Hoban Quotes & Sayings

I just figured out why someone would want to make the first mirror ... I think some lover wanted his beloved to see how she appeared to him. He wanted her to be able to see herself the way that he did. — Julia Hoban

What I am
is tired of jam. — Russell Hoban

How do the turtles find Ascension Island? There are sharks in the water too. Some of the turtles get eaten by sharks. Do the turtles know about sharks? How do they not think about the sharks when they're swimming that 1,400 miles? Green turtles must have the kind of mind that doesn't think about sharks unless a shark is there. That must be how it is with them. I can't believe they'd swim 1,400 miles thinking about sharks. — Russell Hoban

Yes thats what I done you sorry sods I over the fents and off with the dogs... — Russell Hoban

If reality had a stage door I'd hang around there to see what comes out after the show. — Russell Hoban

The things that matter don't necessarily make sense. — Russell Hoban

It may happen to me at any time that everything will be just what it is, with no stories in anything. — Russell Hoban

Our woal life is a idear we dint think of nor we dont know what it is. — Russell Hoban

I cud feal some thing growing in me it wer like a grean sea surging in me it wer saying, LOSE IT. Saying, LET GO. Saying, THE ONLYES POWER IS NO POWER
The ruins of Canterbury Castle — Russell Hoban

He's taken half of our savings,' said his mother. 'If we lived without using the savings before,' said Boaz-Jachin, 'we can live without the half that he has taken. — Russell Hoban

Have you paused to consider that there is no way out? Each way out of one situation necessarily being the way into another situation. — Russell Hoban

Before the motorcar replaced the horse, and for some years after there were many illustrators who drew horses with the same authority with which they drew the human figure; now there are very few who can do that. Most modern illustraters fudge a horse the best they can and hope to get on by the technique. — Russell Hoban

It's hard to keep something a secret when it's written all over you body. — Julia Hoban

Oh, yes," said Mother, "you may be sure that there will always be plenty of chocolate cake around here. — Russell Hoban

When I was a child I had a fishless aquarium. My father set it up for me with gravel and plants and pebbles before he'd got the fish and I asked him to leave it as it was for a while. The pump kept up a charming burble, the green-gold light was wondrous when the room was dark. I put in a china mermaid and a tin horseman who maintained a relationship like that of the figures on Keat's Grecian urn except that the horseman grew rusty. Eventually fish were pressed upon me and they seemed an intrusion, I gave them to a friend. All that aquarium wanted was the sound of the pump, the gently waving plants, the mysterious pebbles and the silent horseman forever galloping to the mermaid smiling in the green-gold light. I used to sit and look at them for hours. The mermaid and the horseman were from my father. I have them in a box somewhere here, I'm not yet ready to take them out and look at them again. — Russell Hoban

The sign said 'The Green Turtle, Chelonia myadas, is the source of turtle soup ... ' I am the source of William G. soup if it comes to that. Everyone is the source of his or her kind of soup. In a town as big as London, that's a lot of soup walking around. — Russell Hoban

The worl is ful of things waiting to happen. Thats the meat and boan of it right there. You myt think you can jus go here and there doing nothing. Happening nothing. You cant tho you bleeding cant. You put your self on any road and some thing wil show its self to you. Wanting to happen. Waiting to happen. You myt say, 'I dont want to know.' But 1ce its showt its self to you you wil know wont you. You cant not know no mor. There it is and working in you. You myt try to put a farness be twean you and it only you cant becaws youre carrying it inside you. The waiting to happen aint out there where it ben no more its inside you. — Russell Hoban

We make fiction because we are fiction ... It lived us into being and it lives us still. — Russell Hoban

If someone were to look carefully, the angry red marks underneath the fine cotton of her blouse would be clearly visible. But nobody ever does look carefully. — Julia Hoban

He was thinking what a long and wide thing time is, to have so many happenings in it. — Russell Hoban

