Maya Xu > Maya's Quotes

“They did not hear Grimble, as he lay dying, chant in the true voice of the Boreal Owl, in tones like chimes in the night, an ancient owl prayer, “I have redeemed myself by giving belief to the wings of the young. Blessed are those who believe, for indeed they shall fly."”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Capture

“You ugly rat-faced birds.
You call yourself a bird?
You call yourself an owl?
You ain't no decent kind of fowl!
They call you Jatt?
They call you Jutt?
I'm gonna toss you in a rut!
Then I'm gonna punch you in the gut!
Then your gonna wind up on your butt!
Think you're all gizzard!
I seen better lizards.
One-Two-Three-Four,
You're goin' down, won't ask for more.
Five-Six-Seven-Eight,
You ain't better than fish bait...
Nine-Ten-Eleven-Twelve,
I'm gonna send you straight to hell.
-Twilight”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Capture

“We are the owls of the weather chaw.
We take it blistering,
We take it all.
Roiling boiling gusts,
We're the owls with the guts.
For blizzards our gizzards
Dr tremble with joy.
An ice storm, a gale, how we love blinding hail.
We fly forward and backward,
Upside down and flat.
Do we flinch? Do we wail?
Do we skitter or scutter?
No, we yarp one more pellet
And fly straight for the gutter!
Do we screech? Do we scream?
Do we gurgle? Take pause?
Not on your life!
For we are the best
Of the best of the chaws!”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

“Night is done, gone the moon, gone the stars
From the skies.
Fades the black of night
Comes the morn with rosy light.
Fold your wings, go to sleep,
Rest your gizzards, Safe you'll be for the day.
Glaux is nigh.
Far away is first black,
But it shall seep back
Over field
Over flower
In the twilight hour.
We are home in our tree.
We are owls, we are free.
As we go, this we know
Glaux is nigh.”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

“One creature's truth is another's lie. (Scroom of Strix Struma)”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Outcast

“I am ashamed of anyone who has eyes and still cannot see. (Mrs. Plithiver)”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

“Otulissa swelled up to twice her normal size. 'Well, SPRINK ON YOUR SPRONK!”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Siege

“Everything here at St. Aggie's is upside down and inside out. It's our job not to get moon blinked and to stand right side up in an upside down world. If we don't do that we'll never be able to escape. We'll never be able to think. And thinking is the only way we'll be able to plan an escape."
-Gylfie”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Capture

“What gives a wriggle
And makes you giggle
When you eat'em?
Whose weensy little feet
Make my heart really beat?
Why, it's those little creepy crawlies
That make me feel so jolly.

For the darling centipede
My favorite buggy feed
I always want some more.
That's the insect I adore
More than beetles, more than crickets,
Which at times gives me the hiccups.
I crave only to feed
On a juicy centipede
And I shall be happy forevermore."
-Soren”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Capture

“What is a fleecy as a cloud,
As majestic and shimmering as the breaking dawn,
As gorgeous as the sun the sun is strong?
Why, it's ME!
Twilight, the Great Gray,
Tiger of the sky ---
Light of the Night, Most beautiful,
An avian delight.
I beam ---
I gleam ---
I'm a livin' flying dream.
Watch me roll off this cloud and pop on back.
This is flying.
I ain't no hack.”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

“Courage... is fear holding on just a bit longer.”
― Kathryn Lasky, Watch Wolf

“We're going to bash them birds,
Them rat-feathered birds.
Them bad-butt owls ain't never heard
'Bout Gylfie, Soren, Dig, and Twilight
Just let them get to feel my bite
Their li'l ole gizzards gonna turn to pus
And our feathers hardly mussed.
Oh, me. Oh, my. They gonna cry.
One look at Twilight,
They know they're gonna die.
I see fear in their eyes
And that ain't all.
They know that Twilight's got the gall.
Gizzard with gall that makes him great
And every bad owl gonna turn to bait.”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

“Give me a hot coal glowing bright red,
Give me an ember sizzling with heat,
These are the jewels made from my beak.
We fly between the flames and never get singed
We plunge through the smoke and never cringe.
The secrets of fire, its strange winds, its rages,
We know it all as it rampages
Through forests, through canyons,
Up hillsides and down.
We track it.
We'll find it.
Take coals by the pound.
We'll yarp in the heart of the hottest flame
Then bring back its coals an make them tame.
For we are the colliers brave and beyond all
We are the owls of the colliering chaw!”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

“Cycling, cycling forever
bear, wolf, caribou.
When had it all started, where will it end?
We are all part of one, from such simple beginnings and yet all so different.
Yet one.
One and again.”
― Kathryn Lasky, Lone Wolf

