The Cottingley Secret Quotes

“We are the sum of those who have touched our lives in one way or another.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“You don’t need anybody’s permission to live the life you desire, Olivia. You need only the permission of your heart.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“That night, I fell into a deep, travel-weary sleep, lulled by the familiar sound of the waterfall beyond the window. I dreamed of the beck fairies, a blur of lavender and rose-pink and buttercup-yellow light, flitting across the glittering stream, beckoning me to follow them toward the woodland cottage. There, the little girl with flame-red hair picked daisies in the garden, threading them together to make a garland for her hair. She picked a posy of wildflowers- harebell, bindweed, campion, and bladderwort- and gave them to me.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“It is only by believing in magic that we can ever hope to find it.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“You have to be passionate about the things you put in your life: the music you listen to, the food you eat, the friends you hang out with, even the bloody towels you hang in the guest bathroom. It’s about choice, Olivia. It is always about choice.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“There is more to every photograph than what we see-more to the story than the one the camera captures on the plate. You have to look behind the picture to discover the truth.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“I moved silently across the garden, silvered with moonlight, my feet barely touching the ground. I brushed past fern and tree, following the lights across the stream, toward the cottage in the clearing where I watched a little girl surrounded by light and laughter as the fairies threaded flowers through her hair. I stood out of sight, peering through the tangled blackberry bushes, but the girl saw me, rushing forward, her hand outstretched, a white flower clasped between her fingers. "For Mammy," she said. "For my Mammy.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“That was when I saw the first flash of emerald, then another of blue, then yellow, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. Not dragonflies. Not butterflies. Something else. Something moving among a cluster of harebells, the delicate white flowers nodding as their petals and leaves were disturbed by the slightest of movements, like a gentle breeze blowing against them and yet there wasn't the slightest breath of wind at the beck that day.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“As her dreams intensified, the red-haired girl became so real to Olivia that she found herself absentmindedly sketching her image during the day, bringing her to life on the page. She drew her surrounded by the flowers she held in her hands- white harebell, pink campion, and yellow cinquefoil- entwining them into the curls in her hair, until the flowers and plants were not around her, but part of her. A true child of the woodland.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“I fell into a restless sleep in which my dreams carried me away over misty valleys and moonlit woodlands toward a fairy glen, where I watched their beautiful midnight revels in silent awe as I whispered the words of my favorite poem. " 'You shall hear a sound like thunder, / And a veil shall be withdrawn, / When her eyes grow wide with wonder, / On that hill-top, in that dawn.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“It was on the warmest days when I saw them most clearly, days when the sun dawdled high in the sky, tinting everything with rich gold and amber as long shadows played lazy games of hide-and-seek among the trees and ferns. Like the wildflowers that decorated the riverbank, my fairy friends grew more abundant as the summer went on, multiplying in numbers and strengthening in color, the pale yellows and greens evolving into mauves and pinks.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“I know that the best time to see them is in that perfect hour before sunset when the sun sinks low on the horizon like a ripe peach and sends shafts of gold bursting through the trees. The "in between," I call it. No longer day, not yet night; some other place and time when magic hangs in the air and the light plays tricks on the eye. You might easily miss the flash of violet and emerald, but I- according to my teacher, Mrs. Hogan- am "a curiously observant child." I see their misty forms among the flowers and leaves. I know my patience will be rewarded if I watch and listen, if I believe.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“We can’t always change the situations life puts us in, but we can change the way we respond.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“We have to believe in the possibility of happy endings, sure we do, otherwise what’s it all for?”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“As Pappy always said, possibility is where all the best stories begin.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“In that moment, and perhaps for much longer, it seemed to me that the possibility of believing in fairies was more important than one little girl telling the truth.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“Yorkshire's autumn was as great a gift as Yorkshire's summer. I loved watching the rusting of the leaves while the dales mellowed to shades of ochre, and rose hips and blackberries grew deliciously fat on their branches. The morning mists were mystical and magical to me, and the rose-glow of the evening sun lent the sky a hypnotic light that matched any Cape Town sunset.