I am a leaf on the wind - watch how I soar — Joss Whedon

Here below the surface one studies the depths of TO BE, as manifest in AM, IS, and ARE. And if you don't hold up your end of the conversation I may very well snap you in two. — Russell Hoban

Am I doomed? Flashing darkness is pretty much the same as flashing light really. Fear isn't at all the same as courage but after a certain point perhaps being afraid of everything is the same as being afraid of nothing. — Russell Hoban

If she let herself, she'd drown in a world of pain — Julia Hoban

Who can know anybody?' said the bookshop owner. 'Every person is like thousands of books. New, reprinting, in stock, out of stock, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, rubbish. The lot. Different every day. One's lucky to be able to put his hand on the one that's wanted, let alone know it. — Russell Hoban

Fidelity is a matter of perception; nobody is unfaithful to the sea or to mountains or to death: once recognized they fill the heart. — Russell Hoban

There were no lions any more. There had been lions once. Sometimes in the shimmer of the heat on the plains the motion of their running still flickered on the dry wind - tawny, great, and quickly gone. Sometimes the honey-colored moon shivered to the silence of a ghost-roar on the rising air. — Russell Hoban

I had a salad. If I were to say that today's tomatoes were an index of the decline of Western man I should be thought a crank but nations do not, I think, ascend on such tomatoes. — Russell Hoban

Explorers have to be ready to die lost. — Russell Hoban

We've tried the other way; we've tried making both things and people It, and we've seen the results. — Russell Hoban

A map is the dead body of where you've been. A map is the unborn baby of where you're going. There are no maps. Maps are pictures of what isn't. — Russell Hoban

And I was right to be ... to become a cutter, because maybe you think this doesn't look so bad, that girls cry, that people cry, but you'd be wrong, you'd be so wrong, anything ... anything at all ... would feel better than this does. I'm ... sorry." She tries to catch her breath. "I'm sorry to be putting you through this ... "
"Willow, you haven't put me through anything. — Julia Hoban

More and more I'm aware that the permutations are not unlimited. — Russell Hoban

Mark you that and noat you wel. — Russell Hoban

A frightening thought had been growing in me. I'd always assumed that I was the central character in my own story but now it occurred to me that I might in fact be only a minor character in someone else's. — Russell Hoban

Her hand closes on smooth metal. Her fingers test the sharpness of the edge. Perfect. It's a fresh blade.
The girls' voices rustle in her head. Their clamoring pushes out all rational thought. She rolls up her sleeve.
The bite of the blade kills the noise. It wipes out the memory of those staring faces. Willow looks at her arm, at the life springing from her. Tiny pinpricks of red that blossom into giant peonies. — Julia Hoban

Margaret Atwood, J.G. Ballard, Ray Bradbury, Jim Crace, Arthur C. Clarke, Russell Hoban, Anna Kavan, Doris Lessing, Cormac McCarthy, Walter M. Miller, Tim O'Brien, Will Self and Marcel Theroux, — Bill Bryson

A turtle doesn't have to decide every morning whether to keep on bothering, it just carries on. Maybe that's why man kills everything: envy. — Russell Hoban

Dont you know if you keap getting a head of your self youwl jus only fall over your self when you get to where you are going? — Russell Hoban

Can I ... Can I ... "
"You can do anything." She shivers as his hands move over her body, but this time it is wholly unmixed with fear and she cannot believe how wonderful it feels.
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I've ... had something in my wallet ever since I knew ... Well, ever since I hoped that there would be a time when I would need to ... protect you like this."
"And when was that?"
"If I answer that, then will you stop talking?"
"Yes." "I will because your answers are so perfect."
"I saw you try and take care of someone that you thought was weaker than yourself, I couldn't believe that someone who had been through what you;d been through could be that ... well, generous, and thoughtful ... — Julia Hoban

I have no wisdom and nothing useful to tell you - I only mentioned this because it came into my head. — Russell Hoban

