Ballet Shoes Quotes

“But by degrees, as she got more and more tired from crying, other thoughts drifted through her mind. Had she been rude? Had she been showing off? Inside she knew that she had, and she was ashamed, and though she was quite alone she turned red.”

“It was Sundays that saved her. After morning church she went straight to the garage, put on her jeans, and though only emergency work was really done on Sundays, the foreman always had something ready for her. Very dirty and happy, she would work until they had to dash home for lunch.”

“She said that the more puffed up Pauline became, the greater would be the flatness after the matinées were over, and that then she would learn that most important lesson for an actress—that today’s success is easily nobody at all tomorrow”

“If the weather were not too wet, one was expected to “save the penny and walk.” Saving the penny and walking was a great feature of their lives.”

“ ‘I never have cared for red hair,’ Nana said fondly, twisting a strand of Posy’s round her finger. ‘Never could fancy it since I got scratched by a ginger cat as a child. But nicely kept it can be striking.’ ”

“We three Fossils vow to try to put our name into history books, because it’s our very own, and nobody can say it’s because of our grandfathers, and we vow to try and earn money for Garnie until Gum comes home.”

“in a way they didn’t cost anything at all. After the last present had been opened and the last candle on the tree blown out, they played charades and hide-and-seek all over the house. It was all great fun; but everybody suddenly thought about the time. This was the end, and Christmas Day was over for another year, which was a miserable feeling.”

″ Pauline felt awful standing by herself being stared at by all the people on the stage, and all those she could not see in the stalls. She would have liked to have wriggled, and stood on one leg, but the Academy training had taught her not to stand just how she felt, so she stood as she did before a class, with her toes turned out, her heels together, and her hands clasped behind her back”

“She was very proud of them, not because they were really any better than anybody else’s ballet shoes, but because they had been given her by her mother, and she was the only one with a mother, so it seemed rather grand.”

“ ‘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.’ ”

“ ‘There is a lovely feeling about Christmas Eve,’ Pauline said. ‘My inside almost hurts being excited; I can’t sit still for wishing it was tomorrow.’ ”