Quotes from Rebecca Stead

I wanted to be good, but I wasn't sure if I WAS good or if I just wanted Dad and Aunt Ess and everyone to SEE me being good.

She means like - we're here to be here. To live. that's why you lived, Bridge. You lived to live. Just like everyone else.

On the way up, it hit me that it was truly strange to come over here without talking to Annemarie first. But at the exact same time I got nervous about that, I also got this other feeling, which I can only describe as love for Annemarie's elevator.

Belle surprised me. "Well, it's simple to love someone," she said. "But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.

I sneaked a little bunch of grapes, which I love but can't ever have, because Mom doesn't like the way the grape pickers are treated in California and she refuses to buy them. *

I knew it. I just knew it." We had been robbed after all.

If you think about it, Bea, life is like a trip. A very long one. And what matters most is the people you travel with.

But Bridge understood that life didn't balance anymore. Life was a too-tall stack of books that had started to lean to one side, and each new day was another book on top.

Miriam says don't lie down inside a bad feeling if you can help it" - Bea

That's what happens when people take away their love, Bea. It makes you smaller. Sometimes it makes you disappear" -Sheila

Happiness makes me feel brave" -Bea

Miriam says that sometimes, when we don't want to 'look hard at our behavior,' we look hard at everything else instead...

If you think about it, Bea, life is like a trip. A very long one. And what matters most is the people you travel with" -Jesse

He took two steps forward and kind of hovered right in front of me for a second, and then he kissed me. And then he stopped and waited. And then I kissed him back. He smiled and ran down the stairs.

The trip is a difficult one. I will not be myself when I reach you.

How are you supposed to know what you want?" […] "I think that when you don't know, you should just wait until you do.

Well, it's simple to love someone,' she said. 'But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.

She complained there was no 'café au lait'-colored construction paper for her skin, or 'sixty-percent-cacao-chocolate' color for her eyes. I remember staring at her while these words came out of her mouth, and thinking, Your skin is light brown. Your eyes are dark brown. Why don't you just use brown, you idiot? Jay Stringer didn't complain about the paper, and neither did any of the other ten kids using brown.

Look, I know Mom talks about the big picture. She wants you to remember that you'll find new friends, that life is always changing, sometimes in really good ways. But life is also what's happening now, Georges.

I read the title out loud: 'A Wrinkle in Time'. And then I smiled at Richard. 'It's a first edition,' Richard said.

My kids really like food, and they like to cook, so it's a lot of fun to shop with them.

I personally find the ideas that girls need to cover their shoulders in school a little bit strange... when we're telling girls, you know, 'You have to cover your shoulders because otherwise you're a distraction to other people in your class,' probably something is wrong.

I grew up mostly an only child. My dad remarried when I was a teenager. And then I had two stepbrothers. And then my dad had a second child. So I have a brother from the time I was 15. But I really grew up feeling like an only child.

I loved reading all kinds of books, but I particularly loved books like 'Red Planet' by Robert Heinlein, which very few people read anymore but is a wonderful science fiction story.