Alison McGhee Quotes & Sayings

There comes a point at which you stop giving things up. That is what i won't give up. None of it will i give up, for my beautiful sister Ivy who lies in bed. Ivy who used to be alive. Ivy who used to be. Ivy who used. Ivy who.
Ivy-who-is-not-me.
Not me. Not me. Not me. — Alison McGhee

Let me tell you that a girl of eleven is capable of far more than is dreamt of in most universes... — Alison McGhee

Are any of us safe? How do we make it through? How, when you know you are going to leave this life whether you want to or not - when you know that you and everyone you love will leave this life - do we make it? I don't want to die. — Alison McGhee

Don't hurt someone who cares about you like that. You're not the only person in the world who's ever been hurt. Don't be cruel. Don't go breaking someone else's heart in the hope that you'll feel better. Becaues you won't. — Alison McGhee

But there's more to this world than meets the eye, isn't there? — Alison McGhee

I like to read books one after another. Immerse myself in a book, and then immerse myself in the next book, and just keep going until there aren't any more books left to swim in. That's why I hate when authors die. I cannot stand it. There will be no more books forthcoming from that person. Their future books died with them. In the past I have found a series of books and loved it so much that all I wanted to do was read and read and read those books for the rest of my life. Then I would find out that the author was dead. Had in fact been dead for many a year. This has happened to me several times. — Alison McGhee

I'll live in another world, then. — Alison McGhee

Walk slowly; all you can ever come to is yourself. — Alison McGhee

I suppose, the natural outgrowth about writing about two friends, it becomes about their friendship, and the complexities of it, and the way personality plays off each other, and what they each like to do, separately and together. — Alison McGhee

I shiver and Tom wakes. It's light enough to see his eyes open.
"Are you cold?" he says. "Baby, are you cold?"
He turns so that his arms are around me again. Baby, are cold?-and the ball of hurt inside me swells. — Alison McGhee

Feel how tight my arms are around you?" he said. "This is how tight I'll be holding you. No matter where you go or where I go, remember how tight I'm holding you. — Alison McGhee

A kindred spirit," said Vole, "is someone who understands the deepest dream of your heart. — Alison McGhee

What is the matter with these people, these people who won't stop fighting, won't stop hurting each other long enough to see that a body is a thing of beauty, is a miracle of rivers and oceans and islands and continents contained within itself? That the brain is divided into two hemispheres, each symmetrical, each perfect, each with its own system of waterways. These people of war should be shown an x-ray of an intraparenchymal hemorrhage, of a hemorrhage in an eighteen-year-old girl's brain, a girl named Ivy. Take a look at that, people of war. See, you should not hurt each other, and this is why. Without you ever even trying, this is what can happen to your body, your beautiful body, and your brain, your beautiful symmetrical brain, and your heart, and your soul. — Alison McGhee

Little boy, you remind me how so much depends of day made of now — Alison McGhee

Air you breathe holds the breath of all things. — Alison McGhee

I like to write in all different genres. I just like a new challenge. — Alison McGhee

Wouldn't want to miss a war, would I? — Alison McGhee

Your heart literally hurts when it's breaking. You can feel it, every beat another ache, and nothing you can do will stop it, either from beating or breaking. — Alison McGhee

What sorts of books are placed by garbage cans on garbage night in the town of Sterns? Mainly they're old class books, the kind people carry around in boxes in their basements for twenty years and then one day think: I will never again in my entire life open this book and there is no sense in its taking up valuable space in my basement, and they throw them out. Right out by the garbage cans they put them, in cardboard boxes with the bottoms falling out.
Books should not ever be treated that way. It's a sin to treat a book that way. That's what I believe to be true. — Alison McGhee

I'm a big State Fair person, and my main goal is to eat as much food as possible, but I tend not to do the foods on a stick. But I like Big Fat Bacon. — Alison McGhee

We all walk around with a stone in our shoe, Younger. William T. — Alison McGhee

And she tried to breathe. — Alison McGhee

If you know how to read, you know how forever. You can't unread. — Alison McGhee

There comes a time, Younger," he says, "when the book must be put aside, and the pedal put to the metal. And that time, by God, has come." William T. — Alison McGhee

It's very cool to be short, very cool. When I was in eighth grade, and the height I am now, I would just look at the cute little short girls and think, 'If only, if only.' — Alison McGhee

All it takes is a single moment. — Alison McGhee

Clara Winter," he said. "You are a word person and don't ever forget it."
He was right. He knew. He could tell. It's something that can be sensed. There's a difference between word-people and non-word-people. — Alison McGhee

What, exactly, would you give up? — Alison McGhee

Living without love is worse than dying, Younger. William T. — Alison McGhee

They were stupid, stupid people. — Alison McGhee

You are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence. They expect words, motion, defense, offense, back and forth. They expect to leap into the fray. They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Silence? No. — Alison McGhee

You are wilder than you know. — Alison McGhee

Water seeks its own level. Look at them. The Tigris, the Euphrates, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Yangtze. The world's great rivers. And every one of them finds its way to the ocean. — Alison McGhee