Jodi Lynn Quotes & Sayings

People say I'm not much of a girl either, Tiger Lily said.
She thought of Tik Tok, who was fond of saying that people were all bits of each thing, boy and girl. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

You think you know that someone sees you one way, and barely at all, and then you realize that they see you in another. That was the night I realized (She) had seen- really seen- me all along. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I don't know when Tiger Lily stopped growing older; I can't pinpoint that moment. But I do know I never saw her visibly age beyond the days when she was with Peter. I like to think her growing stopped the day they were on the plateau, watching the horses. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I'm nothing to you, am I' Peter said once in a particularly intense arguement about where to find wild turnips. To these kinds of accusations, Tiger Lily would reply that he was trying to make her into his little chicken, and that she would never be anyone's 'little obedient chicken — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Tiger Lily, you know Moon Eye isn't for me."
"She is," Tiger Lily said.
"She's like me. They're two different things. You're ... " He swallowed. "You're everything to me. You know that. Don't pretend that you don't. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I think the rest of the world is not as cold and lonely a place as you think. At least I have to hope. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

It made her think about how she couldn't believe how big the universe was, but how small it was for her. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Peter sighed into the water, and his breath sent a small circle of it into tiny ripples. "It seems cowardly, getting old. Don't you think?"
She rolled onto her side to look at him, pillowing her ear with her right arm, and letting her fingers dangle in the water beyond her head. "How is it cowardly?"
Peter kept his eyes on his reflection. "You just curl up around yourself, and sit by the fire, and try to be comfortable. When you get old, you just get smaller inside, and you try not to pay attention to anything but your blankets and your food and your bed."
"Being comfortable is not a bad thing."
Peter shrugged and turned his head to look at her as if it was a matter of fact. "Of course it is. Old people lock out all the scary, wild things. It's like they don't exist."
She wanted to say that she would have liked for those things not to exist, either, but she held her tongue, because she didn't want to sound like a coward. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

As they grew sloppier and less alert, the twins argued too loudly about whether Tiger Lily was ugly or beautiful, and finally agreed that she was "ugly beautiful".
Tiger Lily pretended she hadn't heard, but her heart slowed to absorb the blow. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She felt the warmth of Peter's arm under her neck, and it almost felt like he was an extension of her, and like if they had souls, they lay somewhere snug between their two bodies. Maybe all of her strangeness, her curse, her always feeling like an outsider, had all existed so that she could belong here, with Peter. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

When they made up, it was as if nothing had happened at all. In fact, it was like they were stuck even closer together, like they had gotten even more tangled in each other. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

But men don't want women who are brave. They want women who make them feel like men. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

How can I describe Peter's face, the pieces of him that stick to my heart? Peter sometimes looked aloof and distant; sometimes his face was open and soft as a bruise. Sometimes he looked completely at Tiger Lily, as if she were the point on which all the universe revolved, as if she were the biggest mystery of life, or as if she were a flame and he couldn't not look even though he was scared. And sometimes it would all disappear into carelessness, confidence, amusement, as if he didn't need anyone or anything on this earth to feel happy and alive. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Friends, she had realized, could make you do that. Forget the things that worried you most. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I began to see that Wendy had something Tiger Lily hadn't even known she was supposed to have. Of all the things Tiger Lily had thought she might have to be for Peter-strong, brave; to be big and to keep up-she had never thought that the one thing he wanted most from her was simply to show that she believed in him, always and without fail. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Tiger Lily went back into the house, from which she kept watch of the ocean. She held her arms around her stomach and stayed awake. She didn't want him to catch her sleeping.
Peter did not come that night, or the next day, and she stayed awake. She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible.
For three days, she kept on studying the horizon, even speaking to it, as if a ship that had already disappeared could hear her. "Choose me."
And Peter did choose. But he chose something else. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

The Lady shrugged nonchalantly. "You're a hider. Thats what you're thinking. And you're right."
May swallowed and nodded, feeling very small.
The Lady kneaded her wrinkled hands. "What you are hiding from the most, my dear, is that you are none of those things you are so afraid of being - cowardly, weak, small. You aren't afraid to know you're afraid. And you're most afraid that you're stronger than you know. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Wendy's heart beat for Peter immediately-there was no slow growing, no dark distrustfulness like Tiger Lily had had, no hesitation. Wendy didn't believe in situations she couldn't bend to fit her, so there was no need to be distrustful. She had the blissful confidence of someone who had never been put in a pot of turkey broth to die. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Manatees are real, mermaids aren't. Rhinoceroses exist and sea monsters don't. There are no more sea serpents guarding deadly whirlpools. There are pirates, yes, but there is nothing romantic about them. The rest is all stories, and stories have been put in their place. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Don't forget about the stardust. Don't forget about the quartz rocks in the woods. You are small. But you are also so much more. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She said she thought there were different ways of loving someone, and there were some she used to think were the most important, and now she had changed her mind. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Things hurt, and don't hurt, and hurt again. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

It was funny how you could go somewhere and your whole life could stretch out and then you could come home and have it all shrink back to the way it was before. It was funny that it didn't stay stretched. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

If there was a true moment that Tiger Lily fell so in love with Peter she could never turn back, it was that night, when he shivered and walked and told her he was warm, and told her he loved her so much. She was fierce, to be sure, but she had a girl's heart, after all. As she walked home that night, she was shaking from the largeness of it. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

When Peter made mistakes, Wendy cheered for him anyway. One afternoon he beat her and everyone else in a race organized by Slightly. She only laughed and squeezed his wrist with easy affection and told him how fast he was. She was so undeterred by losing that it made the boys wonder if winning was exactly what they'd thought it was or if in England it was different. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

A faerie heart is different from a human heart. Human hearts are elastic. They have room for all sorts of passions, and they can break and heal and love again and again. Faerie hearts are evolutionarily less sophisticated. They are small and hard, like tiny grains of sand. Our hearts are too small to love more than one person in a lifetime. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Look," Peter said.
To the north was a series of vast grassy plains, and there, just looking like specks at first, was a herd of horses, a species that in Neverland had never been tamed. They were beautiful, flashes of brown and black and tan, their coats gleaming. There was no reason for them to be running that Tiger Lily could see. It was likely that they just loved to run.
"That's what I want my life to be," Peter said, staring down at the horses.
Tiger Lily sank against him and watched the herd, and thought that was what she wanted too. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

What mattered was stil there. That was what they all felt, and what surprised them all. What mattered couldnt be shaken. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

So many lights you'd think we were living in a constellation — Jodi Lynn Anderson

maybe i just loved some of you. maybe not enough — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Just for a moment, she could hear the muffled tick tick from inside its mouth before it disappeared underneath the murky surface, and curled away. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

It's all part of a plan." He said, and smiled. "Our reward isn't here on earth. Earth barely matters. It's just a practice, this life is only a passing place, a stopping point on our journey. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I've been reading about moths," she said, to fill the silence.
"What have you read?"
Maggie shrugged. "They navigate by the light of the moon. They fling themselves into flames and electric lights because they think they're headed toward the moon's light."
"I guess they die in ecstasy then," Liam said. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Pine Sap said once that he would rather die than see Tiger Lily tamed. I guess Tiger Lily felt the same way with Peter, because she stayed behind. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

By the time she was fifteen, the age she was the day of the shipwreck, opinions by the dozen landed in each hollow track left by her feet. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

He tousled Baby's hair, then looked up at Tiger Lily. "The woods have rules." He put Baby down gingerly in his trough with his bottle. "But the rules are ugly."
"It's nature," she said, thoughtfully.
"I have a lot of disagreements with nature," he said, looking confused, and his downy brow wrinkled over his eyes. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

It was like this sometimes, and I felt I should look away, but I couldn't. I wanted to be there, having my face touched, defeating a heart like Peter's, but the next best thing was seeing it for Tiger Lily. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I recognized Tiger Lily instantly; I had seen her before. She stood out like a combination of a roving panther and a girl. She stalked instead of walked. Her body still held the invincibility of a child, when at her age it should have been giving way to fragile, flexible curves. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

You looked strange climbing in the tree like that."
Tiger Lily pulled her braids between her fingers, her sudden self-consciousness feeling foreign and strange to her.
"I didn't do it to look nice," she said.
"But you do care."
Tiger Lily studied the tree and decided if she did care, she would now choose not to. "I don't," she said.
"All girls do," he added, pushing the point.
"You must not know many girls."
"I know a million," Peter said, dark and serious. There was a long awkward silence, but if Peter regretted his words, I couldn't tell. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She thought of all the things she'd forgotten to be scared of. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I could never leave,' Pine Sap said.
'Why?' she asked.
Pine Sap shrugged, and gestured in the direction of the village. 'Because I think people must be the same everywhere. Only these people are my bones. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

It didn't fit her ideas of who was bad, and who was good, and what was a happy ending, and what wasn't. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Leeda knew friends never turned out to be what you expected. They came and went in waves, pulling away and coming back, leaving you feeling safe one minute and lost the next. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

But the outsider in May, the one from Briery Swamp who had never fit quite right, kept her tucked safely in her nook. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Let me tell you something straight off. This is a love story, but not like any you've ever heard. The boy and the girl are far from innocent. Dear lives are lost. And good doesn't win. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

P.S. Please give my love to Tink, she always was such a funny little bug — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Maybe she feared there were different ways of being trapped than the ones she already knew. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I think people everywhere are the same. Only these people are my bones. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

To not do what you can to protect someone, that's cowardly. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Lily?", she whispered. Lily didn't move. "Can I tell you something?" Lilly breathed deeply, clearly asleep. "I think all my life my heart's been broken," Adri whispered, "and I didn't even notice. And I don't even know by what. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Human hearts are elastic. They have room for all sorts of passions, and they can break and heal and love again and again. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She tried to decide whether the silence was an empty one or a waiting one. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I think we carry home on our backs. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Gerdi didn't really understand.Cammy liked being quiet.She liked bingo.She wouldn't mind living in a cozy little hole,like a rabbit. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

It took several minutes, but he was meticulous about each letter. IN MEMRY OF THE STRANJER, it said. HE LIVD AND DID. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Everyone will think I'm ugly."
Tik Tok smiled. "That's true. But we are a small village. We have narrow tastes. There's no telling who else in the world would think you're beautiful. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I'll teach you," Tiger Lily offered with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Did your mother teach you?" he asked.
"I don't have a mother," she said. "Like you."
For some reason, Peter was glad to hear it. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Peter sank. "I'd give anything to see time. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

So many stars are popping out above us it seems you could almost dip your fingers up there and come out with a handful of stars. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Sometimes love means not being able to bear seeing the one you love the way they are, when they're not what you hoped for them. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Nothing here is sacred. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Maggie shook her head. I'm not calm, I'm just ... hesitant. It's like, I always think pretty soon my life will be this great story, as soon as it starts. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She actually liked the idea that she might be made out of stars. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

There was a beast in there. But there was also a girl who was afraid of being a beast, and who wondered if other people had beasts in their hearts too. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Tiger Lily made an attempt at a smile. After having felt the need to glower at other children for most of her life, smiles never came easily to her face. But this one was half all right.
"I miss you already," he said.
Tiger Lily wanted to say it back. But she held on to the words greedily, too caught in the habit of keeping herself a secret.
And Peter-half sadly, half-expectantly-let her go. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I'm not a stranger to your love of lost causes, dear one. But you have to be careful who you meet," he said, stoking a pipe thoughtfully. "You can't unmeet them. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She let the jealousy slip out of her fingertips. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Somehow as children he and Tiger Lily had been shuttled together - both misfits or, as I liked to think of them, strange exotic birds, one too fierce to be hemmed in as a girl, and the other too hesitant to be respected as a boy. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

And as fall turned to winter, the Darlington peach trees started dropping their leaves again, gently, like they were letting them go. It wasnt the same as giving them up. It wasnt the same as losing them. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

It seemed, when all was said and done, that all souls were a little wild, in some way or another. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

And to Tiger Lily he suddenly, inexplicably, seemed older than her, and wiser, and the thought hit her hard that it wasn't fair, because she'd suffered, and there he was, looking like he knew so much more than she ever would. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

But Tik Tok believes everything's circular, including men and women. He says nature seems to go around and around, and that we all have bits of everything. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

The day felt almost like any other day of the summer, like they'd rewound and summer was still ahead of them. But this time, from the start, there would be no question of whether they had each other or not.
This time, they would know. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

One morning at home, Tik Tok had Tiger Lily try on her wedding dress. He seemed disappointed that it fit so well. Despite their expectations, it became her. Its simplicity and sleekness were subtle enough to highlight her strong, high cheeks, the shine in her hair. It was a dress made by someone who knew her. It was her freedom and her silence sewn into a dress.
She hated what it meant. But she loved the dress because it was from Tik Tok's hands and because it made her feel like herself. She took it off. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

For years after my father left us for Belladonna, I had looked for him ... the last time someone had seen them, they were living on a duck's back. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

The universe gets more disorderly all the time. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

And always, I could see that, despite his weakness for her or because of it, he seemed uncatchable, as if he might slip away at any moment. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

We should have a funeral," he said.
Pan held his hands clasped in a tent on his lap, and he bowed his head.
He seemed to be trying to recall something, and it was a long time before he finally said, "Our Father. Our Father. Our Father. Amen."
Then he leaned back, and his face was blank again. He smiled, all white teeth. "There. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

We are just stardust after all. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Things hurt and then don't hurt and hurt again. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

To love someone was not what she had expected. It was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She hated his need to always win and he hated her coldness during their arguments. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She guarded herself like a secret. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

There was no twinkle in his eyes.
"Maybe I just love some of you. Maybe not enough."
Tiger Lily blinked at him, and she didn't understand how anyone could only love a part. Her greedy heart didn't work that way. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

But you'll be back. I know you will. You won't be able to let us go now. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

life's better with girls. boys need girls. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I just love crazy people like this,' Murphy said. 'Jack Kerouac people. Mad to live, mad to die, that kind of thing. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

may
yes
can you carry me asked pumpkin
No — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Sometimes I think that maybe we are just stories. Like we may as well just be words on a page, because we're only what we've done and what we are going to do. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

And then a strong gust blew against her, and her feet slipped just slightly. She jerked forward against the railing, ever so softly. But, rotten, it crumbled like paper, and May and Kitty went sliding forward, right through it. May scrambled to stop herself, but it was too late.
They slid a few more feet, then fell off the edge of the roof.
They looked like blackbirds faliing out through the sky. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Sometimes I can't see myself when I'm with you. I can only just see you. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Tiger Lily, you're a fool. he said, and kissed her forehead. And despite his size, and the fact that a boy like him was not built to shoulder much of anything, he shouldered her weight, and carried her home. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I like to think that one day after I die, at least one small particle of me will float away to Neverland, and be apart of a flower or something like that. I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else ... — Jodi Lynn Anderson

She stands on the cliffs, near the old crumbling stone house. There's nothing left in the house but an upturned table, a ladle, and a clay bowl. She stands for more than an hour, goose-bumped and shivering. At these times, she won't confide in me. She runs her hands over her body, as if checking that it's still there, her heart pulsing and beating. The limbs are smooth and strong, thin and sinewy, her hair long and black and messy and gleaming despite her age. You wouldn't know it to look at her, that she's lived long enough to look for what's across the water. Eighty years later, and she is still fifteen. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

But I don't want to lose my guts answered Pumpkin — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I bit Tiger Lily, as hard as I could. I don't know how I thought it would help. Fairie bites are worse than wasp stings - they pierce and burn and ache all at the same time. As best, I knew, I'd be swatted away, and at worst she might crush me by accident in her reaction to the pain. But what happened was worse. She didn't seem to notice it at all. It was like Tiger Lily herself wasn't even really there. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Over the ten years since she'd been born, the trees of Briary Swamp, West Virginia, had peered through May's window night after night. They had watched over her thoughtful brown eyes, the imaginative crook of her head, the strong character of her knobby knees. The trees had laughed at the jokes May told her cat. Their leaves had whispered over her wild inventions, her colorful stories, her drawings. — Jodi Lynn Anderson