Jennifer Donnelly Quotes & Sayings

Maximilien R. Peters! Incorruptible, ineluctable, and indestructable! It's time to start a revolution, baby — Jennifer Donnelly

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. — Jennifer Donnelly

Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm. — Jennifer Donnelly

I finished polishing the clock and picked up one of the figurines next to it. It was in the shape of an angel and on the angel's gown were printed the words: ALMIGHTY GOD, GIVE US SERENITY TO ACCEPT WHAT CANNOT BE CHANGED, COURAGE TO CHANGE WHAT SHOULD BE CHANGED, AND WISDOM TO KNOW THE ONE FROM THE OTHER. What if you couldn't do that? Couldn't change things and couldn't accept them, either? I took hold of the angel's head and snapped it off. And then I snapped one wing off, and then the other. I broke his arms off, too, and then I asked him how serene he was feeling now — Jennifer Donnelly

Sometimes you have to do wrong to do right. — Jennifer Donnelly

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

on a boat, the better. — Jennifer Donnelly

As I turned to go, I nearly trod on the body of a young robin half hidden in the grass. Its wings were twisted and bent. Its body stiff and bloodied.
'A hawk's work,' I thought, wondering if the robin had seen the brilliant blue of the sky and felt the sun on its back before its wings were broken. — Jennifer Donnelly

You fear you will fail at the very thing you were born for. And your fear torments you...instead of shunning your fear, you must let it speak and listen carefully to what it's trying to tell you. It will give you good counsel. — Jennifer Donnelly

We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them. — Jennifer Donnelly

If only she could be bold enough, and brave enough, to claim the things she wanted: love, a purpose, a life. But could she be? — Jennifer Donnelly

One must always steer clear of men who sweat when it isn't warm. — Jennifer Donnelly

Why do you always want to read about other people's lives, Matt? Ain't your own good enough for you — Jennifer Donnelly

Tell Crabby Abby he's going to sit on the naughty chair if he sinks one more island, Astrid said, catching her ball. — Jennifer Donnelly

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

So. Are you going to tell me where we're going?
Sure.
Yeah?
We're going to the most beautiful place in Paris, he says.
Cool, I say. I love that place.
He laughs and I decide to stop asking. — Jennifer Donnelly

Serafina, Ava, Ling, and Becca swam inside. Neela followed them, but at the very last second, shield. "I can't," she said. "Once I go in, there's no way out again. This is real. You're real. All this time, a part of me was hoping you were only a dream."

The witch cocked her head. "Only a dream?" she said mockingly. "Long ago, a great mage dreamed of stealing the gods' powers. Abbadon was born of that dream. Atlantis died because of it. Now, because of a new dreamer, all the waters of the world may fall. There is nothing more real than a dream." She nodded at the waters behind Neela. Silt was rising in the distance, a great deal of it. "The merman Traho knows this. He's coming. If you do not believe me, perhaps he can convince you. — Jennifer Donnelly

Keep being the author of your own story. Never let anyone else write it for you again. — Jennifer Donnelly

Life ends. But love? Love lives forever. — Jennifer Donnelly

I grew up on a mixed diet of mass and class, and I still read that way. I hate it when people apologize for what they read. Some bestsellers aren't exactly literary. So what? They're fun and rip-roaring, Who instituted the book police and why do we have to answer them? Grrrrr! — Jennifer Donnelly

Listen to your own thoughts and feelings very carefully, be aware of your observations, and learn to value them. When you're a teenager - and even when you're older - lots of people will try to tell you what to think and feel. Try to stand still inside all of that and hear your own voice. It's yours and only yours, it's unique and worth of your attention, and if you cultivate it properly, it might just make you a writer. — Jennifer Donnelly

Love isn't idiotic. It's hard and messy, confusing and wonderful. But to love and be loved... that's all that matters. — Jennifer Donnelly

Becoming a parent changed you forever, as nothing else could. p. 368 — Jennifer Donnelly