Time's arrow points one way only. Even the moment just past cannot be returned to. — Russell Hoban

You hear diffrent things in all them way back storys but it dont make no diffrents, Mostly they aint strait storys any how. What they are is diffrent ways of telling what happent. — Russell Hoban

Her brother is crying, he is wretched and broken. Though his sobs are barely audible, he is weeping with absolute and total abandon. Such a naked display of emotion is both alarming and frightening. — Julia Hoban

If this is not a happy ending, it is perhaps a happy beginning. — Julia Hoban

After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language? — Russell Hoban

Sometimes I think that the biggest difference between men and women is that more men need to seek out some terrible lurking thing in existence and hurl themselves upon it like Ahab with the White Whale. Women know where it lives but they can let it alone. Even in martiarchal societies I doubt that there were ever female Beowulfs. Women lie with gods and demons but they don't go looking for monsters to fight with. Ariadne gave Theseus a clew but the minotaur was his business. — Russell Hoban

My generation was somewhat between things, neither free nor much supported by whatever held us in. — Russell Hoban

Them as counts counts moren them as dont count — Russell Hoban

Isn't that interesting."
"Hmmmm?"
"When you blush, it doesn't stop at your collarbone. — Julia Hoban

Destiny is not to be trifled with. Do not commit the tragic error of satisfying present appetite at the cost of future fulfilment — Russell Hoban

But when I don't smoke I scarcely feel as if I'm living. I don't feel as if I'm living unless I'm killing myself. — Russell Hoban

Life is a process of one goneness after another. — Russell Hoban

There must be a lot of people in the world being wondered about by people who don't see them any more. — Russell Hoban

A family is everybody all together. — Russell Hoban

O yes youwl want to think on that you dont want your mouf to walk you where your feet dont want to go. — Russell Hoban

I said, "That souns like the end of the song. What about the beginning?"
He said, "Thats jus it you see thats why he wer too late he never come in to it at the beginning."
I said, "You never sung no beginning if youd sung it he cudve come in to it."
He said, "I never sung no beginning becaws you wont never fynd no beginning its long gone and far pas. What ever youre after youwl never fynd the beginning of it thats why youwl all ways be too late. Onlyes thing youwl ever fynd is the end of things. What ever happens itwl be what you dint want to happen. What ever dont happen thatwl be the thing you wantit. Take your choosing how you like youwl get what you dont want. — Russell Hoban

And yet, as she sits there with him on the window seat, with his strong arms around her, she knows that if she can survive crying, then there are other things she can survive too. And that if some things are lost to her forever, there are others that she has not yet begun to experience. She knows too that what she wants is not because passion is the natural antidote to grief, but because it is the most natural, most perfect, most complete expression of what she feels for him. — Julia Hoban

Stil it takes you strange walking in your old foot steps like that. Putting your groan up foot where your chyld foot run nor dint know nothing what wer coming. — Russell Hoban

When you suffer an attack of nerves you're being attacked by the nervous system. What chance has a man got against a system? — Russell Hoban

oh brave new world that has such a person in it. — Julia Hoban

How was I to be a scientist, father Lion?' Science is knowing. What could I have known? Others always did the knowing, knew what was in me, what should come out of me, what was best for me. I didn't know who I was, what I wanted. I know less now, and I am afraid. — Russell Hoban

The zoo is a prison for animals who have been sentenced without trial and I feel guilty because I do nothing about it. I wanted to see an oyster-catcher, so I was no better than the people who caged the oyster-catcher for me to see. — Russell Hoban

We'd already talked in the stacks, and I knew you were different from any other girl I'd met. And you told me that your parents were dead, and I thought that you were so ... lost and vulnerable. So when I saw you in the physics lab ... and I saw you try and take care of someone that you thought who had been through what you'd been through; could be that ... well, generous, and thoughtfull ... " Guy said.
"But you hardly knew me." said Willow
"I know ... I didn't know that we'd even talk again, or that if we did, if we'd get along, or maybe you were seeing someone else ... I just knew that the way you tried to protect someone's life that, especially given your situation ... I just ... I though that you had to be the most special girl I would ever meet ... — Julia Hoban

