Quotes from Meg Rosoff

The boy squirmed, long skinny legs wrapped round each other, rib-cage twisted ninety degrees from his hips in what appeared to be an impossible configuration of limbs. His elbows jutted out abruptly from his sides like some sort of drafting error and (independently aware of their awkwardness) his arms wound themselves round his torso like vines.

Mona wasn't listening. Of course a bet was a bet, she thought. And there was her reputation to consider. Not to mention her safety. Particularly her safety. For she was frightened of Emoto Hed, who had something of a reputation for creative cruelty where unpaid debts were concerned. People disappeared, leaving behind nothing but very long, very piercing screams. Mona imagined that forever could become incredibly tedious when passed in a state of constantly accelerating agony.

To hide her relief, Laura stepped forward and embraced her daughter. 'My poor darling. He's not worth weeping over. If he doesn't appreciate a girl like you...' But, even to her own ears, the words sounded quaint. What man ever warranted the tears shed on his behalf?

When you read a book, the neurons in your brain fire overtime, deciding what the characters are wearing, how they're standing, and what it feels like the first time they kiss. No one shows you. The words make suggestions. Your brain paints the pictures.

Perhaps the way to proceed is to think of life on Earth as a colossal joke, a creation of such immense stupidity that the only way to live is to laugh until you think your heart will break.

Gil has put his book down and is gazing at something inside his head.

Fighting back is what I've discovered I do best.

Oh, please, Mr. B thinks, not a human. Not another human. He is filled with despair. God's passion for humans always leads to catastrophe, to meteorological upset on an epic scale. What is wrong with the boy that he can't get it up for some nice goddess? Why, oh why, can't he pursue a sensible relationship, one that will not end in disaster?

Was this just what relationships were like these days? Whatever you felt like with whoever was there?

It's just a playing field crammed full of cause and effect, billions of dominoes, each knocking over billions more, setting off trillions of actions every second.

How many events added up to a coincidence? How many coincidences added up to a conspiracy?

In my opinion, this school and its contemporaries were nothing more than cheap merchants of social status, selling an inflated sense of self-worth to middle-class boys of no particular merit. I will, however, grant them something. Without the first school, I would not have ended up at the second. Without the second, I would not have attended St Oswald's. Without St Oswald's, I would not have met Finn. Without Finn, there would be no story.

I hardly saw Osbert that week because he went to school, unlike Isaac and Edmond and Piper, who were supposed to be homeschooled, which as far as I could tell meant reading whatever books you happen to be interested in, and every once in a blue moon having Aunt Penn say Have you learned any geography? and them saying yes.

I wonder at what point a child becomes a person. Does it happen all at once, or slowly, in stages? Is there an age, a week, a moment, at which all the secrets of the universe are revealed and adulthood descends on a cloud from heaven, altering the brain forever? Will the child-me slink off one day, never to return?

There he lay spooked, a spinning wheel in a celestial bowling alley.

It might cause considerable surprise to the informed observer (who does not exist) to note that Mr B's eyes begin to fill with tears. They overflow and spill down along the deep soft creases of his careworn face as he sits very still in the centre of the unstill world and weeps rivers of salty water for all the lost souls, including his own.

some people are lonely for all the right reasons.

not like any smile i had ever experienced before. but such a smile! you could burn a hole in the world with that smile

Nem mindig rajtunk múlik, milyen véget érnek a dolgok.

Things Happen and once they start happening you pretty much just have to hold on for dear life and see where they drop you when they stop.

I came across Piper deep in conversation with Jet one afternoon and when I asked her what they were talking about she shrugged and said Dog Things. Sometimes the loneliness of being the odd man out in these conversation got to me but most of the time I just ignored it. I like old movies. She talks to dogs.

Eck tilts his head and gently licks Bob's ear with his long, sticky tongue. It is his special way of expressing sympathy and it is not effective.

La idea de no tener una lengua materna me preocupa. ¿Es como sentirte un nómada dentro de tu propia cabeza? no me puedo imaginar no tener palabras en las que refugiarme. Ser huérfana de lengua.

Edmond just lay there smoking and telling me he loved me without saying anything out loud and if there ever was a more perfect day in the history of time it isn't one I've heard about. The