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. — Jennifer Donnelly

Well, it seems to me that there are books that tell stories, and then there are books that tell truths ... The first kind, they show you life like you want it to be. With villains getting what they deserve and the hero seeing what a fool he's been and marrying the heroine and happy endings and all that ... But the second kind, they show you life more like it is ... The first kind makes you cheerful and contented, but the second kind shakes you up. — Jennifer Donnelly

The blue whale was so magnificent and her song so beautiful, that Becca's heart swelled. She felt Marco's hand tighten on hers and knew he felt the same way. She turned to him, but Marco wasn't looking at the whale anymore, he was looking at her. He was still holding her hand and was floating close to her now. — Jennifer Donnelly

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. — Jennifer Donnelly

As I nodded and smiled and umm-hmm'd and oh, my'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? — Jennifer Donnelly

Life can be so difficult, and stories help us escape those difficulties. It's all right to lose yourself in one — Jennifer Donnelly

Only the Hopeless love God.
Because God may love us, but the devil takes an interest. — Jennifer Donnelly

I don't like hope very much. In fact, I hate it. It's the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard. It's bad news. The worst. It's sharp sticks and cherry bombs. When hope shows up, it's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt. — Jennifer Donnelly

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

I have done this - made the sad prince laugh. Made his grieving parents smile. None but me. Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands. Make them laugh with a gesture, cry with a word. Make them love you. And you will know what power is. — Jennifer Donnelly

I play until my fingers are blue and stiff from the cold, and then I keep on playing. Until I'm lost in the music. Until I am the music
notes and chords, the melody and harmony. It hurts, but it's okay because when I'm the music, I'm not me. Not sad. Not afraid. Not desperate. Not guilty. — Jennifer Donnelly

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

As a child, she'd thought all the noise and commotion was the most wild, wonderful game, but as she'd grown older, she understood why everyone rushed around so: they were chasing a story. — Jennifer Donnelly

Revolutions come about when small things happen to small people. — Jennifer Donnelly

Most people, if they were generous, were so because they thought life was short and that one must make the most of it. Sid Baxter was generous because he knew that life was long. It went on and on even when you had no use for it anymore. It was happiness, not life, that was short, and when it visited - in the form of a fine evening spent talking with a friend - he honoured it. — Jennifer Donnelly

Namaste. It was a Nepalese greeting. It meant: The light within me bows to the light within you. — Jennifer Donnelly

Break a promise to the dead and they'll haunt you, Ada says. Keep the promise and they'll haunt you just the same. — Jennifer Donnelly

Weaver always says freedom is like Sloan's Liniment, always promising more than it delivers. — Jennifer Donnelly

If you wait for someone else to make things better, you'll be waiting a very long time — Jennifer Donnelly

Good warrior knows when to lose a battle so she can live to fight the war. — Jennifer Donnelly

Don't let the darkness that's been visited upon this family pull you in so deeply, you cannot get out. Turn back from it, darling Jo ... he'd warned her. He didn't seem to understand that turning your back on the darkness didn't mean the darkness would turn its back on you. — Jennifer Donnelly

There were nights when I got nothing, [but] I still played. With no one to hear me and no one to pay me, and it did not matter.
On those nights, the words were for me alone. They came up unbidden from my heart. They slipped over my tongue and spilled from my mouth. And because of them I, who was nothing and nobody, was a prince of Denmark, a maid of Verona, a queen of Egypt. I was a sour misanthrope, a beetling hypocrite, a conjurer's daughter, a mad and murderous king.
It was dark and it was cold on those nights. The world was harsh and I was hungry. Yet I had such joy from the words. Such joy.
There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I.
The memory of it makes me laugh now, but not from happiness.
Be careful what you show the world.
You never know when the wolf is watching. — Jennifer Donnelly

Murder is not a suitable topic of conversation for a young lady. — Jennifer Donnelly

