A Song for Ella Grey Quotes

“You’ve got all these weird forces in you, but you feel unsatisfied, empty, unfinished. You feel like everything that matters is a million miles and a million years away, and yes it might come to you but no it bliddy mightn’t. It’ll be like an unreachable constellation of the stars. And nothing will happen, ever. And you’ll never be anything, ever.”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey

“Being young is like being mad. Maybe just being human, at any age, is a bit like being mad. But Maybe the best thing that we do, and the best thing that we are, come from madness.”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey

“Maybe we were mad that day. Maybe some of the things that seemed to happen didn't really happen at all. Maybe many of the things that seemed to happen in the days and weeks that followed didn't really happen. Maybe it was all because we were young, and because being young is like being mad. Maybe just being human, at any age, is a bit like being mad.

But maybe the best things that we do, and the best things that we are, come from madness.”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey

“Follow me, one word then another, one sentence then another, one death then another. Don't hesitate. Keep moving forward with me through the night. It won't take long. Don't look back.”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey

“We scoffed at the kids who weren't like us, the ones who already talked about careers, or bliddy mortgages and pensions. Kids wanting to be old before they were young. Kids wanting to be dead before they'd lived. They were digging their own graves, building the walls of their own damn jails. Us, we hung to our youth. We were footloose, fancy free. We said we'd never grow boring and old. We plundered charity shops for vintage clothes. We bought battered Levis and gorgeous faded velvet stuff from Attica in High Bridge. We wore coloured boots, hemp scarves from Gaia. We read Baudelaire and Byron. We read our poems to each other. We wrote songs and posted them on YouTube. We formed bands. We talked of the amazing journeys we'd take together once school was done. Sometimes we paired off, made couples that lasted for a little while, but the group was us. We hung together. We could say anything to each other. We loved each other.”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey

“Maybe poets get to you best when you're sort of dreaming, when you're hardly there at all.”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey

“How can you turn yourself into something you want to be when you're alredy what you are?”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey

“She bookmarked my texts, my notes, my scribblings. She walked through my thoughts, waded through my dreams.”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey

“You're so beautiful, Ella,' I told her. I tried to tell her more, but the words I had were not enough and the sounds came out as useless gasps and murmurs. I just held her close, closer. I ached to protect her from all darkness, all pain, and all death.”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey

“Ella helped. Yes, she was a dreamer, but she had a way of doing her work without any fuss. She didn't understand the struggles some of us went through. If you had to write 1500 words you wrote 1500 words. You put one word then another then another then another.”
― David Almond, A Song for Ella Grey