Jill > Jill's Quotes

“How can you know what is missing if you’ve never met it? You must know of something’s existence before you can notice its absence. ”
― E.L. Konigsburg, The View from Saturday

“I waited for her to catch up, and when I did, she slowed down, and I missed seeing the light in her hair. I never told Nadia how much I liked seeing the halo the sunlight made of her hair. Sometimes silence is a habit that hurts.”
― E.L. Konigsburg, The View from Saturday

“The only really interesting thing about someone that makes you want to explore them further is their heart, and Miss Honeycut has a teeny tiny pea-sized one and it takes you nowhere you want to go.”
― Polly Horvath, Everything on a Waffle

“I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Nothing in life is easy. But that's no reason to give up. You'll be surprised what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. After all, you only have one life, so you should try to make the most of it.”
― Louis Sachar

“Rattlesnakes would be a lot more dangerous if they didn't have the rattle.”
― Louis Sachar, Holes

“If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs,
"The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies."
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
Crying to the moo-oo-oon,
"If only, If only.”
― Louis Sachar, Holes

“If only, if only, the moon speaks no reply;
Reflecting the sun and all that's gone by.
Be strong my weary wolf, turn around boldly.
Fly high, my baby bird,
My angel, my only”
― Louis Sachar, Holes

“The best morals kids get from any book is just the capacity to empathize with other people, to care about the characters and their feelings. So you don't have to write a preachy book to do that. You just have to make it a fun book with characters they care about, and they will become better people as a result.”
― Louis Sachar

“To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.”
― Katherine Paterson, Jacob Have I Loved

“Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman. Such was the fate of Chiaroscuro. His heart was broken. Picking up the spoon and placing it on his head, speaking of revenge, these things helped him to put his heart together again. But it was, alas, put together wrong.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“Love is ridiculous. But love is also wonderful. And powerful. And Despereaux's love for the Princess Pea would prove, in time, to be all of these things: powerful, wonderful, and ridiculous.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light. She did not like the rat. She would neverlike the rat, but she knew what she must do to save her own heart.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“But, reader, there is no comfort in the word "farewell," even if you say it in French. "Farewell" is a word that,in any language, is full of sorrow. It is a word that promises absolutely nothing.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“Despereaux looked at his father, at his grey-streaked fur and trembling whiskers and his front paws clasped together in front of his heart, and he felt suddenly as if his own heart would break in two. His father looked so small, so sad.
"Forgive me," said Lester again.
Forgiveness, reader, is, I think, something very much like hope and love, a powerful, wonderful thing.
And a ridiculous thing, too.
Isn't it ridiculous, after all, to think that a son could forgive his father for beating the drum that sent him to his death? Isn't it ridiculous to think that a mouse ever could forgive anyone for such perfidy?
But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, "I forgive you, Pa."
And he said those words because he sensed it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“There is nothing sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver

“It is much easier to be brave if you do not know everything.”
― Lois Lowry

“Mama was crying, and the rain made it seem as if the whole world was crying.”
― Lois Lowry, Number the Stars

“Kindness must be the highest virtue--don't let me forget that ever. Were I to strive for one thing only 'twould be to be kind to others, as you are, Catherine.”
― Joan W. Blos, A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32

“Well, I am going on 83 now but not about to quit. There are too many things I know about where I want to see what happens. You, my dear, being one of them, and this new century starting.
Do what you can to make it good. And remember, as we used to say, that life is like a pudding: it takes both the salt and the sugar to make a really good one.”
― Joan W. Blos, A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32

“If you could hold your nose to avoid a stink, or close your eyes to cut out a sight, why not shut off your brain to avoid a thought?”
― Katherine Paterson, Jacob Have I Loved

“They looked for one another when nothing else was happening, the way you pick up a magazine or look in the cupboard for a snack. Not exactly by accident and not exactly on purpose. You could go out in the world and do new things and meet new people, and then you could come home and just sit on the stoop with someone you had never not known, and watch lightning bugs blink on and off.”
― Lynne Rae Perkins, Criss Cross

“the way i see it, hard times aren't only about money, or drought, or dust. hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“Apples

Ma's apple blossoms
have turned to hard green balls.

To eat them now,
so tart,
would turn my mouth inside out,
would make my stomach groan.

But in just a couple months,
after the baby is born,
those apples will be ready
and we'll make pies
and sauce
and pudding
and dumplings
and cake
and cobbler
and have just plain apples to take to school
and slice with my pocket knife
and eat one juicy piece at a time
until my mouth is clean
and fresh
and my breath is nothing but apple.

June 1934”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“I have a hunger,
for more than food.
I have a hunger
bigger than Joyce City.
I want tongues to tie, and
eyes to shine at me
like they do at Mad Dog Craddock.
Course they never will,
not with my hands all scarred up,
looking like the earth itself,
all parched and rough and cracking,
but if I played right enough,
maybe they would see past my hands.
Maybe they could feel at ease with me again,
and maybe then,
I could feel at east with myself.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“And I know now that all the time I was trying to get
out of the dust,
the fact is,
what I am,
I am because of the dust.
And what I am is good enough.
Even for me.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“My sister had taught me to look at the world that way, as a place that glitters, as a place where the calls of the crickets and the crows and the wind are everyday occurrences that also happen to be magic.”
― Cynthia Kadohata, Kira-Kira