A Season of Gifts Quotes

“...they'd just tell you to turn the other cheek, wouldn't they?...Trouble is, Mrs. Dowdel observed, after you've turned the other cheek four times, you run out of cheeks.”
― Richard Peck, A Season of Gifts

“Fiction isn't what 'was'. It's 'what if'?”
― Richard Peck, A Season of Gifts

“And don’t look for anything out of the law around here,” she said. “The Cowgills and the Leapers is kin to the sheriff. No justice in these parts. It’s every man for hisself.”

“But as the saying goes, if you can’t get justice,” Mrs. Dowdel remarked, “get even.”
― Richard Peck, A Season of Gifts

“Keep off my property. You know who you are. The next ghost you see could be you.”
― Richard Peck, A Season of Gifts

“And you think she’s bowlegged now. You should have seen her as a girl. She’d try to cross her legs and miss.”
― Richard Peck, A Season of Gifts

“He spent so many years in first grade, they named the desk for him.

I felt the town tighten around my throat. "But as the saying goes, if you can't get justice, Mrs. Dowdel remarked, get even."

Asked for a final word on the subject, Mrs. Dowdel said: "Keep off my property. You know who you are. The next ghost you see could be you."

I haven't missed a funeral since the great flu epidemic. A good funeral makes the whole week go better. ( said by old lady in 1958 )

Fiction isn't what "was". It's "what if". And a novelist is one who believes that real life can always be improved upon.”
― Richard Peck, A Season of Gifts