Explore Book Quotes

“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.”

“So the Elephant stretched out his trunk and took some crisps for himself and some crisps for the Bad Baby, and they went rumpeta, rumpeta, rumpeta, all down the road, with the ice-cream man, and the pork butcher, and the baker, and the snack-bar man, all running after.”

Grade 7-10-Vile odors, feral dogs, fascistic school monitors, and a demonic principal combine to convince Nathaniel, 15, that something is terribly wrong in his new town.

“It was that chalice he broke.... That was the beginning of it. Of course, they say it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean. But still.... They say it was the boy’s fault. But poor James was so nervous, God be merciful to him!”

“I understand. Queens of society can’t get on without money, so you mean to make a good match, and start in that way? Quite right and proper, as the world goes, but it sounds odd from the lips of one of your mother’s girls.”

“To gaze into the depths of blue of the child’s eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature cunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I naturally preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my agitation. I couldn’t abjure for merely wanting to, but I could repeat to Mrs. Grose—as I did there, over and over, in the small hours—that with their voices in the air, their pressure on one’s heart, and their fragrant faces against one’s cheek, everything fell to the ground but their incapacity and their beauty.”

“Because his feet were tired of hustling, he picked out a large clump of bushes and sat down right in the middle and ate blueberries.”

“Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady. Would ‘twere done.”

“Miyax knew when to stop dreaming and be practical. She slid down the heave, brushed off her parka, and faced the tundra. The plants around the pond had edible seeds, as did all of the many grasses. There were thousands of crane fly and mosquito larvae in the water, and the wildflowers were filling if not very nourishing. But they were all small and took time to gather. She looked around for something bigger.”

“It has never occurred to you,” he said, “that you might have as much right to be here as anyone.”