Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr. Quotes

″‘Leslie, I swear – I’d go in there if I could.’ He really thought he would, too. ‘You ain’t scared of her, are you, Leslie?’ He didn’t mean it in a daring way, he was just dumbfounded by the idea of Leslie being scared.”

“Suddenly his mother let out a great shuddering sob. ‘O my God. O my God.’ She said it over and over, her head down on her arms. His father moved to put his arm around her awkwardly, but he didn’t take his eyes off Jess.”

″‘Course you’re scared. Anybody’d be scared. You just gotta trust me, OK? I’m not gonna let you fall, May Belle. I promise you.‘”

“They had never been there in the dark. But there was enough moon for them to find their way into the castle, and he could tell her about his day in Washington. And apologize. It had been so dumb of him not to ask if Leslie could go, too.”

“The reaction didn’t seem to bother her. She stood there in front, her eyes saying, ‘OK, friends, here I am,’ in answer to their open-mouthed stares while Mrs. Myers fluttered about trying to figure where to put the extra desk.”

“For the first time in his life he got up every morning with something to look forward to. Leslie was more than his friend. She was his other, more exciting self – his way to Terabithia and all the worlds beyond.”

″‘He believed her because here in the shadowy light of the stronghold everything seemed possible. Between the two of them they owned the world and no enemy, Gary Fulcher, Wanda Kay Moore, Janice Avery, Jess’s own fears and insufficiencies, nor any of the foes whom Leslie imagined attacking Terabithia, could ever really defeat them.‘”

“He wondered what it would be like to have a mother whose stories were inside her head instead of marching across the television screen all day long.”

“He would like to show his drawings to his dad, but he didn’t dare. When he was in first grade, he had told his dad that he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. He’d thought his dad would be pleased. He wasn’t.”

“There in their secret place, his feelings bubbled inside him like a stew on the back of the stove--some sad for her in her lonesomeness, but chunks of happiness, too. To be able to be Leslie’s one whole friend in the world as she was his – he couldn’t help being satisfied about that.”

″‘She loved you, you know.’ He could tell from Bill’s voice that he was crying. ‘She told me once that if it weren’t for you…’ His voice broke completely. ‘Thank you,’ he said a moment later. ‘Thank you for being such a wonderful friend to her.‘”

“His father sat down on the dirt beside him...He was crying now, crying so hard he could barely breathe. His father pulled Jess over on his lap as if he were Joyce Ann. ‘There. There,” he said, patting his head. ‘Shhh. Shhh.‘”

“She was scraping at the mud on her bare legs. ‘I just wanted to find you, so you wouldn’t be so lonesome.’ She hung her head. ‘But I got too scared.‘”

“She had tricked him. She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there – like an astronaut wandering about on the moon. Alone.”

“Now it was time for him to move out. She wasn’t there, so he must go for both of them. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength. ‘As for the terrors ahead—for he did not fool himself that they were all behind him—well, you just have to stand up to your fear and not let it squeeze you white. Right, Leslie?’ ‘Right.‘”

“Jess drew the way some people drank whiskey. The peace would start at the top of his muddled brain and seep down through his tired and tensed-up body. Lord, he loved to draw.”

“He screamed something without words and flung the papers and paints into the dirty brown water… He watched them all disappear. Gradually his breath quieted, and his heart slowed from its wild pace. The ground was still muddy from the rains, but he sat down anyway. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere. Ever again. He put his head down on one knee.”

“It was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn’t king the best you could be? Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on.”

“Terabithia was their secret, which was a good thing, for how could Jess have ever explained it to an outsider? Just walking down the hill toward the woods made something warm and liquid steal through his body.”

“It wasn’t so much that he minded telling Leslie that he was afraid to go; it was that he minded being afraid. It was as though he had been made with a great piece missing… Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through life with no guts.”