Jane Yolen Quotes

“It is a brutal arithmetic. But I - I am alive. You are alive. As long as we breathe, we can see and hear. As long as we remember, all those gone before are alive inside us.”

“Hannah nodded and took her aunt’s fingers from her lips. She said, in a voice much louder than she had intended, so loud that the entire table hushed at its sound, ‘I remember. Oh, I remember.‘”

“I will be brave. I am the only one who knows about the ovens, but I will be brave. I will not take away their hope, which is all they have. I will not tell them that the Nazis often lied and said people were going to take showers when they took them to be killed.”

“Without laughter there is no hope. Without hope there is no life.”

“Overhead the swallows dipped down to catch bugs rising from the ground. Then they soared back up beyond the barracks. Hannah watched them for a moment, scarcely breathing. It was as if all nature ignored what went on in the camp. There were brilliant sunsets and soft breezes. Around the commandant’s house, bright flowers were teased by the wind. Once she’d seen a fox cross the meadow to disappear into the forest.“

“We are all monsters because we are letting it happen.”

″‘And as for running - where would we run to? God is everywhere. There will always be Nazis among us. No, my child, do not tremble before mere men. It is God before whom we must tremble. Only God. We will go ahead, just as we have planned. After all, this is our shtetl, not theirs, and there is still a wedding to be made.”

“Live,” he whispered. “For my Chaya. For all our Chayas. Live. And remember.”

“But as the scissors snip-snapped through her hair and the razor shaved the rest, she realized with a sudden awful panic that she could no longer recall anything from the past. I cannot remember, she whispered to herself.”

“Six million,” Hannah said, “but that’s not all the Jews there are. In the end, in the future, there will be Jews still. And there will be Israel, a Jewish state, where there will be a Jewish president and a Jewish senate. And in America, Jewish movie stars.”

“He looked up, as if searching the stars, as if reading a map up there. The moon made his face into a silver mask.”

“It was late one winter night, long past my bedtime, when Pa and I went owling. There was no wind. The trees stood still as giant statues. And the moon was so bright the sky seemed to shine.”

“I listened and looked so hard that my ears hurt and my eyes got cloudy with the cold.”

“When you go owling you don’t need words or warm or anything but hope.”

“It was late one winter night, long past my bedtime, when Pa and I went owling. There was no wind. The trees stood still as giant statues. And the moon was so bright the sky seemed to shine.”

“All of a sudden, an owl shadow, part of the big tree shadow, lifted off and flew right over us.”

“I didn’t ask what kind of things hide behind black trees in the middle of the night. When you go owling you have to be brave.”

“Our feet crunched over the crisp snow and little gray footprints followed. Pa made a long shadow, but mine was short and round. I had to run after him every now and then to keep up and my short, round shadow bumped after me.”

“The moon was high above us. It seemed to fit exactly over the center of the clearing and the snow below it was whiter than milk in a cereal bowl.”

“I knew then that I could talk, I could even laugh out loud. But I was a shadow as we walked home.”

“If you want to go owling you have to be quiet, that’s what Pa always says. I’ve been waiting to go owling with Pa for a long, long time.”

“Though her father seeks to protect her from all unpleasant things, a young princess is intrigued by the voice of the wind that tells her of worlds beyond the palace walls.”

“The story is about a young girl who is so sheltered that she does not experience life, neither the good nor the bad, and of how the wind helps her to escape her stagnat existence.”

“Determined to protect his beloved only child, a wealthy merchant named Danina builds a splendid palace for her by the sea.”

“An original fairy tale, this story is about a girl whose overprotective father tries to keep her from all things wicked, unhappy, trying, or real.”

“Here she is protected from all danger, surrounded by beauty, and tended by servants who are always pleasant.”

“Though her father seeks to protect her from all unpleasant things, a young princess is intrigued by the voice of the wind that tells her of worlds beyond the palace walls.”

“How peculiar,′ said Danina. ‘Here you merely rustle the trees and play with the leaves and calm the birds in their nests.’ ‘I am not always kind,’ said the wind again. ‘Everyone here is always kind. Everyone here is always happy.”

‘Fae sisters Serana and Meteora are banished from Faerie for inadvertently revealing information about the Faerie Queen.”

“There are many similar incidents like this as Serana and Metora discover the human world. Serana meets street musicians in the park and is offered brownies.”

“Cast out from court and stripped of their powers, they are banished to the coarse and brutish mortal realm of Earth.”

“The wind,′ said Danina, her eyes bright with memory. ‘He sang me his song.’ ‘The wind does not sing,’ said her father. ‘Only men and birds sing.’ ‘This was no bird,’ said his daughter.”

“i knew it was you,′ said Danina.‘But not one believed me.’ And the wind danced around the garden and made the flowers bow. He caressed the birds in the trees, and played gently with the feathers on their wings.”

“The sisters know that these signs point to a force whose power is rising_one that threatens both the fairy and human world.”

“In an effort to protect his child, Danina is encased in a beautiful, gilded castle where she is protected from everything. Everything, but the wind.”

“But one day, the wind - who is “not always kind” - finds Danina, and sings to her of the wide world beyond the palace walls, where the days are sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but always different...”

“Once many years ago in a country far to the east there lived a wealthy merchant. He was a widower and had an only daughter named Danina. She was dainty and beautiful, and he loved her more than the loved all of his treasures.”

“Meteora bonds with the troubled young girl who lives in the apartment below her. But when she sees the ornate tattoo on the girl’s neck, Meteora recognizes it as a magic symbol that will surely draw evil to them.”

“And the sisters realize that perhaps the queen cast them from their homes not out of anger or spite- but because they were the only ones who could do what must be done.”

“Sisters Serana and Meteora are proud members of the high court of the Fairy Queen _until they discover a secret Her Highness would like to keep hidden.”

“Danina’s wealthy father tries to protect her from all hurtful things, but he cannot stop the voice of the wind. Its song is sometimes sad and harsh, sometimes sweet -- just like life itself.”

“An original fairy tale, this story is about a girl whose overprotective father tries to keep her from all things wicked, unhappy, trying, or real.”

“Though her father seeks to protect her from all unpleasant things, a young princess is intrigued by the voice of the wind that tells her of worlds beyond the palace walls.”

“The wind,′ said Danina. ‘The wind doesn’t talk,’ said her father. ‘He called himself the wind,’ she replied. But her father did not understand. And so when a passing fisherman found Danina’s scarf far out at sea and returned it to the merchant’s house, he was rewarded with a beating,”

“In addition to being sent to different cities, New York and Milwaukee, the sisters lose their magical powers and their eternal youth. ”

“At first she’s repelled think they are made out of smashed elves, but then when it’s explained they are made of sugar chocolate, eggs, flour and a ” magical” ingredient ends up eating several with an effect she was not expecting!”

Serana, meanwhile, takes in a homeless boy whose mind is plagued by dark visions and nightmarish creatures_creatures that Serana recognizes as being from the world of her birth.”

“She explains to her sister how to send a letter: ‘There are big blue boxes on the street with eagles on them, put your letter to me there and a man dressed in blue with and eagle sigil on his breast will take it from the box and bring it to me.”

“When Danina was still an infant, her father brought her to a great house which he had built on the shore of the sea. On three sides of the house rose three huge walls. And on the fourth side was the sea itself.”

“Yet one spring day, as Danina stood by her window gazing at the sea, a breeze blew sat across the waves. It shipped her hair about her face. It blew in the corners of her room.”

“A lonely girl whose father has protected her from the sadness and pain of the world by confining her to a magnificent palace, learns about reality from the wind.”