Quotes from Edward Carey

Fairy tales, before they were sanitized, were very dark, and kids love that. 'Coraline' by Neil Gaiman feels like Beckett for kids. I think there's plenty of room for that. And I think there's a danger of being too patronizing to children, having things too sanitized.

I inhaled Dickens as a kid, and I've always been fascinated by the Victorians. So many ridiculous objects they had! They created things like mustache cups, so you wouldn't wet your mustache when you were drinking tea. And eyebrow combs. What's happened to all the eyebrow combs? Marvelous things.

Every new writing project, every new artistic project, needs to be protected so it can grow on its own before it begins to creep out into the world.

Part of the joy of writing for kids is that you have to have a real adventure story. You can get really involved in the fantastic in a way that perhaps you can't so much in adult fiction.

Though we longed not to be lonely, we also feared the pain it would take us to be brought out of our lonely states. And after that fear, could we be guaranteed that we would never be returned to a state of loneliness again? We could not.

What casual monsters we are. What calamities we are capable of.

During relaxation we drop our guard. Particularly in conversation. Relaxed conversation leads to openness. And in openness we often reveal what should never be revealed.

What is a life? That is what we were left with: stories. They were our clothes.

So I learned not only that your loved one may be forbidden you, given away to someone else, but also that though you love someone they may run from you, and you may open your arms but they shall not come in.

Here is a truth: people are very fascinated by themselves.

These were desperate times, the two men agreed; it was easy to stay at home and pull the bedcovers over your heads, but if nothing was done, someone would rip the bedcovers from your face and tug you naked into the street.

Elisabeth hungered after pain, other people's pain to dull her own; the pain of those poor everyday people fed her life. She had become addicted to misery.

I collect the walks of my life. Some people have asked me if I have walked so very far to merit such an activity, but I say to them, it's not about how far you have walked, but how thoroughly.

I put myself away. I came up with the great vanishing system, in which I could retreat so deep within myself that, though I might still appear the same creature, actually I was very different. I thrust all thoughts and feelings into the depths of me, where they were safe, but in an outward way I became something like an automation.

Adults, I understand, have many faults, they are not perfect—even though they have lived longer, even though they offer themselves as examples to children. They are larger, that is certain, and size has an unearned authority. But they are easily influenced, and they can be easily swayed.

Why was she always so cruel, I wondered, even after I had worked so hard for her? Perhaps she needed someone beneath her to know for certain that she was not on the bottom rung. Perhaps being cruel was proof of her success.

She was always struggling over what was the best way to react. There were so many contradictions between what she was told and what she saw that she could only hesitatingly move forward, lacking, as she did, power and knowledge. She was a girl trying to make her way.

This little box, this chapter, ends here, sealed tight from those others that surround it, so that those other people of different chapters may not come in here and disturb, so that its vault may be sealed up, never spilling beyond its boundaries but kept tight shut and precious, and Godly and triumphant, and wonderful too.

Some things are missing from the world and they will never be replaced.

I blame the pencil. I hadn't meant to do it. I wasn't thinking. It just happened that way.

Ma come hai fatto capirlo, Clod?» si erano stupiti i miei parenti. «Come hai fatto a capire che la spilla da balia era lì?» «L'ho sentita gridare,» avevo risposto.

Per questo, nel giorno della maniglia perduta, indugiavo con la faccia accostata alla finestra rotta, fantasticando su tutta quella gente dall'altro lato dei cumuli, chiedendomi se sarei mai riuscito a spingermi fino alla città laggiù, Forlichingham, a Londra, immaginando che ci fosse qualcuno dietro tutta quella gente, qualcuno che potesse apprezzarmi. «C'è qualcuno,» sussurrai, «c'è qualcuno lì? Chi sei? Come sei fatto?»

Mi pantalonai. Me li infilai, come se stessi amputandomi le gambe. Adesso, mi dissi, per te tutto il mondo sarà in flanella grigia. L'avevo indossata, ne avevo fatto un sacco per chiuderci dentro l'infanzia. Come mi sentivo? Superiore? Vecchio? Saggio? Più pesante? Più forte? Mi trovavo eretto e diretto e di bell'aspetto, lusingato e favorevolmente impressionato? No, per niente.

We sat in the kitchen together and Jacques in his growl let out small, bloody miserable tales of unfortunate people leaving life in a hurry.