A Long Way from Chicago Quotes

“The years went by, and Mary Alice and I grew up, Slower than we wanted to, faster than we realized.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Never trust an ugly woman. She's got a grudge against the world,' said Grandma who was no oil painting herself.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Nobody but a reader becomes a writer.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“I don’t think grandma’s a very good influence on us.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Blue lightning flashed in the kitchen, and for a split second you could see every calendar on the wall in there. Than an almighty explosion like the crack of doom. She'd rolled a cherry bomb across the floor, and it went off right under the eight feet of the Cowgill brothers, the three big bruisers and Ernie.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“And I'll tell you something else for free. If you set a foot over that doorsill, I'll wring your red neck.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Grandma saved herself a lot of bother by not being the kind of person you question.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“What little we knew about grownups didn't seem to cover Grandma.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“It was always August.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Even from a distance, he looked like somebody you didn't want to know better.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Are all my memories true? Every word, and growing truer with the years.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“I don’t think Grandma’s a very good influence on us,”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Grandma wasn’t about to clap for deputies. She began to fidget.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Mary Alice and I stared at each other. Of all her whoppers, this was Grandma’s crowning achievement. She had ears on her like an Indian scout.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“You couldn’t blast Aunt Puss off her place with a charge of dynamite.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“We both sighed. We were still kids, so we liked everything to stay the same.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“What’s a church rummage sale like anyway?” Mary Alice asked. “Ever been in a henhouse?” Grandma said.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Everybody but Baptists came.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Now I was bolt awake, and the goose bumps were back. Wearing only my BVDs,”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“but I was always interested in anything from her early life that might explain Grandma.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Kissin’ don’t last. Good cookin’ does.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Quiet followed as we listened to Grandma’s wooden spoon scraping the sides of the stew pan. At length, she said, “I cook to eat, not to show off.” Mrs. Weidenbach sighed. “Mrs. Dowdel, these are desperate times. Don’t hide your light under a bushel. It is up to you to hold high the banner for our town.” Grandma putting herself out for the fame of the town? I thought Mrs. Weidenbach was on the wrong track. On the other hand, Grandma liked to win.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“It was because you wadded up your underdrawers to stop up the flue on the stove and smoke out the schoolhouse. That was the end of yer education!” “Working for you was an education,” Grandma muttered,”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“But I didn’t ask. Grandma saved herself a lot of bother by not being the kind of person you question.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“tapped Mrs. Wilcox on the shoulder. She jerked around. “It’s a miracle,” she hollered out. “The first Dowdel ever seen in the House of the Lord! Hallelujah, one more sinner gathered in!”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Noticing how close to home I was keeping, Grandma told me to weed the garden. You didn’t want to hang around her too close, or she’d give you a job.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“The story of Shotgun Cheatham’s last night above ground kept The Coffee Pot Cafe fully engaged for the rest of our visit that summer. It was a story that grew in the telling in one of those little towns where there’s always time to ponder all the different kinds of truth.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Apart from Grandma herself, I was the only one who’d seen her big old snaggletoothed tomcat streak out of the coffin and over the windowsill when she let fire. And I supposed she’d seen him climb in, which gave her ideas. It was the cat, sitting smug on Shotgun Cheatham’s breathless chest, who’d batted at the gauze the way a cat will. And he sure lit out the way he’d come when Grandma fired just over his ragged ears, as he’d probably used up eight lives already. The cat in the coffin gave Grandma Dowdel her chance. She didn’t seem to have any time for Effie Wilcox, whose tongue flapped at both ends, but she had even less for newspaper reporters who think your business is theirs.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“Mary Alice hadn’t moved. The first explosion had blasted her awake, but she naturally thought that Grandma had killed her, so she didn’t bother to budge.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“If he’d been aiming at her, she’d have died of old age eventually.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago