Quotes from Jaclyn Moriarty

My father, I never knew, except for this one time when he threw a ball and told me to go fetch it. "Dad," I said. "Am I a dog?" "Lydia," he said. "I apologize.

Emily: YOU CAN'T SPEAK AND TYPE AT THE SAME TIME, BINDY! Bindy: Watch me.

I am a student of love.

I hope you feel better today. Please ring me at work if you are dead.

Mrs. Cheerson, our old teacher? She gave us an essay to write over the holiday. It was on To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read and it was good, and I think it's stupid to spoil a good book by writing an essay on it. So I didn't do it.

I love her bare legs from a distance. When she's standing by a pool. When she's facing the water, thinking. Her legs are white as watermelon rind, veined blue from cold. There's that 'H' shape behind her knees. The H trembles softly with the swimming-water cold.

There's a lot you can do with a name like Amelia. You can play with it, sure, is what you think I'm going to say. Make it cute (Amy), or cuter (Millie), complaining (Meelie), or French, I guess, like the movie (Amélie). You can step right into that name, is what I mean, and walk around. Swim with it or spill it on your shirt. Whisper it over like a sad, soft ache, or bark it out aloud like a mad, manic message: camellia, come heee-re, a-million, ah murder you, ye-eah.

P.P.S. AND YOU CAN TALK. "Just say the word." JUST SAY THE WORD? What kind of expression is that? WHAT WORD WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO SAY ANYWAY? MORON? Letter from Emily to Charles.

Distance is the journey. Displacement is the result.

My mind is like the streets of Hong Kong.

Brookfield High School. How may I direct your call? No, sir, this is not a waste- disposal unit, I'm afraid you have the wrong number.

As if Riley and Amelia were lions, and we were a menage a trois of lively, prancing deer.

I hate those TV shows where characters talk about one thing, such as their patient on the operation table (let's say they're a doctor), then you realize they're actually talking about actually talking about themselves. The patient's open-heart surgery is nothing compared to their own messed-up heart or whatever. It's selfish. And means they're not concentrating, which is medical negligence.

It's tricky being shy. You blame yourself for it, and other people blame you too.

There was plenty of green light left in that orange light Em.

There was something in the moonlight tonight. It was stroking the stonework and spires, leaning into cracks between the cobblestones, caressing the stained-glass windows. She felt her heart lift with magic.

Madeleine Tully turned fourteen yesterday, but today she did not turn anything. Oh, wait. She turned a page.

Where was she now, the girl with the thunderstorm heart?

Having read several prize-winning novels, Fancy was confident that she now knew the recipe: 1. Write a simple narrative. 2. Make a long list. 3. Scatter the contents of your list throughout your narrative.

Men speak in absolutes, women in uncertainties, and this often strikes us as a weakness in women, but it's knowledge: a knowledge that we cannot know, not ever.

The world is made of more than particles. It's made of things you can't hold in your hand, like fear, love, loss, hope, truth.

Ah, even sitting here on my front porch, looking out over the fields, there's a part of me aches to see him walking. To conjure him out of the sunlight in the distance. The shape of my dad, I can almost see it, crossing the field toward me. Come to put his arm around me, reach out an arm to my mother as well, and I'll close my eyes and just breathe.

People always tell me I shouldn't run so far because I'm too young and my bones will fall to pieces. But I do it anyway-mainly because I love the bit when you finish and get to stop running.

You should have seen her this morning,' he said, smiling. 'She's got into the pantry and tipped a box of Cheerios all over the kitchen floor. I walk in and she's crawling around eating them as fast as she can. Mum's standing there, watching her - she got this embarrassed look when she saw me - she does, 'I know, I know, but I can't bring myself to stop her. She thinks she's hit the jackpot.