“The sky held scattered clouds; at that instant the sun came out from behind one and a shaft of light hit him.
His clothes vanished. He stood before them, a golden youth, clothed only in beauty—beauty that made Jubal’s heart ache, thinking that Michelangelo in his ancient years would have climbed down from his high scaffolding to record it for generations unborn. Mike said gently, ‘Look at me. I am a son of man.‘”
“Rahel looked around her and saw she was in a Play. But she had only a small part. She was just the landscape. A flower perhaps. Or a tree. A face in the crowd. A Townspeople.”
“And in that moment, everything I knew to be true about myself up until then was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before.”
“Look, I was an idiot. I didn’t want people to think that I had a crush, so I decided to give everyone the impression that I truly, honestly hated Madison Harter. For no reason. Just thinking about this makes me want to punch myself in the eyeball.”
″‘I thought you were asking about children of mine,‘Luke interrupted smoothly. ‘Yes Jocelyn had a daughter. Clarissa. I assume she’s run off. Did Valentine send you to find her?”
“You are the commanders, your men will look to you and act as you do. Let no officer keep to himself or his brother officers, but circulate daylong among his men. Let them see you and see you unafraid.”
“He knew, of course, that he would work again: he had to believe it. Every actor did. Acting was a form of grifting, and once you stopped believing you could, so did everyone else.”
“No matter what I had in my pocket, no matter what my suit cost, nobody could prevent me from acting as if I was a winner. Nobody could prevent me from acting as if my problems were all in the process of being solved. Pretty soon, my acting as if was so convincing that I started to believe it myself. I began to think futuristically, as if I had already passed the test as I weighed what would happen next.”
“You’ve got to look like you’re trying to stop him, though. If you don’t then you’re a gutless wonder. A gutless wonder is about the worst thing you can be in our town. If you’re a boy that is.”
Nobody believes her…until the wolves do plunge out of the walls, invading the house and rendering the family homeless. Lucy is the one who acts to glue the family together. With a Coralinesque bravery and a simple strategy, she goes back to save her stranded toy, Pig Puppet, and in the process they are able to get their house back.
“One day Grace’s teacher said they would do the play Peter Pan. Grace knew who she wanted to be. When she raised her hand, Raj said, ‘You can’t be Peter- that’s a boy’s name.‘”
“How could we explain that standing on a stage and speaking someone else’s words as if they are your own is less an act of bravery than a desperate lunge at mutual understanding? An attempt to forge that tenuous link between speaker and listener and communicate something, anything, of substance.”
“I don’t want to seem boastful, but I got it absolutely perfect the first try: tone, pitch, everything. There was no doubt whatsoever that I was destined for a glittering, brilliant career in the theatre.”
“ ‘You can’t look of royal blood, Pauline,’ she said, ‘by simply coming on with your head up. Dignity is trained into royal children before they can toddle; graciousness, consideration for others, an unshakable belief in the greatness of their position. You have got to think of yourself day and night like that until you have the reading of your part fixed. You are not Pauline Fossil; you are a boy who has known that one day he must rule, though he had not expected to so soon, but who has accepted his position, and is kingly in every movement.’ ”
“Bevis put himself so into it, that he did it all, he bribed the porter, he played the harp, and drew the sword; these were no words to him, it was a living picture in which he himself acted.”
“Stella had lived white for half her life now, and maybe acting for that long ceased to be acting altogether. Maybe pretending to be white eventually made it so.”
“They even find themselves acting in one! Best of all, they help a lonely new friend feel at home in Deep Valley—the most wonderful place in the world to grow up.”
“This is Jane, the middle Moffat,′ said Jane, trying to act as though she were Mama, introducing her one of the ladies she showed for. That is not the way Mama actually introduced her to these ladies.”
“Let me see. ‘Calm, cool, and quiet’, yes, I think I can promise that. I’ve played the part of a prim young lady on the stage, and I’ll try it off. My powers are great, as you shall see, so be easy in your mind, my child.”