Crossley Quotes & Sayings

Everything, I thought, everything keeps changing. Changing shape, changing colour, changing sound. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Neatly at its foot, a gauze. I hear her gargling in the bathroom. My hands and feet are blue from the cold and I cannot see through the window for the frost and icicles. When Ana Iris starts — Junot Diaz

Because you know something won't ever happen, it doesn't stop you longing for it.
I know I'll never be able to speak or sing with my own voice.
I don't know why.
I wish I did. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

I see the role of the writer as creating a room with big windows and leaving the reader to imagine. It's a meeting on the page. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

A culture finds the gods it needs. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Theory is taught so as to make the student believe that he or she can become a Marxist, a feminist, an Afrocentrist, or a deconstructionist with about the same effort and commitment required in choosing items from a menu. — Edward Said

Ymir was a frost giant; he was evil from the first. While he slept, he began to sweat. A man and woman grew out of the ooze under his left armpit, and one of his legs fathered a son on the other leg. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Mr. Crossley suddenly wondered why he was why he was worrying about the note. It was only a joke, after all. He cleared his throat. Everyone looked up hopefully. 'Somebody,' said Mr. Crossley, 'seems to have sent me a Halloween message.' And he read out the note: 'SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH.'
6B thought this was splendid news. Hands shot up all over the room like a bed of beansprouts.
'It's me, Mr. Crossley!'
'Mr. Crossley, I'm the witch!'
'Can I be the witch, Mr. Crossley?'
'Me, Mr. Crossley, me, me, me! — Diana Wynne Jones

The box didn't appear to be hampered in any way by the ornamental rug draped roguishly over it, nor by the thief hanging by one arm from the lid. It was, in a very real sense, a dead weight. Further along the lid were the remains of two fingers, owner unknown. — Terry Pratchett

That's what happens when you're really concentrating. Time stands still. Time flies! — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Like any decent researcher, I throw away 90% of my research. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

On one occasion during the salaat, I was restless and fidgety. Out of nowhere, I felt a swift spank on my behind. I turned around to see who it was, but there was no one behind me. I surmised it was my uncle, who was standing next to me, so after finishing the salaat, I tearfully accused him of the spanking. Without flinching, he pointed up to the sky and said, "No, it was Allah." My eyes went wide, and I thought, "If only I had turned around faster, I would have seen the hand of Allah!" Twenty years later, he confessed it was him, but in the meantime, I was honored to have been spanked by God Himself. — Nabeel Qureshi

Maybe if I ever come to write about my teens and adulthood - and I can't imagine I will - but if I do, then maybe I will want to say a bit more about the ways in which my parents' relationship with one another impacted on me in later years. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

I am seriously interested in the psychology of childhood. And I've given a lot of my life to trying to see questions of personal development, as well as the great issues of the day, from a child's point of view. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Fearlessness is better than a faint-heart for any man who puts his nose out of doors. The length of my life and the day of my death were fated long ago. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

When I was a boy, I took over the shed at the bottom of the garden and displayed fossils and potsherds and coins in it and proudly called it my 'museum'. I charged people to come in, and my most prized possession was a Saracen shield dating from the Crusades. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

As a newcomer, I was often expected to carry the bags of the older players, or get them burgers. That can make you feel pretty miserable. — Dirk Nowitzki

Before Arthur, I'd dismissed altogether writing fiction. You only have so many semi-sharp arrows in your quiver, I'd told myself, and I was not going to be able to write a novel. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

One wound is enough to feed the open wounds of the sky. — Edmond Jabes

Ymir's body is divided so that everything, even his eyebrows, were used in the creation of the world; the four dwarfs who hold up the sky; the wolves that chase the sun and moon; the giant's eyes that are tossed up into heaven and turned into stars: these and a host of other particulars become narrative elements within the cycle. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Some things in our lives, we think about, we hope for, we dream of, we half believe. But some we just know. And what I know, Laura, is that if you practise and learn to play this instrument, the day will come when angels stop and listen to you. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Not being able to speak is not the same as not having anything to say. — Rosemary Crossley

Fragments of the future spun past like whirling puzzle pieces with an endless array of combinations. Yet, even with millions of possible outcomes, the same conclusion punctuated every scenario: blissful happiness.
Love. — Kendall Grey

Think of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.' It is equally intoxicating for children and adults. All this 'crossover' talk is something publishers are using as a selling device - a kind of post hoc rationalisation of what was happening already. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Supporting a murderous political agenda with such an argument is tragic! — Joseph Bayly

Like all good works of fiction, it lies like the truth. — Robert Crossley

Most writers, by the time they're 60, must have revisited their childhood a dozen times. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Playing in an orchestra is completely different to playing on my own.
Sometimes I played, sometimes listened; instead of waiting my turn, I sometimes interrupted another player, sometimes I argued, sometimes agreed.
My flute is my mouthpiece and I felt as if I was actually joining in a conversation. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

The three sons of Bor had no liking for Ymir ... At last they attacked Ymir and killed him. His wounds were like springs; so much blood streamed from them and so fast, that the flood drowned all the frost giants except Bergelmir and his wife. They embarked in their boat and rode out on a tide of gore — Kevin Crossley-Holland

A naked dog for a naked lady. — Gypsy Rose Lee

Its's just that ... this is the realest thing I've had in a long time and it scares me a bit. — Jessica Sorensen

If a sheep dies on the shore of the Euphrates I fear lest Allah ask me to account for it on the Day of Resurrection. — Umar

There are Arthurian legends in 14 or 15 medieval European languages. They are the product of no one time or place. On the contrary, in sum they represent a tremendous mine of human understanding, rather as the Bible does. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Lif and Lifthrasir will have children. Their children will have children.
There will be life and new life, life everywhere on earth. That was the end; and this is the beginning. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Everly heard people talk about a kiss taking their breath away. She'd always thought that was crap - or poor technique. But when Landry's other hand slid down to cup her ass through the material of her dress while his tongue had its way with hers, she actually went light-headed. But there was no way in hell she was going to stop kissing him. She didn't care if she passed out. So, she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave as good as she got. — Paige Tyler

It becomes necessary to realize that the body is not conscious, but we are conscious of the body, also that the mind is not conscious but we are conscious of the mind. — Ernest Wood

[Richard Crossley's] previous bird guide, for ID'ing Eastern birds, is the most imaginative, original attempt to re-envision the birding guide and set his approach apart from that of Sibley, Kaufman, Peterson, Nat'l Geo, and the other bibles in the field. — James Wolcott

The rivers that sprang from Hvergelmir streamed into the void. The yeasty venom in them thickened and congealed like slag, and the rivers turned into ice. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

It's wonderful to have the most important thing in the world there first thing in the morning. And especially in this business, where the opportunity to think everything is about you is there every day, now I really know that it isn't all about me. — Kate Beckinsale

For each detail I include, I throw dozens away. So I guess the first trick is to pick the right details, the most revealing details. Then I think one must simply write quick, clean, bright prose. For me, this means rewriting and rewriting: almost never adding, almost always cutting. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

In the beginning was the word, and primitive societies venerated poets second only to their leaders. A poet had the power to name and so to control; he was, literally, the living memory of a group or tribe who would perpetuate their history in song; his inspiration was god given and he was in effect a medium. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Goodbye don't mean gone. — Ray Charles

You can teach someone a skill but you can't teach them spirit. — Kevin Crossley-Holland