Mary Anning's Quotes & Sayings

Mary Anning [is] probably the most important unsung (or inadequately sung) collecting force in the history of paleontology. — Stephen Jay Gould

It would be hard to think of a more overlooked person in the history of palaeontology than Mary Anning, — Bill Bryson

The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone. — Mary Anning

I have always admired most those who lead with their eyes, like Mary Anning, for they seem more aware of the world and its workings. — Tracy Chevalier

While Molly and Joseph Anning suffered materially that winter, with many days of weak soup and weaker fires, Mary barely noticed how little she was eating or the chilblains on her hands and feet. She was suffering inside. — Tracy Chevalier

The carpenter's daughter has won a name for herself, and deserved to win it — Charles Dickens

Twenty-first-century attitudes towards time and our expectations of story are very different from the shape of Mary Anning's life. She spent day after day, year after year, doing the same thing on the beach. I have taken the events of her life and condensed them to fit into a narrative that is not stretched beyond the reader's patience. Hence events, while in order, do not always coincide exactly with actual dates and time spans. Plus, of course, I made up plenty. For instance, while there was gossip about Mary and Buckland and Mary and Birch, there was no proof. That is where only a novelist can step in. — Tracy Chevalier