13 Little Blue Envelopes Quotes

“Rule #1: You may bring only what fits in your backpack. Don’t try to fake it with a purse or a carry-on.

Rule #2: You may not bring guidebooks, phrase books, or any kind of foreign language aid. And no journals.

Rule #3: You cannot bring extra money or credit/debit cards, travelers’ checks, etc. I’ll take care of all that.

Rule #4: No electronic crutches. This means no laptop, no cell phone, no music, and no camera. You can’t call home or communicate with people in the U.S. by Internet or telephone. Postcards and letters are acceptable and encouraged.

That’s all you need to know for now. ”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I'm Keith," he said, "and you're . . . clearly mad, but what's your name?”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Salt. Wound. Together at last.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“She was standing in the airport of Copenhagen, staring at a doorway, trying to figure out if it was (a) a bathroom and (b) what kind of bathroom it was. The door merely said H.
Was she an H? Was H "hers"? It could just as easily be "his". Or "Helicopter Room: Not a Bathroom at All”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I am a mass of contradictions.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I like you because you were mad. And you're pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“When she emerged, Keith was watching the tiny round window of the under-the-counter washing machine.
"Put your clothes in for a wash," he said. "They were disgusting."
Ginny always thought that the only way of getting clothes clean was by drowning them in scalding water and then whipping them around in a violent centrifugal motion that caused the entire washing machine to vibrate and the floor to shake. You beat them clean. You made them suffer. This machine used about half a cup of water and was about as violent as a toaster, plus it stopped every few minutes, as if it were exhausted from the effort of turning itself.
Sluff, sluff, sluff sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest.
Click.
Sluff, sluff, sluff, sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest.
"Who thought to put a window on a washing machine?" Keith asked. "Does anyone just sit and watch their wash?"
You mean, besides us?"
"Well," he said, "yeah. Is there any coffee?”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked.
It was a good question.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Go see old virgins! Now ask a strange boy out, you shy, Retarded thing!”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Nothing was quite like it was supposed to be. ”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Why Paris? Paris needs no reason. Paris is its own reason.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“because talent alone doesn't make an artist”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Sometimes artist like to catch themselves looking out, let the world see them for once. It's a signature. This one is a very bold one. But this is also a witnessing. We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That's why we paint.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“i miss you so much it's giving me a pain in my pancreas.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Sometimes, life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you just have to pick a direction and run like hell.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“i get a little romantic about the old Empire State. Just looking at it makes me want to play some Frank Sinatra tunes and sway a little. I have a crush on a building. I'd been in there several times but never to work. I always knew there were offices in there but the face never penetrated, really. You don't work in the Empire State Building. You propose in the Empire State Building. You sneak a flask up there and raise a toast to the whole city of New York.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“She had always thought applying to college would be exciting. Living away from home, meeting so many new people, Learning new things, making a few poor life desicisons....”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“The locker at the end of her bed had no lock, and one of the hinges was busted. She opened it up.
There was a thing in it.
The thing might have been a sandwich at some point, or an animal, or a human hand...but what it was now was fuzzy and putrid.
A minute later, Ginny was down the stairs, out the door, and gone.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Her kung fu is that powerful.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“She didn't even notice right away that a small animal had come out from behind a nearby car and was slowly making its way toward the trash can she was standing near. She flipped through some old files in her mind, trying to come up with what this thing might be, and after a few seconds decided that--impossible as it seemed--it was a fox.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I still have a whopping bad case of what you call scag magnetism. I thought i had gotten rid of it there, but it looks like scary guys still materialize from thin air in my presence. They are drawn to me. I am the North Pole, and they are the explorers of love.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“People don't change . . . You just sort of have to take them like they are.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I love Ginny's expedition!”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I'll go to Venice and drown my sorrows.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Ginny had seen enough shows in her lifetime to know that this wasn’t a very good show. It didn’t actually make any sense. There were a lot of random things going on, like a guy who sometimes rode through the scene on a bike for no reason that Ginny could figure. And at one point, there was a shooting in the background, but the guy who got shot just kept on singing, so his injuries obviously weren’t that bad.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Early the next morning, they were on a tram out to the far edge of Amsterdam. Ginny liked the tram. It was like an overgrown toy train that had gotten loose on the streets. She looked out and saw the Netherlands wobbling by - its ancient houses and constant canals and people in practical shoes.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you just have to pick a direction and run like hell.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“No shoe should be judged by its footprint, for the foot has a print of its own.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I live alone," Knud said, "and I work alone, but I am never truly alone. I do my ancestor's work. I live the entire history of my country and people.”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Ils durent prendre le tramway pour se rendre au prochain musée, la Maison de Rembrandt, qui était (comme son nom l'indique), la maison de Rembrandt [...].”
― Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes