Lynne Reid Banks Quotes & Sayings

There's nothing, of course, more damaging and hurtful to the psyche than that - searching grimly for things to despise and revile in a person you once loved. You may destroy the beloved image but at the same time you destroy part of the basis of your self-respect, plus a whole vital chunk out of your past. Because, if he is hateful now, what aberration once caused you to waste so much love on him? — Lynne Reid Banks

With hands that shook, Omri probed into the depths of the chest till he found the box-within-a-box-within-a-box. — Lynne Reid Banks

I remember the mid-'50s well. It was when my life changed, and I left acting to become one of the first female television news reporters in the U.K. — Lynne Reid Banks

That it's possible to be against the circus, not because you're afraid to die there, but because it's wicked and wrong.
~Aurelia, 152 — Lynne Reid Banks

Oh she's alright it's just that - I don't want to get mixed up with anyone in the house. I don't want to get mixed up at all with anybody anymore. — Lynne Reid Banks

You touch, I kill. — Lynne Reid Banks

The Spring can be more painful than any other time of the year. Summer is lazy and indifferent. Autumn is demanding and invigorating. Winter is numb and self-contained, but Spring has none of the palliatives. Every emotional nerve is close to the surface. Every sound and sight, every touch of the air is a summons to feel, to open your doors, to let life possess you and do what it likes with you. — Lynne Reid Banks

Cupboard. The strange little key, which had been his great-grandmother's, — Lynne Reid Banks

It's funny how, when you really want to say something bitchy and cutting to someone who's been bitchy to you, you can't think of anything till afterwards. When there's no real call for it, you come suddenly out with a piece of 9-carat bitchery that shakes even you. — Lynne Reid Banks

What did I tell you when you were little girl? The only way we women can get through our lives honorably is with courage and resignation, both.
~168 — Lynne Reid Banks

Love lost by one moment's explicit unfairness can't be won back by trying to justify it — Lynne Reid Banks

Spring came late. For the children, shut in the dark, cold parsonage, adjusting to Aunt and getting over the death that brought her, the winter had seemed endless. But now the rough moor was flecked with racing cloud shadows; the maltreated holly tree had stopped weeping; the green mould on the graves had dried to an unsuggestive grey.
The church could never look cheerful. It was too black, and its voice, the bell, always said 'Fu - ner -al ... fu - ner- al ... ' even when it was only calling them to hear one of their Papa's dramatic sermons. — Lynne Reid Banks

Most men, if you just tell them what to do in a businesslike fashion, will follow directions without thinking about it. One proceeds on the assumption that they'll do as they're told, and they do. — Lynne Reid Banks

Pirates of the Caribbean, move over! Make room for a crew of mouse-privateers who will capture your hearts and stop your breath with their thrilling sea-going adventures! A wonderful story, full of bold mice, good and wicked, who will show you what courage really means. — Lynne Reid Banks

The '50s in general are written off as a boring decade following the turmoil of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath - the postwar Labour government, the cold war, the arrival of the New Look in fashion, etc. But I remember it as a very exciting time - a pioneering, rule-breaking time, especially for the young. — Lynne Reid Banks

The very people you trusted most could become like strangers in their longing ... — Lynne Reid Banks

The BBC is very good at period drama - world-famous for getting the details right. — Lynne Reid Banks

I know what is wrong. You havn't decided what you want.' She'd underlined this many times. 'Terribly important to draw up a balance sheet every now and then, debits and credits. Decide what's important, what's worth fighting for. Don't drift, ever. Decide then act. If you fail well at least you tried. Don't know what you want so can't advise you how to get it. — Lynne Reid Banks

Innocence is ignorance. — Lynne Reid Banks

Omri refused to get involved in an argument. He was somehow scared that if he talked about the Indian, something bad would happen. In fact, as the day went on and he longed more and more to get home, he began to feel certain that the whole incredible happening - well, not that it hadn't happened, but that something would go wrong. All his thoughts, all his dreams were centered on the miraculous, endless possibilities opened up by a real, live, miniature Indian of his very own. It would be too terrible if the whole thing turned out to be some sort of mistake. — Lynne Reid Banks

Things like this - love-relationships - need a certain minimum of proximity to keep them going. — Lynne Reid Banks

When I was your age I met a man older than myself, quite a bit older. I fell in love with him. Really in love. I know people say it's just puppy love at that age, but I was in love properly. It lasted for years. It was the most powerful feeling I can ever remember. At that age one has no defenses. It just overwhelmed me. — Lynne Reid Banks

I find writing for children much easier. I don't mean it's less demanding - you've got to have a talent for it and you've got to work very hard - but you don't have to pull your guts out and lay them on the line in quite the same way as when you're writing for adults. — Lynne Reid Banks