Quotes from Emma Donoghue

This was against every rule I'd been reared by. I kissed her back.

Blame the germs, the unburied corpses, the dust of war, the random circulation of wind and weather, the Lord God Almighty. Blame the stars. Just don't blame the dead, because none of them wished this on themselves.

A lady lion-tamer put her head in a lion's mouth last week, and he bit it off. If a lion attempted to put his head in my mouth I expect I would do the same.

Neither of us mentioned the kissing, so as not to burst the bubble by touching it. So as not to think about what it meant for the two of us to kiss.

Nowadays 'invisibility' was supposed to be the big problem, but the way I saw it was, all that mattered was to be visible to yourself.

I did realise that this job was too grim for most people, all the stinking and leaking and dying. Mine was a peculiar vocation.

COUGH OR SNEEZE…FOOLS AND TRAITORS SPREAD DISEASE.

No entiendo por qué el dolor significa que te curas

Ventilation and sanitation will be our nation's salvation

Swiping's bad but if I was a swiper I'd swipe good stuff like cars and chocolates.

It depends on the monster, if it's a real one or not and if it's where I am.

The truth was quicker than a lie, so I told it.

I'd never believed the future was inscribed for each of us the day we were born. If anything was written in the stars, it was we who joined those dots, and our lives were the writing.

The Times had announced that seven thousand pounds had been raised to send a party of Englishwomen to the Crimea as nurses. That, Lib had thought, with dread but also a sense of daring, I believe I could do that. She'd lost so much already, she was reckless. All

STAY CLEAN, WARM, AND WELL NOURISHED, BUT FORBEAR TO USE MORE THAN A FAIR SHARE OF FUEL AND FOOD. EARLY TO SLEEP AND KEEP WINDOWS WIDE, WHILE TAKING CARE TO AVOID DRAUGHTS. VENTILATION AND SANITATION WILL BE OUR NATION'S SALVATION.

It was Anubis who set your heart on the scales against the Feather of Truth, and if your crimes weighed it down at all, it was thrown to the crocodile-faced demoness Ammit like any other scrap of meat. Only the clean-hearted got to walk forever in the Field of Reeds.

A Nightingale!" he marvelled. Ah, so Matron had told him that much. Lib was always shy of introducing the great lady's name into conversation and loathed the whimsical title that had come to be attached to all those Miss N. had trained, as if they were dolls cast in her heroic mould. "Yes, I had the honour of serving under her at Scutari." "Noble labour." It

Everywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults.

Blanche has already steeled herself, knowing that the Irish can't cook.)

Every symptom is a word in the language of disease, but sometimes we can't hear them properly. And even if we do, we can't always make out the full sentence... So we just shush them, one word at a time.

Well so long as you're awake, does it matter how you were woken?

It's weird to have something that's mine-not-Ma's. Everything else is both of ours. I guess my body is mine and the ideas that happen in my head. But my cells are made of her cells so I'm kind of hers. Also, when I tell her what I'm thinking and she tells me what she's thinking, our ideas jump into our other's heads, like coloring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green. -Jack from Room by Emma Donoghue

God is our pilot now, and we'll go wherever his breath blows us.

Once I spent a whole day there, a blade of grass in each hand to anchor me to the warm earth. I watched the sun rise, pass over my head and set. Ladybirds mated on my knuckle; a shrew nibbled a hole in my stocking while I tried not to laugh. Such a day was worth any punishment.