Jennifer Donnelly Quotes

“As I nodded and smiled and'd and'd my way down the drive, I wondered if boys had any sort of magazine that told them how to attract women and, if so, did it ever tell them to put the girls' interests first?”

“Meet me where the sky touches the sea. Wait for me where the world begins.”

“I know it is a bad thing to break a promise, but I think now that it is a worse thing to let a promise break you.”

“Whatever you do or dream you can do—begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

“I play until my fingertips are raw. Until I rip a nail and bleed on the strings. Until my hands hurt so bad I forget my heart does.”

“There is only one thing I fear now-love. For I have seen it and I have felt it and I know that it is love, not death, that undoes us.”

“Only the hopeless love God.”

“It has an L on it. L for love. See? It's the key to the universe, Dad. You said you were looking for it. You told Mom you were. I found it for you so you don't have to look anymore. So you can come home at night.”

“And Robespierre, the Incorruptible, who loved us so much he cut off our heads so we would not be troubled by too many thoughts.”

“Becuse God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.”

“The rain comes down harder, darkness falls. We don't care. Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.”

“Little by little, the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him.”

“Life’s all about the revolution, isn’t it? The one inside, I mean. You can’t change history. You can’t change the world. All you can ever change is yourself.”

“The world goes on, stupid and brutal, but I do not. Can't you see? I do not.”

“For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.”

“Voice is not just the sound that comes from your throat, but the feelings that come from your words.”

“Hope is the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard.”

“History is a Rorschach test, people. What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.”

“Most of the mess that is called history comes about because kings and presidents cannot be satisfied with a nice chicken and a good loaf of bread.”

“Turn away. From the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and look at the light.”

“Cripes Miss Wilcox, they're not guns,' I said.
No, they're not Mattie, they're books. And a hundred times more dangerous.”

“She's got a big belt around her hips. It has a shiny buckle with PRADA on it, which is Italian for insecure.”

“Who knew that listening to a guy sleep could be so much deeper than sleeping with a guy.”

“We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them.”

“I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people.”

“Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.”

“For the first time, I saw what was in his heart, and I wondered if he might ever want to look deep enough to see mine.”

“It's another sin. Worse than all the other ones, which are immediate, violent and hot… It's the eighth deadly sin. The one God left out, Hope.”

“The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.”

“It's a good thing you and your pills weren't around a few hundred years ago or there never would have been a Vermeer or a Caravaggio. You'd have drugged "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "The Taking of Christ" right the hell out of them.”

“One expects decent people to stand up for the good of all. Decent people shut their doors and hide behind them as decent people do. Massacres could never happen if it weren't for decent people.”

“He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.”

“Happiness was useless to me. It was heartache that filled my purse. What happy man has need of Shakespeare?”

“But words are more powerful than anything.”

“She was his soulmate, as much a part of him as the very flesh and bone that made him. She was with him, in him, in everything he did. She was everything he wanted from his life, the very measure of his dreams.”

“A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping.”

“I played a role. That is what actors do. But I played it too well. I went too far. And by the time I wanted to stop, to take a bow and leave the stage, it was too late.”

“You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible? Hmm?"I said. To myself.”

“Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, either”

“Why is it that weeks and months and years go by so quickly, all in a blur, but moments last forever?”

“I need a boy who thinks with his big head, not his little one. Since they do not exist, I have fashioned my own.”

“I was only glad to be saved and never once thought to ask why.”

“When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can.”

“Make them care, Mattie,' she said softly. 'And don't you ever be sorry.'
-Emily Wilcox”

“You can't argue with the dead, no matter what you say, they always have the last word.”

“That was what people did when they wanted to stop a girl from doing something—they shamed her.”

“You, on the other hand, wish to know things. And no one can forgive a girl for that.”

“Men are the weak ones, luv. Didn't you know? Oh, you make a lot of noise, but its the women who are strong. Where it counts. In 'ere”

“Had you but seen it, I promise you, your high-minded principles would have melted like candle wax. Never would you have wished such beauty away.”

“Who needs make-believe monsters when there are so many real ones.”

“Why is it, she wondered now, that boys get to do things and be things and girls only get to watch?”

“There was a basket at her feet. She reached into it and lifted out the head of a young woman, a marquise. She wore Bourbon white to her death, but wears the tricolor now - white cheeks, blue lips, red dripping from her neck. Long live the revolution.”

“Never take what's offered, always ask for more.”

“Isn't that what a good story does? It pulls you in and never lets you go.”