Quotes from Rebecca Stead

When you were small, you would swing yourself up legs-first, but now you have to stick your head through the opening in the floor and then hoist the rest. You certainly have grown, you tell yourself.

Life was anything but fast, in your opinion. If it went any more slowly, time would probably start to run backward.

That's what life is. Life is where you sleep and what you see when you wake up in the morning, and who you tell about your weird dream, and what you eat for breakfast and who you eat it with. Life isn't something that happens to you. It's something you make yourself, all the time." -Celeste

Mom's Rules for Life in New York City 1. Always have your key out before you reach the front door. 2. If a stranger is hanging out in front of the building, don't ever go in - just keep walking around the block until he's gone. 3. Look ahead. If there's someone acting strange down the block, looking drunk or dangerous, cross to the other side of the street, but don't be obvious about it. Make it look like you were planning to cross the street all along. 4. Never show your money on the street.

I did hit him for a reason,' he said. 'What you're talking about is a justification. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do. I'm just saying I did it for a reason. My own stupid reason.' I stared at him. 'So what was the reason?' He looked down and shrugged. 'Same reason I do most things. I wanted to see what would happen.

When she was eight years old, Bridget Barsamian woke up in a hospital, where a doctor told her she shouldn't be alive.

While the rest of the class is hanging on every syllable that comes out of Mr. Landau's mouth, I'm looking at the false tongue poster and I'm kind of wishing it wasn't wrong. There's something nice about those thick black arrows: sour here, salty there, like there's a right place for everything. Instead of the total confusion the human tongue actually turns out to be.

It is, actually," Sherm said, looking her straight in the eyes, the way he had during the intruder drill. "Best thing ever.

It's weird, because I know Mom is right about the big picture. But Dad is right too: Life is really just a bunch of nows, one after the other. The dots matter.

Sometimes the truth is dramatic.

Thirteen broken bones and a punctured lung. You must have been put on this earth for a reason, little girl, to have survived.

That's not what I mean. A lot of people make bad mistakes. But being in jail can make them feel like a mistake is all they are. Like they aren't even people anymore." Her bringing the chips and cookies

She's called the secretary, but as far as I can tell she basically runs the school. And she tries to do it without getting out of her desk chair, which has wheels,

It soaked into me like water into sand, fast and heavy-making.

Mr Heilbroner, as you certainly know, is a minor. We can use the principal's office for a few minutes so that you can brief me about whatever allegations have been made. But of course you can't speak with Mr Heilbroner himself until his parents have been notified. Would you follow me, please?

I grabbed my book and rode the banisters down to the first floor, where I found Wheelie at her desk in the main office. She's called the secretary, but as far as I can tell she basically runs the school.

Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. It's how we're used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way.

I've thought a lot about those veils. I wonder if, every once in a while, someone is born without one.

Part of me was excited. But part of me was really tired. I had been carrying something for a long time. I needed to put it down.

And books all over the floor, some stacked in piles, some worn-looking, some brand-new, some splayed upside down, some sliding off the pink bedside table next to the lamp with the orange fabric shade.

The thing about making butter is that it feels like it'll never be done, almost right up to the moment when it is done. If what you want is butter, you have to keep going, even if you only half believe you'll get there.

When she finally got there, Mom hugged Belle and told her, "I owe you," like I was some repulsive burden instead of the person who had very helpfully unpacked three boxes of green bananas and scoured the refrigerated section for expired dairy items.

It's simple to love someone. But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It's like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to.