Lost in the Moment and Found Quotes

“You’re a child. If an adult hurt you, that’s on them, not on you. Being bruised doesn’t make you bad, unless you’re a peach, and even a bruised peach is good for making jam.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“They needed to know because a choice you make without knowing the consequences isn't any choice at all!”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“The great tale of her being shall be extended no more; she is gone to the Library where all of us must one day be Returned, and she will pay no overdue fines on her soul.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“Some children need to escape from places that will only hurt them, or grind them away until they're nothing. And some children need to go somewhere else if they're ever going to grow into the people they were meant to be.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“That was the fourth thing she lost: the belief that if something made her unhappy or uncomfortable, she could tell an adult who loved her and they would make everything better.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“Being bruised doesn’t make you bad, unless you’re a peach, and even a bruised peach is good for making jam.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“It's a terrible thing, to be found.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“No. Only the ones who aren't made right for the worlds where they started out need Doors. All children may want them - who doesn't want a grand adventure? But needing and wanting aren't the same, and the Doors see the difference. Some children's need to escape from places that will only hurt them, or grind them away until they're nothing. And some children need to go somewhere else if they're ever going to grow into the people they were meant to be. The Doors choose carefully.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“Let that be the crime for which I am finally convicted: my father is not a good man, and I will not pretend he is, will not praise him in ways he has not earned and never will.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“They have hearts. I can feel them beating. So I will build them a home and haven, as none was built for me, and I will care for them as long as I am able.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“It's easy to go along with a system. It's harder to create one. You have to choose it, over and over, when you're building it.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“Novelty is addictive”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“A thing being good for you doesn't make it a thing you want,”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“FOR THE CHILD I WAS. I WILL SPEND MY ENTIRE LIFE
TRYING TO MAKE UP FOR THE
FACT THAT WHEN I WAS YOU, I DIDN’T RUN SOON ENOUGH. I’M SORRY.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“I'm going to make some guesses," she said, "you seem clean and well fed and healthy, so you didn't run away a long time ago. Someone loves you. Someone has been taking care of you. And then something bad happened. Something bad enough that you looked at all the love and all that care and decided that they weren't enough to balance out the bad thing.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“It hurts me to say such things, but the truth is often a blade on which to cut yourself, and I have been cut deeply.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“Antsy blinked. Whatever world this girl came from, it was very different from her own. "Oh," she said, after a brief pause to reorient herself. "Well, she's lovely. Was that all you needed? You didn't lose anything else?"

"Just a shoe once, but that was when I was smaller, and it wouldn't fit me now," said the girl brightly. "I'm ready to go home."

Antsy, whose own answer would have been much longer and much more painful, felt a pang of jealousy. This girl could go home. This girl hadn't lost anything worth looking for; nothing larger than a kitten, anyway. This girl didn't know what it was to be lost herself, to feel like the world was set against her, to be hurt. This girl was innocent.

And just like that, Antsy's anger burst. This girl was innocent. This girl could go home. She could be safe and comfortable and cared for and unafraid. That mattered. That was something important, something worth taking care of and protecting.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“Street penny sacrament; what are you looking for?
Lost in the moment and found,
I am the God of Lost Things, and I will take care of you.
Foundling and fallen, not where it ought to be,
Mislaid and moved around.
I am the God of Lost Things, and I will take care of you.
I will take care of you.

—"The God of Lost Things," Talis Kimberly”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“I wish I could have flown. I wish you had been warned. I’m sorry.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“The mind is bad at holding on to terror,”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“Travel can be hard," he said. "It wears on the heart, even when it's done on purpose, and there's always a cost and a consequence.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“She was starting to feel like change was like cookies. One a night would be wonderful, but if you ate too many at one time, you'd wind up making yourself sick and not getting any cookies for a week.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“It would be years before she realized losing him had taken something less tangible and less provably important away at the same time: the feeling of safety and security in the world, like it was a kind place.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“where she promptly forgot about it. Not in the casual way of forgetting things when they lack importance; no, this was a forgetting so profound that the thing forgotten might as well never have existed.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“Then you found a door that said to be sure, and you were sure, you were already sure, you were so sure that when you tried the knob, it wasn't locked, and you could walk right through.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“Earth," said the woman to the bird, as if this explained everything. The bird made a croaking noise, and Antsy's anger got even bigger, burning in her chest like a candle. Candles start with small flames, but they can become house fires quickly enough if not watched carefully. "America, too, by the sound of her. They still think they're the only place there is.”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found

“While all the Wayward Children books have dealt with heavy themes and childhood traumas, this one addresses an all-too-familiar monster: the one that lives in your own home. Themes of grooming and adult gaslighting are present in the early text. As a survivor of something very similar, I would not want to be surprised by these elements where I didn’t expect them. I just want to offer you this reassurance: Antsy runs. Before anything can actually happen, Antsy runs. Street penny sacrament; what are you looking for?”
― Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found