Island of Whispers Quotes

“Kindness is not weakness. To be kind in this unkind world is walking through a battlefield without armour or sword. It takes courage and strength to be kind.”
― Frances Hardinge, Island of Whispers

“Everywhere Milo saw traces of his father - his chair, his bowl, the roof he had planned to mend. The worst thing about losing somebody is that, even after you survive a difficult day, the next morning the person you miss is still gone, and you have to get through another day without them.”
― Frances Hardinge, Island of Whispers

“She halted before her father, the hero of her short life. He would do anything for her, wrest her from the grip of death. She would return home... or something would. Something would sit like a doll in his drawing room, saying nothing and smiling a painted smile forever.
Her father's eyes flitted this way and that. He could not see her, she realized. Perhaps he never had.”
― Frances Hardinge, Island of Whispers

“There was a trick to seeing and hearing the Dead, like the trick to falling asleep. You had to not quite listen, not quite look, not quite think. You let the edges of your mind slip into the right sort of greyness, and then you could sometimes sense them.”
― Frances Hardinge, Island of Whispers

“They do not touch you. But they will trick you into touching them. Falter-moths, grief-winged. Things of doubt and confusion that feed on loss. If you touch them, they will feed on you...”
― Frances Hardinge, Island of Whispers