What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. Books. Not just one or two dozen, but hundreds of them. In crates. In piles on the floor. In bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling and lined the entire room. I turned around and around in a slow circle, feeling as if I'd just stumbled into Ali Baba's cave. I was breathless, close to tears, and positively dizzy with greed. — Jennifer Donnelly

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. — Jennifer Donnelly

His arms around her felt like nothing she'd ever known and everything she'd ever wanted. — Jennifer Donnelly

The Beast slowly minced his way out onto the ice. Once clear of the verge, he stopped - or tried to. His feet swept him swiftly forwards and upwards, and his body slammed down, right onto his backside. He got up, then fell again. And then again.
"Perhaps you should let me help you!" Belle called from across the pond, where she was cutting a graceful arc on the ice.
"Master, perhaps we should tie a pillow to your backside!" Cogsworth shouted fretfully from the shore.
The Beast turned and glared at him. — Jennifer Donnelly

No. I meant stay with me today. And tomorrow. And every day after. — Jennifer Donnelly

Seated atop the creature was a mermaid. She carried a crossbow. A sword hung from her hip. Her coppery hair, cut short, was angled over her forehead and cheekbones. Her green eyes blazed with fury.
'Go, Sera!' Becca shouted. 'Take back your throne! — Jennifer Donnelly

Only the hopeless love God. — Jennifer Donnelly

Writers are damned liars. Every single one of them. — Jennifer Donnelly

Belle hesitated. "What is this place?" she asked.
"A bit of magic, like all good books," the man replied. "An escape. A place where you can leave cares and worries behind." He smiled. "At least for a chapter or two. — Jennifer Donnelly

A heart is made of proteins built by amino acids, animated by electrical impulses. — Jennifer Donnelly

She'd long ago learned that only those with something to lose were afraid of dying. — Jennifer Donnelly

Cry your grief to God. Howl to the heavens. Tear your shirt. Your hair. Your flesh. Gouge out your eyes. Carve out your heart. And what will you get from Him? Only silence. Indifference. But merely stand looking at the playbills, sighing because your name is not on them, and the devil himself appears at your elbow full of sympathy and suggestions. And that's why I did it ... Because God loves us, but the devil takes an interest. — Jennifer Donnelly

Bravery is feeling fear but doing the thing anyway. — Jennifer Donnelly

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

My choice", he'd whispered, taking her hand. "Mine. Not theirs. — Jennifer Donnelly

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. — Jennifer Donnelly

If I had coal and fire
And metal fine and true
I'd make an iron band
An iron band for you
I'd pick up all the pieces
From where they fell that day
Fit them back together
And take the pain away
But I don't have the iron
And I don't have the steel
To wrap around your broken heart
And teach it how to heal
Somewhere in the fire
Somewhere in the pain
I'd find the magic that I need
To make you whole again
I'd make the iron band so strong
I'd make it gleam so bright
I'd fix the things I've broken
I'd turn my wrongs to right
But I don't have the steel
To wrap around your broken heart
Wish I could make it heal
Wish I could make it heal
(Ch. 27) — Jennifer Donnelly

Her grief would run its course, like a fever, and release her when it was spent. He would not shush her or tell her it was God's will and that her da was better off. That was rubbish and they both knew it. When something hurt as bad as this, you had to let it hurt. There were no shortcuts. p. 100-101 — Jennifer Donnelly

People drink more when they're sad. — Jennifer Donnelly

I lift my face to the night sky.
It's still dark.
But I can see the stars. — Jennifer Donnelly

It was a trick. It was this place, all the memories. His longing heart and the darkness conspiring. But his eyes told him it was no trick. He jumped down off the steps and walked toward her. Hoping. Fearing. He'd done this before. So many times. Caught sight of a slender black-haired woman and impulsively called to her, only to have her turn and gaze at him with eyes that were questioning, coldly polite, and never, ever hers. — Jennifer Donnelly

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, — Jennifer Donnelly

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

I think your vision gets better as you get older. — Jennifer Donnelly

Wounds can heal if you pull the thorns out.

