetry's,' I looked around the solarium, but Madame Crommelynck's got a tractor beam, 'sort of . . . gay.'
'"Gay"? A merry activity?'
This was hopeless. 'Writing poems is . . . what creeps and poofters do.'
'So are you one of these „creeps”?
'No.'
'Then you are a „pooof-ter”, whatever one is?'
'No!'
'Then your logic is eluding me.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“Lavender's my favorite scent, after White-Out and bacon rind. I sat down on the steps, not sure where to go next.
A July afternoon yawned.
Mirage puddles'd shimmered on the Welland road as I rode here.
I could've gone to sleep on the baked doorstep.
Little naked ants.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“Contrary to popular wisdom, bullies are rarely cowards.
Bullies come in various shapes and sizes. Observe yours. Gather intelligence.
Shunning one hopeless battle is not an act of cowardice.
Hankering for security or popularity makes you weak and vulnerable.
Which is worse: Scorn earned by informers? Misery endured by victims?
The brutal May have been molded by a brutality you cannot exceed.
Let guile be your ally.
Respect earned by integrity cannot be lost without your consent.
Don't laugh at what you don't find funny.
Don't support an opinion you don't hold.
The independent befriend the independent.
Adolescence dies in its fourth year. You live to be eighty.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green