“Far away if first black,
But it shall be back
Over field
Over flower
In the twilight hour.
We are home in our tree.
We are owls, we are free.
As we go, this we know
Glaux is nigh.”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

“Words, as you well know, can be powerful. - Digger”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Golden Tree

“And if you can't imagine, nothing will ever happen.”
― Kathryn Lasky, The River of Wind

“You must not think of time as a quantity, a period, a measure. Look at the sky," Gwynneth said. "The moon has now slipped away to another night, into another world. It was not the time it was here that you remember, Faolan, but rather the luminescence of the air, the blue shadows cast by the trees in its light. It was not the length of the time but the quality of the moon's light that you felt and remember." Gwynneth paused. "It is the value, the quality that lives on.”
― Kathryn Lasky, Lone Wolf

“You are a mask.You are nothing more!There is nothing behind your mask,not a face,nothing!I shall fly in the fullness of the night.Under the moon and the stars I shall hunt the vole,the rat,even the fox.I shall become part of owlkind,no matter where I have to go.But I shall go!And I shall never ever return to the Pure Ones.I defy you.I HAVE FREE WILL!"
-Coryn”
― Kathryn Lasky

“I don't think real friends would be jealous. -Primrose”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Shattering

“A spark can become a flame, a flame a fire.”
― Kathryn Lasky, Lone Wolf

“The path is a ribbon of moonlight across a dusky sea.
The wind sings a song that beckons us
To that great and mighty tree.

We are the Greenowls of Ambala, clad in raiments of moss,
Sprigged with lichens and grasses
Then gilded with silvery frost.

Fair and square we play- for a sporting lot we are.
We ride the boisterous Balefire gusts
And we reach for every star.”
― Kathryn Lasky, Exile

“Set your wings upon the sea wind
Set your eyes upon the stream
Feel the billow of the updraft
And believe in your dream

Know the mercy of these waters
Know the safety of the sky
Hear the voices in the distance
And believe - they will not lie.”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Burning

“At the edge of the avalanche
At the glacier’s icy rim
Grows the flower of the snowfields
Trembling in the wintry wind.

It dares to live in edges
Where naught else would ever grow.
So fragile, so unlikely
An owl slices through this blow.

She dares the katabats
Her gizzard madly quivers,
But for her dearest of friends
She vows she shall deliver.

Like the lily of the avalanche
The glacier’s icy rose
Like a flower of the wind
The bright fierceness in her glows.

The bravest are the small
The weakest are the strong
The most fearful find the courage
To battle what is wrong.”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Burning

“Don’t you see, Mhairie, if we don’t keep telling the stories, we shall forget them. And if we forget them, our marrow will leak away, our clan marrow will vanish. Now was not the time to forget. Now was the time to remember. Memory, Dearlea thought, is the life-pumping artery, the blood in that artery. Memory is the sinew, the muscle that stretches back to the Beyond and before the Beyond. Have we not come full circle? she wondered. Now is not the time to forget. She felt a quiet despair, for there was song deep within her desperate to get out. Lupus, she would not die with the song inside her! Her mother, who rode next to her on another narwhale’s back with Abban, turned toward her and howled, “Sing, Dearlea! Sing! You are a skreeleen. The first in this new world.” So Dearlea threw back her head and sang. And out of that dark place we fled That broken land so scarred and dead Our hopes our dreams forever gone. Then did we follow this wolf so bold To this place that did unfold As if lost in mists of time It was the Distant Blue A new world sublime. On a bridge of ice we walked and walked We now give thanks to Lupus, to Glaux, To Ursus and gods not known, And to whales who carried us The last way To here in our new home. The other creatures began to join in. The wolves howled, and from Toby’s and Burney’s deep chests came sonorous roars that stirred Faolan’s heart. Dearlea was so right to sing, to remind them of what they had left behind.”
― Kathryn Lasky, Star Wolf

“No one is too small for anything. You just have to think big!”
― Kathryn Lasky

“Young’uns!” Mrs. P. interrupted. “No bad language, not at the table, please. And need I remind you, I am the table!”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Shattering

“Indeed, nobility is not always found in the flash of battle claws or flying through the embered wakes of firestorms, or even in making strong the weak, mending the broken, vanquishing the proud, or making powerless those who abuse the frail.” Soren’s gizzard grew quiet as Boron spoke. “It is also found in the resolute heart, the gizzard that can withstand the temptations of false dreams, the mind that has the imagination to comprehend another’s pain,”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

“No" was most definitely Faolan's favorite word. "No" and "More milk.”
― Kathryn Lasky, Lone Wolf

“We are only as noble as our actions prove us to be.”
― Kathryn Lasky, To Be a King