Henry and the Chalk Dragon Quotes

“Dragons can only eat you, but people can laugh at you, and that is like being chewed to death by a smile.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“PEOPLE ARE LIKE puzzle pieces. Put together, the shapes make a picture. And a friend is the one whose shape fits into your shape—fits perfectly because it is different, opposite, like a key in a lock, or a foot in a shoe.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“It is a dangerous thing to open a door. But that, after all, is the only way to find an adventure.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“But if there's nothing scary, there's nothing to be brave about," said Henry, "And a knight must be brave.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“I did try,” said Henry. He had stared and stared at the paper. His imagination had been whirling with pictures, and the pictures in his imagination had wiggled down into his arm and kicked inside of his fingers, wanting to come out. But he knew they were the wrong pictures. They were pictures of purple lettuce leaves growing upside-down out of the nostrils of a three-eyed asparagus monster. They were pictures of rabbits that jumped so high they tore holes in the clouds and landed on Mars. His drawings would be different from everyone else’s. They would be laughed at. And so he had to shake the pictures out of his fingers and squeeze them back into his imagination and shut the door of his brain tightly so they wouldn’t come out. “A hanging box of bunnies is the worst Art Project ever,” he sighed.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“People are like puzzle pieces. Put together, the shapes make a picture. And a friend is the one whose shape fits into your shape -- fits perfectly because it's different, opposite, like a key in a lock, or a foot in a shoe.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“You have to be brave to be an artist. You have to squeeze your fear down deep in your chest, and make something new.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“Once you make something," continued Mr. Bruce, "a picture, or a story, or a son, or an invention, or even a delicious meal, it isn't yours anymore. It has a life. It could spend its life lying quietly on your paper, staring up at you and saying, 'Thank you for drawing me. Aren't I wonderful?' Or it could fill the stomach of a queen or give strength to a poor man in the street. It could wrap itself around a city and make the people in it cry an ocean, or it could wiggle into the ears of a baby and make her burst into giggles.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“Dragons aren't scary -- well, they are, but they're a good kind of scary. They're the kind of scary you want to be scared of. People are the bad kind of scary, he thought. Dragons can only eat you, but people can laugh at you, and that is like being chewed to death by a smile.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“people can laugh at you, and that is like being chewed to death by a smile.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“That's right," said Mr. Bruce. "All you can do is make the best thing you can, and love it as hard as you can, and let it go loose in the world, and watch what happens." His voice grew quiet and urgent. "Henry, let you imagination be as wild as the spinning universe. Let it be beautiful and adventurous and even terrifying. Let it go free ...”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“Henry was telling the truth. Dragons aren't scary - well, they are, but they're a good kind of scary. They're the kind of scary you want to be scared of. People are the bad kind of scary, he thought. Dragons can only eat you, but people can laugh at you, and that is like being chewed to death by a smile.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon

“The last of the tables tumbled away, and the Lunch Lady rose slowly, stumbling a little, trying to straighten the scrambled yellow mess of her hair. “Mr. Bruce, you are my hero. I must look like a Jackson Pollock painting—all tumbled and tangled and squiggly.” “Miss Brie, my darling,” said Mr. Bruce, “if I made a statue of cinnamon sticks, with eyes of blueberries and cheeks of apple cobbler and golden gumdrops in its hair, and if I loved that statue so much that it turned into a real live person, it would look just like you.”
― Jennifer Trafton, Henry and the Chalk Dragon