Iyther you dont know nothing or you know too much it dont seam like theres any thing in be twean. — Russell Hoban

I was on South Bank one day by the Royal Festival Hall. It was a sunny day with a bright blue sky. I was looking up at a train crossing the Hungerford Bridge. Through the train I could see the sky successively framed by each window as the carriage passed. Each window moving quickly forward and away held briefly a rectangle of blue. The windows passing, the blue remained. — Russell Hoban

There were times when it seemed the different parts of him where not all under the same management. — Russell Hoban

Sometimes there's nothing but Sundays for weeks on end. Why can't they move Sunday to the middle of the week so you could put it in the OUT tray on your desk? — Russell Hoban

If we'd been edible we'd never have lasted this long. — Russell Hoban

I said, 'Then whered the other story come from? ... '
He said, 'It come in to my mynd.'
I said, 'You mean you made it up.'
He said, 'Wel no I dint make it up you cant make up nothing in your head no moren you can make up what you see. You know what I mean may be what you see aint all ways there so you cud reach out and touch it but its there some kynd of way and it come from some where. That place Hagmans Il I use to wunner about it every time we come by it til finely that story come in to my head. That story cudnt come out of no where cud it so it musve come out of some where. Parbly it ben in that place from time back way back or may be in a nother place only the idear of it come to me there. That don't make no odds. That storys jus what ever it is and thats what storys are. — Russell Hoban

Me, what's that after all? An arbitrary limitation of being bounded by the people before and after and on either side. Where they leave off I begin, and vice versa. — Russell Hoban

I stil aint qwite said how it wer. Not like a diffrent country. It wer mor like I wer behynt the back clof in a show. Thats how it wer. Thru the clof I cud see the other figgers moving I cud see the peopl watching only no 1 cud see me. If I wer a figger in a show what hand wer moving me then? I cudnt be bothert to think on that right then. Theres all ways some thingwl be moving you if it aint 1 thing its a nother you cant help that. — Russell Hoban

I've seen a film in which Dr Lorenz pointed out the difference between two colonies of cattle egrets, one free and one caged. The free ones, who had to provide for themselves, were monogamous and energetic and kept their numbers within ecologically reasonable limits. The captive egrets were promiscuous, idle, overbreeding and presumably going to hell fast. — Russell Hoban

Wel you know 1ce the kids start singing at you thats a cern kynd of track youre on nor there aint too much you can do about it. Making the kids stop singing wont help its too late by then youve jus got to clinch your teef and get on with it. — Russell Hoban

Willow sees her before any of the others. A walking skeleton, the victim of some terrible wasting disease, like something out of the history books, a death camp survivor. It takes Willow a moment to realize that the girl is none of those things. She's just a girl, a girl like Willow, who's chosen to inflict terrible pain on herself. Only this girl's weapon isn't a razor, it's starvation. — Julia Hoban

I have forgotten more of my life than I remember, and with my forgetting I have lost my being. — Russell Hoban

There is a tiger in my room,' said Frances.
'Did he bite you?' said Father.
'No,' said Frances.
'Did he scratch you?' said Mother.
'No,' said Frances.
'Then he is a friendly tiger,' said Father. 'He will not hurt you. Go back to sleep. — Russell Hoban

What do you do when you're wound up?' she asked. 'Do you play that drum?'. 'No,' said the child. 'We used to dance.' 'But now we walk,' said the father. 'And behind us an enemy walks faster.' 'That's life,' said Euterpe. — Russell Hoban

People write books for children and other people write about the books written for children but I don't think it's for the children at all. I that all the people who worry so much about the children are really worrying about themselves, about keeping their world together and getting the children to help them do it, getting the children to agree that it is indeed a world. Each new generation of children has to be told: 'This is a world, this is what one does, one lives like this.' Maybe our constant fear is that a generation of children will come along and say: 'This is not a world, this is nothing, there's no way to live at all. — Russell Hoban

