The Children Quotes

“The children who grew up on these books and reread them later often say the same thing: These are darker than I remember. Crueler”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“…readers misremembered plots, inserting new scenes, revealing things about themselves with these false memories.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“They dipped their hands into the dark. The dark reached back.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“All the misfit kids who’d grown up on the Ninth City series fell straight back through time when confronted with her, the actual Guinevere Sharpe. Daughter of author Edith Sharpe, living avatar of their favorite literary character.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“I basically lived there. I would read the books in order, then start right back at book one.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“Where’d we see those old date stamps?” —Edith Sharpe, The Ninth City (Hart & Crane, 2000)”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“Books lined the walls of every room. Even the bathroom had a built-in shelf of rippled paperbacks to read in the tub.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“A million stories begin like this: a girl went walking through a great wood. A traveler, moving along the stitched borders of countless possible tales. The breeze rose and she shivered, though not with cold.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“Guinevere held her breath, feeling the moment swell. She had so many questions. New ones, plus the same old round. Why don’t you: hold me, talk to me, come to me, look at me, lay your body beneath mine, rock solid, so I can find my footing, jump from your arms and into the world? Not that she had the words for it. Guinevere didn’t know what was owed to her, couldn’t name that missing thing. She could only sense its lack.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“Incensario. A little metal pineapple full of God’s cologne.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“The children who grew up on these books and reread them later often say the same thing: These are darker than I remember. Crueler, stranger, more haunted by longing and loss. All good children’s books are.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“There was a certain cast of evening light that stirred up the loneliness in her”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“Another canvas wouldn’t simply lose its luster placed beside it but the force that kept it together. What else might this painting swallow”
― Melissa Albert, The Children

“It was neither a promise nor a lie but some third thing. A pretty notion from a parallel world.”
― Melissa Albert, The Children