“That night I really thought I was going to die. I waited for the police and I was ready for death, like a soldier on a battlefield. I’d gladly have given my life for my country.”
“At night in bed I see myself alone in a dungeon, without Father and Mother. Or I’m roaming the streets, or the Annex is on fire, or they come in the middle of the night to take us away and I crawl under my bed in desperation.”
“The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be alone with the sky, nature and God. For only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature’s beauty and simplicity.”
“My father was always saying the inn would be ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over and put down, and sent shivering to their beds; but I really believe his presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country life . . . ”
“That night for the first time in my life I realized that it is the physical presence of people and their spirits that gives a town life. With the absence of so many people, the town became scary, the night darker, and the silence unbearably agitating.”
“Nothing makes Ma scared. Except Old Nick maybe. Mostly she calls him just ‘him’, I didn’t even know the name for him until I saw a cartoon about a guy that comes in the night called Old Nick.”
“Men don’t get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared. I’m scared.”
“‘Yes, I’m a mouse. Squeak, squeak. Now shoo-shoo back to your little bug friends,’ said Ripred, picking up a hunk of dried beef. He tore a off a piece with his teeth and noticed Boots hadn’t moved. He pulled back his lips to reveal a row of jagged teeth and gave her a sharp hiss.”
“Sometimes, far away in the night, a wolf howled. Then he came nearer, and howled again. It was a scary sound. Laura knew that wolves would eat little girls.”
“There were so many giants and tigers and scary and exciting things before, that I am pretty tired now. That is just a moth, and he is only doing his job, the same as the wind. His job is bumping and thumping and my job is to sleep.”
The day they were sent home early from school because of a threatening blizzard, Amy rode with the other pupils in Mrs. Rhys’s van to where the road ended.