How can she explain to him that every tear takes her further and further away from the box of razors that lies between them. How can she explain that she is terrified of such a thing happening. That although she thought she wanted freedom from her implements, she doesn't know if she can handle what she's experiencing now. That she wants to know that she is still in charge of her grief. That her blades have always done her bidding. — Julia Hoban

And she realized that this is true. Pain has somehow transformed into pleasure, and that pleasure is better than any pain could ever be. — Julia Hoban

But with you, well, the things you say ... You do get it, and that does make me feel ... better." Willow can feel herself starting to blush.
"You blush a lot," Guy says after a moment.
"I can't help it."
"Well, don't help it. I mean, blushing. I think that's sweet."
"Oh."
"And I'm really happy if anything I do makes you feel any better. — Julia Hoban

She watches as the blood springs from the cut she's making, but it doesn't change anything. Not this time. She swipes again, deeper. Now she feels pain, but will it be enough? — Julia Hoban

It was the sort of situation that would be ever so charming and warmly human in a film with Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith but that sort of film is only charming because they leave out so many details, and real life is all the details they leave out. — Russell Hoban

Looking at them words going down on this paper right this minim I know there aint no such thing there aint no only my self you all ways have every 1 and every thing on your back. — Russell Hoban

Navigare necesse est. Vivere non est necesse.' I've — Russell Hoban

All roads, whether long or short, are hard," said Frog. "Come, you have begun your journey, and all else necessarily follows from that act. Be of good cheer. The sun is bright. The sky is blue. The world lies before you. — Russell Hoban

We can't all be investigating non-coding DNA," I said, feeling an upsurge of gastric acid. "Some of us have to sell bullshit self-improvement courses — Russell Hoban

Seeds blow in the wind and what is earf but a deadness with life growing out of it? — Russell Hoban

But more and more I think that madness is the world's natural condition and to expect anything else is madness compounded. — Russell Hoban

Who is Alice?" asked mother.
"Alice is somebody that nobody can see," said Frances. "And that is why she does not have a birthday. So I am singing Happy Thursday to her." - Frances the badger — Russell Hoban

Every body knows Aunty. Stoan boans and iron tits and teef be twean her legs plus she has a iron willy for the ladys it gets red hot. When your time comes you have to do the juicy with her like it or not. She rides a girt big rat with red eyes it can see in the dark and it can smel whos ready for Aunty. Even if they dont know it ther selfs the rat can smel if theyre ready. — Russell Hoban

I guess what scares me the most now is the thought that I won't be able to protect you — Julia Hoban

And she knows then that she was right about her brother, that it takes an unbelievable strength to feel this kind of grief, and she doesn't know if she can handle it, because it really hurts, hurts her more than the razor ever could. — Julia Hoban

Words have a life; without response they die. — Russell Hoban

The silence sat down with them like an invisible creature with its finger to its lips. — Russell Hoban

If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time. — Russell Hoban

She starts to roll down her sleeve, but Guy stops her. He holds her arm, looks at her cuts, traces the pattern of her razor marks with his hand.
"Don't, it's ... "
Willow stops speaking as he bends his head and kisses her scars.
She knows she should tell him to stop, but she can't because she wants him to go on forever. She knows too that she will probably pay for this feeling with other less pleasurable ones, but still she can't bring herself to pull her arm away. — Julia Hoban

The mouse and his child, who had learned so much and had prevailed against such overwhelming odds, never could be persuaded to teach a success course ... The whole secret of the thing, they insisted, was simply and at all costs to move steadily ahead, and that, they said, could not be taught. — Russell Hoban

Jachin-Boaz was at the age called middle life, but he did not believe that he had as many years ahead of him as he had behind him. — Russell Hoban