Caroline B. Cooney Quotes & Sayings

When in doubt, shut up. — Caroline B. Cooney

Seventh grade had a full complement of creeps, weirdos, future criminals, and nerds. — Caroline B. Cooney

Listen to the sea ... it sounds like a coffin being dragged over broken glass. — Caroline B. Cooney

But I found my family. I found the right thing to do. I found the way home. — Caroline B. Cooney

I believe my voice is pretty much the same. I've written 75 books, so I'm better at it now than I was earlier in my career. — Caroline B. Cooney

I thought of the parable of the prodigal son. We had made merry for the beloved child's return too - but what happens when the beloved child doesn't say she's sorry? The parable doesn't talk about that. Jesus figures of course you're sorry. Jesus, I thought, you blew it. Not everybody is sorry. — Caroline B. Cooney

What would she have? Coke, said Annie. And when she tasted the familiar drink, how much less scary the world was, and how much less frightening her task. — Caroline B. Cooney

To be believed, you had to have the support of the Somebodies — Caroline B. Cooney

Actually my first eight books were historical novels, but they were never published. — Caroline B. Cooney

If she dreamed, she did not remember when she awoke. — Caroline B. Cooney

Kahnawake
November 1704
Temperature 44 degrees

"They won't let you see her," said Ruth flatly. "Now tell us, Mr. Williams, why has ransom not come? Do people have short memories or no memory? Why do they not rescue us? I get so angry sometimes."
Sometimes! thought Mercy. — Caroline B. Cooney

But sometimes, in tight corners, when your back is against the wall and the world is against you, you have to fight back in unexpected ways. — Caroline B. Cooney

And Ruth was the last person to whom a sensible Indian would hand a weapon. — Caroline B. Cooney

She had spent the summer forgetting to be English--and Tannhahorens had spent the summer forgetting the same thing. — Caroline B. Cooney

Who was Florinda, and why did she faint so often that she needed a special couch on which to do it? — Caroline B. Cooney

It was darker in the tower than any place Devnee had ever been. The dark had textures, some velvet, some satin. The dark shifted positions.
The dark continued to breathe. The breath of the tower lifted her clothing like the flaps of a tent, and sounded in her ears like falling snow.
It's the wind coming through the double shutters, Devnee told herself.
But how could the wind come through? There were glass windows between the inside and outside shutters.
Or were there?
The windows weren't just holes in the wall, were they?
What if there was no glass? What if things crawled through those open louvers, crept into the room, blew in with the cold that fingered her hair? What creatures of the night could slither through those slats?
She had not realized how wonderful glass was, how it protected you and kept you inside.
She knew something was out there. — Caroline B. Cooney

I wrote eight full-length adult novels in my twenties. None of them were published. — Caroline B. Cooney

I wonder why we always deny love. I remember in middle school, if you were accused of the crime of loving, you screamed denials constantly and stopped ever even looking at the boy you were accused of liking. The boys could destroy each other by yodeling, "An-drew lo-oves Jen-nie," and both Andrew and Jennie would flinch and blush. Love is this great thing that most songs and books and poems and lives are all about. So the minute we actually think there might be love around, we start laughing and pretending and hiding from it. — Caroline B. Cooney

The sea can smack the rocks like a hand smacking a cheek. It can hiss or gurgle or even kiss. But when it wants, it can go quiet. 'And then', said Anya Rothrock, 'you can hear the voices of the drowned'. — Caroline B. Cooney

Breakfast was only worth having when somebody else made it for you. — Caroline B. Cooney

How can you be somebody else's savior, when you can't be your own? — Caroline B. Cooney

The most crippling part of my personality is that as much as I want to know something, I can't bear admitting I'm ignorant. It's as if I think I should have been born knowing and understanding all. As if when I say out loud, what are you talking about? the world will point and jeer. — Caroline B. Cooney

If I were a seagull
I wouldn't have to stick around
If people argued- I would fly off,
swerve, wheel, dip, scream.
a thousand wings of company if I have friends
two strong wings of my own
If I don't — Caroline B. Cooney

She had a sense of herself being brain dead: running on tubes and machines. — Caroline B. Cooney

She had gradually changed her name. "Jane" was too dull. Last year, she'd added a "y", becoming Jayne, which had more personality. — Caroline B. Cooney

I love writing and do not know why it is considered such a difficult, agonizing profession. — Caroline B. Cooney

Stephen had just come from a class discussion in which several students believed that the right cup of herbal tea would save them from pain and sorrow. Well acquainted with pain and sorrow, Stephen did not contribute to the discussion. He merely crossed these idiots off his list of possible friends. — Caroline B. Cooney

They ended up at the Old Corner Bookstore, which Brian had read about in a tour guide to Boston. "Longfellow and Hawthorne and Oliver Wendell Holmes used to read here. Let's go in." Brian nudged the girls until they obeyed.
It was a regular bookstore, less history-minded than Brian had expected. In fact, the local history shelves were quite mangeable. I'll buy one book, he thought. This will get me launched in actual reading. Out of the zillions of choices, I'll find one here.
Brian picked out Paul Revere and the World He Lived In. It was thick and somehow exciting, with its chapter headings and scholarly notes and bibliography. — Caroline B. Cooney

Fall in love with me, Gary! She thought. Please. Please sit here holding me and think there's nowhere on earth I'd rather be than here, and no girl I'd rather have in my lap than Beth Rose Chapman! — Caroline B. Cooney

Guys with nice person names try to be sympathetic. — Caroline B. Cooney

But West, like the rest of the Trevors, was endlessly polite. It gave them protection; they could stand neatly behind their courtesy. — Caroline B. Cooney

I'll take you to Mickey D's," said Sean. "I'll buy you a hamburger."
Annie was not thrilled. Sean's offer did not compare to offers made in other centuries.
"And fries," Sean said. "And a vanilla milkshake."
Annie remained unthrilled.
"Okay, okay. You can have a Big Mac."
Romance in my century, she thought, is pitiful. — Caroline B. Cooney

I love all of it, thinking up the plots, getting to know the kids in the story, their parents, backyards, pizza toppings. — Caroline B. Cooney

In Los Angeles ... was the thinking-est crowd on earth: how to get ahead, how to mold a better body, how to have a better relationship, how to score, earn, fight, win, get published, be a star. — Caroline B. Cooney

How terrifying empty beds were. The neatness of the sheets and blankets was like the neatness of a mowed and trimmed graveyard. — Caroline B. Cooney

wanted is a good action book — Caroline B. Cooney

I guess you've grown up anyway, Janie. Even with all the bricks I put on your head to keep you little. — Caroline B. Cooney

The only evil is that I don't mind that it happened. — Caroline B. Cooney

I'm one of the lucky writers: plots come easily to me. — Caroline B. Cooney

It's been one nightmare after another, Christina thought. Pretty soon I won't be able to keep track of them all. — Caroline B. Cooney

Bianca and Mindy crept into the room like great big fashionable mice. — Caroline B. Cooney

Strat yearned to imagine her without even the thin white dress, but it would not be honorable, so he prevented himself from having such a fantasy. — Caroline B. Cooney

You have a girlfriend?" said Brian. "You never told us."
"I'm not going to tell you now either. Don't tell Mom and Dad, don't tell Jodie, don't tell Bren."
"Why not?" said Brian. "Mom and Dad would be thrilled. Unless she's some disgusting skank leading you down a sick and twisted path. — Caroline B. Cooney

She stared at the dark shimmer of glass that faced the street. The Clares never pulled curtains. They were comftorable with the dark. But there was another kind of dark. The darkness of minds full of hate. — Caroline B. Cooney

It wasn't that she stopped being nice; she stopped being anything — Caroline B. Cooney

My favorite book is always the one I'm working on at the moment. — Caroline B. Cooney

I actually thought you would be kind," said the vampire.
"Go away!" screamed Devnee.
He did not answer.
"I didn't have to be kind," Devnee told him. "Victoria was kind for me."
He laughed.
"No one can be kind for you, my dear," said the vampire. "But I don't mind, of course. I have you now. There's no escape, my dear. You and I, Devnee Fountain, are a team. — Caroline B. Cooney

I approach serious subjects, and I like to have the good guys win and have the parents among the good guys. — Caroline B. Cooney

You must love teaching', one mother said to Mr. Shevvington. 'Yes indeed. I think of each class as a zoo.' He laughed..'Twenty-six to a cage. — Caroline B. Cooney

I believe my readers are crazy about their parents and want to be just like them when they grow up. — Caroline B. Cooney

If you write a story based on a real person, you're trapped by the details of the real person and his life. It gets in the way of writing your own story. — Caroline B. Cooney

Lark did not know how her parents would behave in public. They never came to anything, even teacher conferences. They had basically skipped Lark's life. She didn't mind. She had made her own. — Caroline B. Cooney

She was a mind floating in an ocean of confusion. — Caroline B. Cooney

More clumsily,he put his arm around her and tried to hug. They were definitely amateurs at showing affection. — Caroline B. Cooney

People think they own time. They have watches and clocks and digital pulses. But they are wrong. Time owns them. — Caroline B. Cooney

People nearly always believe, and are willing to back it up with weapons and cruelty, that their religion and way of life is better than the other person's. — Caroline B. Cooney

I decided to write short stories because they got rejected quicker. — Caroline B. Cooney

I have no beliefs," said her mother. "Only hopes. — Caroline B. Cooney

father knocked on her door. "Kitten? May I come — Caroline B. Cooney

She had never had a daydream that dreamed itself, like nightmares. That crawled out of her brain like a creature of the dark. A daymare. — Caroline B. Cooney

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun. — Caroline B. Cooney

He felt blind and deaf, the way he did when he was close to a good idea but couldn't tap into it. He'd told Lizzie about that feeling once, and Lizzie had said, That just means you aren't very smart, Reeve. Smart people have good ideas without having to be blind and deaf first. — Caroline B. Cooney

I'm interesting, she thought. I'm unusual. But I'm not beautiful ... — Caroline B. Cooney

What more can life hold, than to know that because of your story, somebody out there has decided to read again! — Caroline B. Cooney

Lying on the front passenger seat, as if it didn't matter, was Rose's Diary.
It Mattered. — Caroline B. Cooney