Page 124 — Jennifer Donnelly

But his words fall away. He looks confused. He looks flustered and sorry. Like you do when you run up to someone you think you know and take her arm and she turns around and you were wrong. — Jennifer Donnelly

Lots of things are true. Doesn't mean you have to go around saying them. — Jennifer Donnelly

And besides, I couldn't stay at the party. It was too dangerous. I nearly died."
"From what?"
"Boredom. — Jennifer Donnelly

With 'A Northern Light,' I've already heard from teenage readers, teachers, librarians - it's been so gratifying. It's amazing that you can take something that matters so deeply to you and make it matter to someone else. — Jennifer Donnelly

You are a ghost, Andi," she says. "Almost gone."
I look at her. I want to say something but I can't get the words out.
She squeezes my hands. "Come back to us," she says. And she's gone. — Jennifer Donnelly

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. — Jennifer Donnelly

Because I don't care anymore, Ms. Beezemeyer, I want to say. Not about Amade Malherbeau, my classes, college or much of anything. Because the gray world I've managed to live in for the past two years has started to turn black around the edges. — Jennifer Donnelly

Who needs make-believe monsters when there are so many real ones. — Jennifer Donnelly

There were lives in those books, and deaths. Families and friends and lovers and enemies. Joy and despair, jealousy, envy, madness, and rage. All there. I reached out and touched the cover of one called The Earth. I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out. — Jennifer Donnelly

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. — Jennifer Donnelly

I love you, too ... I won't ever leave you again. I promise. I kept that promise. For love him I did. For nearly two years I spent almost every waking hour with him. Until he was taken from me. But I never left him. And I never will. — Jennifer Donnelly

Her eyes drank in the colors of home - the soft gray of an arctic gull's wing. The clear blue heart of an ice floe. — Jennifer Donnelly

Lots of things are impossible," she said softly. "Until they're not. — Jennifer Donnelly

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. — Jennifer Donnelly

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. — Jennifer Donnelly

History is fiction. — Jennifer Donnelly

Who knew that listening to a guy sleep could be so much deeper than sleeping with a guy. — Jennifer Donnelly

They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled under a bed. And sometimes they leave other sorts of things. Things you can't see. A sigh trapped in a corner. Memories tangled in the curtains. A sob fluttering against the windowpane like a bird that flew in and can't get back out. I can feel these things. They dart and crouch and whisper. — Jennifer Donnelly

So, besides Ava being lost in a swamp full of homicidal maniacs, and Astrid swimming off to meet the king of homicidal maniacs, what other insurmountable problems are we facing tonight?
- Sera — Jennifer Donnelly

I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people. — Jennifer Donnelly

Whatever you do or dream you can do - begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it. — Jennifer Donnelly

Airports should all belong to the same country. The country of Crappacia. Or Bleakovania. Or Suckitan. — Jennifer Donnelly

But here, surrounded by friends who wanted her, she recognized for the first time that there was only one voice that truly mattered. Only one she had to listen to. Her own. — Jennifer Donnelly

But words are more powerful than anything. — Jennifer Donnelly

Life, Rose well knew, could throw some hard punches at you, but nothing hurt as much as losing a child, or seeing one of your children hurt and suffering. Becoming a parent changed you forever, as nothing else could. Not good or bad fortune. Not friendships. Not even a man or a woman. — Jennifer Donnelly

I was only glad to be saved and never once thought to ask why. — Jennifer Donnelly

It's only the body that's gone. Only the body. There's a part that doesn't go in the ground, a part that stays inside you forever. — Jennifer Donnelly

It was an amazing feeling, to succeed at something. It was a new feeling for her
part happiness, part pride
and she relished it. — Jennifer Donnelly

Uh-oh,' Lafitte said ominously. 'Swamp queen just go angry. — Jennifer Donnelly