Jan Strnad Quotes & Sayings

Now I understand. Alice is afraid. The whole town is afraid because the world doesn't make sense to them anymore. Two kids go missing and suddenly everything is all messed up. — Jan Strnad

Little tape recorders, that's what kids are, Cat thought. If you want to find out what your husband is saying behind your back, play Barbie with your daughter. — Jan Strnad

I see the life draining out of her and something else taking its place, but I don't know what. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe nothing is taking its place. — Jan Strnad

Life goes on, even when you think it can't. Even when you don't especially want it to. — Jan Strnad

Alice twists a lock of her hair as she sucks on her straw and swivels back and forth on her seat. The shush of the ball bearings sounds like the sea to her, like waves retreating through the sand. She is a thousand miles away. I know this, but I'm not going to let her know I know. — Jan Strnad

You were a child, you didn't mean to hurt my feelings. Children are ignorant. It takes an adult to choose to be cruel. — Jan Strnad

Never mind being first. If you want to count for something, be the last of your kind. — Jan Strnad

Alice likes to swing as high as she can. At the schoolyard on the big swings there, I think maybe she's going to go all the way over the top. I can read her mind when she swings. I know she's thinking about jumping out and flying away when she swings that high. Flying to California. She doesn't say anything about it. — Jan Strnad

Aunt Flo's love is not a soft thing, I think, but something hard and unyielding, which can be good or bad. — Jan Strnad

Old post cards, tin wind-up toys with rusted gears, buttons long out of fashion, ticket stubs found in a shoebox in the attic - these are the things Alice likes, not new stuff that comes sealed in plastic. — Jan Strnad