The Wolf Wilder Quotes

“Stories can start revolutions.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“It's inhuman to take your books away before you know the end.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“People say we can't do anything about the way the world is; they say it's set in stone. I say it looks like stone, but it's mostly paint and cardboard.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Wolves, and stars, and snow: Those things made sense.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“The set of her chin suggested she might have slain a dragon before breakfast. The look in her eyes suggested she might, in fact, have eaten it.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Wolves are the witches of the animal world.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Humans, on the whole, Feo could take or leave; there was only one person she loved properly, with the sort of fierce pride that gets people into trouble, or prison, or history books.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“You will never be tougher than you are now. Children are the toughest creatures on the planet. They endure.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Cowardice is for cowards. Fear is for people with brains and eyes and functioning nerve endings.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“It's dancing! It's magical, actually. A kind of slowish magic. Like writing with your feet.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Wolves, like children, are not meant to lead calm lives.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Feo wished she could explain - that the beauty of the world is itself a kind of company, and they lived in one of the most beautiful spots in the world. 'You can make the snow a kind of friend, if you know how.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Feo shook her head; she couldn't speak. The moments in which the world turns suddenly kind can feel like a punctured lung. She stood in the marble hall and cried until tears flooded down her nose and chin and dropped on to the heads of the two bloodstained wolves at her feet.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Her face was built on the blueprint used for snow leopards and saints.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“There were, in Feo's experience, five kinds of cold. There was wind cold, which Feo barely felt. It was fussy and loud and turned your cheeks as red as if you'd been slapped, but couldn't kill you even if it tried. There was snow cold, which plucked at your arms and chapped your lips, but brought real rewards. It was Feo's favorite weather: The snow was soft and good for making snow wolves. There was ice cold, which might take the skin off your palm if you let it, but probably wouldn't if you were careful. Ice cold smelled sharp and knowing. It often came with blue skies and was good for skating. Feo had respect for ice cold. Then there was hard cold, which was when the ice cold got deeper and deeper until at the end of a month you couldn't remember if the summer had ever really existed. Hard cold could be cruel. Birds died in midflight. It was the kind of cold that you booted and kicked your way through.
And then there was blind cold. Blind cold smelled of metal and granite. It took all the sense out of your brain and blew the snow into your eyes until they were glued shut and you had to rub spit into them before they would blink. Blind cold was forty degrees below zero. This was the kind of cold that you didn't sit down to think in, unless you wanted to be found dead in the same place in May or June.
Feo had felt blind cold only once.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“No harm in listening. Alexei's a child, not a wizard. We don't lose control of our brains by listening.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“To the three men in gray coats and golden buttons just cresting the hill, the pantomime was a strange one. The speck of green merged with the gray, and the black with the flash of red, as they shot off toward north.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“My point is that you will keep your hands off my daughter if you value their current position at the ends of your arms.’
Rakov snorted. ‘That is somewhat unfeminine.’
‘Not at all. It seems profoundly feminine to me.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“The set of her chin suggested she might have slain a dragon before breakfast. The look in her eyes suggested she might, in fact, have eaten”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Hard work always hurts somewhere.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“God could arrest you for this,’ said Sergei. ‘This is better than murder.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“The snow gossiped and hinted at storms and birds. It told a new story every morning. Few grinned and sniffed the sharpness of the air. It’s the most talkative weather there is...”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Feo shook her hair over her face and gave him a withering look. At least, she tried to. She had only read about it in books and wasn’t sure how it was done. She imagined it involved a lot of nostril work.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“Once upon a time, a hundred years ago, there was a dark and stormy girl.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“They burnt my shoes and my books. I tried to stop them: the books, especially. I know they don’t like you reading Marx, but I hadn’t finished it. I’ve been told the ending’s the best bit. It’s inhuman to take your books away before you know the end.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“But fear is for cowards,’ Feo had said. ‘No, Feo! Cowardice is for cowards. Fear is for people with brains and eyes and functioning nerve endings.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“a real wolf runs in the way that a thunderstorm would run if it had legs.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“One of the soldiers had an underbite he could have picked his own nose with.”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder

“We could change the whole world!”
― Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder