The Story Collector Quotes

“The moral of this story is that many amazing, sometimes hidden, things happen in a library. What's the story behind yours? What's your tale? The world is waiting to hear your Once Upon a Time.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“Story collectors tend to be superstitious. Knock on wood, black cats, four leaf clovers... that sort of thing. After all, superstitions are the little stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our chaotic world.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“Some people are story collectors. While others collect seashells, or stuffed animals, or stamps, story collectors wrap themselves in words, surround themselves with sentences, and play with participle, even those pesky, perky dangling ones. They climb over Cs and mount Ms and lounge in Ls. Soon enough they land in the land of homonyms, then, wham! They stumble into onomatopoeia, that lovely creaking, booming bit of wordplay - and that, Dear Friend, is where our story begins.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“When nightfall weaves its way through the New York Public Library, it is nothing shy of magic. Long stretched of sunlight on marble morph from white to yellow to pink to orange to red, the dim slowly, completely. Shadows yawn and stretch awake. Eighty-five miles of books on shelves blink away their daytime sleep, for book are often nocturnal creatures, ready to play. To roam. To hunt.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“Hearing her favorite story had calmed her. It had made her braver. Familiar stories do that. They're as much a part of our identity as the backs of our hands. If we were zebras, our stories would be our stripes. If we were pilots, they would be our compass. If we were adventurers, they'd be our North Star. Our stories are what makes us unique. The combination of stories in our lives—the unique mix of the stories we choose to read, choose to live—makes each of us just a tiny bit different from everyone else on the planet.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“Behind her, the lamp turned back on.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“This special, one-of-a-kind key: the unique mix of books and stories that he would choose to read. Different from everyone else on the planet. His blanks to fill in. His Once Upon a Time.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“Picture books build readers, Mr. Leon. Two missing books from our collection is like two missing bricks from a cathedral.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“Nervous people make poor listeners.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“Hearts can do that, you know: hold on to something when the rest of you has forgotten about it. Hearts have longer memories than brains.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector

“She firmly believed that fears were best fought head-on. Courage being fear stuffed with hope and whatnot.”
― Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, The Story Collector