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“They appeared to me like a thin veil of mist, translucent, almost- not quite there. But for all their misty peculiarity, they were as clear to me as the minnows in the shallows and the foxgloves on the riverbank and the butterflies fanning their wings. They flitted from flower to flower, as swift as dragonflies, sometimes glowing brightly like a candle flame suddenly catching, sometimes fading like a breath of warm air on glass, so that you would never know they had been there at all. Yet there they were. And there I was, watching them.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“She woke to the sound of the sea, the sound of home. A cool breeze floated through the open window, carrying a dandelion seed inside with it. Jinny-Joes as she called them, although Nana Martha insisted they were called fairies in Yorkshire, and if you caught one you had to make a wish. Olivia watched it dance in a shaft of sunlight before it settled onto the pillow beside her. She picked it up and twirled it around between her thumb and finger. Something about its fragility spoke to her of letting go, of being blown on the wind to some unknown place. She closed her eyes and made a wish.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“With my arms wrapped around Rosebud, I dreamed of heather-topped hills and sleepy valleys and a pretty woodland stream where dragonflies danced across the water as I sat down among the ferns and the meadowsweet, waiting for the summer to find me.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“At the bottom of the ravine was a glittering stream, about two feet in depth and six feet wide. A waterfall plunged from a shelf of shale rock to the right, tumbling in three broad steps toward the stream, where the water bubbled and boiled. Dappled shade from the trees cast intriguing shadows onto the water, while the flickering sunlight painted the early spring foliage in shades of gold and emerald and soft buttery yellow.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretense; and, therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“there were moments—flashes—when she remembered who she used to be: someone who thought anything was possible; someone who believed in everything.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“Books, paintings, houses—they all hold a trace, an echo, of the people who cherished them. Not so dissimilar to people, I suppose. We are the sum of those who have touched our lives in one way or another.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“As they shook on it, Olivia wondered why it was that some hands felt right together, like pieces of a jigsaw slotting into place, and she remembered how Pappy always said that we didn’t always have to look for an explanation. That sometimes it was far nicer to just let things be.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“Today was a pause before the page was turned and the story continued.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“...theirs was a quiet relationship, slowly unfurling like petals on a rose. She had to let nature take its time. Nana had always said the most beautiful blooms on her rosebushes were the last of the season. The most fragrant. The most colorful. 'Those late blooms always flourish the most. They'll be around long after the others have been blown away. You wait and see.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“As I lay in the dark, listening to the distant rush of the waterfall, I hoped that part of me would always be nine and a half, and that even when I was an adult and had to face the world with all its grown-up responsibilities, part of me would always know the excitement of the fascinating things I'd seen at the beck. I couldn't imagine anything worse than a life without such wonders. How dull and sad life would be if it was all work and chores and war.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“Reluctant to return to the empty rooms of Bluebell Cottage, Olivia ate fish and chips on the harbor wall, dangling her legs over the side just like she used to as a little girl, even though it made her mam anxious.
The breeze nipped at the back of her neck and whipped up a fine sea spray that settled on her hands, leaving sparkling salt crystals as it dried. Fairy dust, she used to call it. She breathed in the fresh air and absorbed the view: tangerine sky and dove-gray sea, ripples on the surface of both, like dragon scales. She savored the sharp tang of vinegar on her tongue, letting her thoughts wander as the sun slowly melted into the sea, turning it to liquid gold.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret

“As I followed Elsie back along the riverbank, I brushed my fingertips against the silky catkins on the willow trees and wished Daddy had failed the medical examination too. I stopped now and then to collect interesting-looking pebbles that clacked together satisfyingly in my pockets, and to pick the pretty wildflowers: stitchwort and ragwort, silverweed and harebell, lady's purse and cinquefoil. Elsie told me their names. As we walked, I repeated them over and over so I wouldn't forget them, storing them away like precious gems to admire again later, in private.”
― Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret