The City of Ember Quotes

“You told the truth to the mayor on Assignment Day. I didn’t want to believe it, but then came the long blackout, and I knew-I knew things were as bad as you said.”

“The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren’t the master of yourself anymore. Anger is.”

“When the lights were off, as they were between nine at night and six in the morning, the city was so dark that people might as well have been wearing blindfolds.”

″‘But Ember is not prospering!’ he cried. ‘Everything is getting worse and worse!’ [...] ‘The blackouts!’ cried Doon. ‘The lights go out all the time now! And the shortages, there’s shortages of everything! If no one does anything about it, something terrible is going to happen!‘”

“They stared at each other in the flickering light, realized what this meant. There was no tunnel leading out of Ember. The way out was the river. To leave Ember, they must go on the river.”

″‘The city of Ember was made for us long ago by the Builders,’ the book said. ‘It is the only light in the dark world. Beyond Ember, the darkness goes on forever in all directions.‘”

“Pay close attention to everything, notice what no one else notices. Then you’ll know what no one else knows, and that’s always useful.”

“She had Poppy. She had friends. And she had Mrs. Murdo, who was somewhere between a relative and a friend. But she felt as if she had suddenly gotten older in the last three days. She was sort of a mother herself now. What happened to Poppy was more or less up to her.”

“I’d been thinking before that I had to leave Poppy because she’d be safe with Mrs. Murdo. But when the lights went out, I suddenly knew: There is no safety in Ember. Not for long. Not for anyone. I couldn’t leave her behind. Whatever happens to us now, it’s better than what’s going to happen there.”

“Take a lamp, for instance. When you plug it in, it comes alive, in a way. It lights up. That’s because it’s connected to a wire that’s connected to the generator, which is making electricity, though don’t ask me how. But a bean seed isn’t connected to anything. Neither are people. We don’t have plugs and wires that connect us to generators. What makes living things go is inside them somehow.”

“Doon Harrow and Lina Mayfleet – Wanted for spreading vicious rumors – If you see them, report to mayor’s chief guard. Believe nothing they say. Reward.”

″‘I been working on the generator for twenty years. it’s always managed to chug along, but this year...I don’t know. The thing seems to break down every couple minutes.’ He cracked a wry smile. ‘Of course, I hear we might run out of light bulbs before that, and then it won’t matter if the generator works or not.‘”

“Don’t say that. This torn-up piece of paper is the most hopeful thing I’ve ever seen. Do you know what this word is? [...] ‘Egress’ [...] ‘It means ‘the way out.’ It means ‘the exit.‘”

“The creature was utterly strange, not like anything they had ever known, and yet when it looked at them, some kind of recognition passed between them. ‘I know now,’ said Doon. ‘This is the world we belong in.‘”

“Everyone has some darkness inside. It’s like a hungry creature. It wants and wants and wants with a terrible power.”

“The box ended up at the back of a closet, shoved behind some old bags and bundles. There it sat, unnoticed, year after year, until its time arrived, and the lock quietly clicked open.

“No one she knew had seen a can of peaches in years. She looked at the other one. It was just as amazing- ‘Creamed Corn,’ it said.”

″‘Doon!’ cried Lina. ‘More lights!’ She pointed at the sky. He looked up and saw them—hundreds and hundreds of tiny flecks of light, strewn like spilled salt across the blackness. ‘Oh!’ he whispered. There was nothing else to say. The beauty of these lights made his breath stop in his throat.”

″‘Curiosity,‘said the mayor. ‘A dangerous quality. Unhealthy. Especially regrettable in one so young.‘”

“Fire was rare in Ember. When there was a fire, it was because there had been an accident—someone had left a dishtowel too close to an electric burner on a stove, or a cord had been frayed and a spark had flown out and ignited curtains.... But it was, of course, possible to start a fire on purpose… The trick was to find a way to make the light last.”