Quotes from Geraldine McCaughrean

I simply don't understand authors that know everything before they write it; it seems so cold blooded. I think it's lovely when the story takes over and goes somewhere else.

I hate clowns. You can't see what they're thinking.

Peter Pan] has never broken his terrible habit of eavesdropping. So, maybe that wasn't the rustle of pages you heard while this story lasted, but Peter Pan himself, listening in. In exchanged for a story of yours, he might show you his most prized possession: James Hooks' map of Neverland. In exchange for a smile, he may show you Neverland itself.

Unhappy people do the oddest, most terrible things, just trying to keep despair at bay. All you have to do is accept them...go around them...take evasive action.

For some crime committed by my ancestors in the dark and forgotten days, I came into the world already tarred and feathered. With shyness. It hurts terribly -- every bit as much as hot tar choking every pore -- and I wish I could be rid of it. But it hurts a lot less than having someone try and peel the shyness off. That's like being flayed alive.

He is everything, everything, everything I ever admired and wanted and couldn't have. He is everything I needed and couldn't find in real life. Of course he is. That's why I invented him.

There are things roaming around inside my head as clever as Theseus in the Labyrinth. It's just that nobody ever gave them the necessary piece of string, so they'll never find their way out.

If you want to please me very much, you will fall down when I shoot you," -Oates The White Darkness

Tell me a story,' demanded Fireflyer. 'Why? Do you eat them, too, then?' 'Only the ohs and ayes and ees and oos. The Kays are too spikey and the zeds are too buzzzy and the ones with the dots get stuck in your teeth and the esses sometimes slide down inside your vest and tickle.

Not everyone can be strong or clever. Not everyone can be beautiful. But we can ALL be brave!

Don't struggle too hard to understand people, Sym. They're hideously complicated. Unhappy people do the oddest, most terrible things, just trying to keep despair at bay. All you have to do is accept them...go around them...take evasive action.

I like people. I like watching them. It's just I'd prefer to do it from a mile away using very poweful binoculars.

That's how it's done, you see. It's the same way people get horses out of burning buildings. When the whole world's on fire around you, you use a blindfold. Everyone needs someone like Titus for a blindfold.

Every crime like this needs someone like me to look away and say nothing.

We built that Wendy House our own selves, for Wendy! And you can't keep a Wendy out of her own Wendy House!

Being irretrievably damned had its advantages:

You aren't stupid, Lillian,' said Uncle Victor, smiling and shaking his head, 'but sometimes the things you do are.

But I refuse to say. Because I love him, and you'd give anything, wouldn't you? You'd give anything for someone you love not to die alone and in scalding agony?

When Titus speaks, I can hear every word. For me, that's like when the optician slides home the right lens and all the e's and g's and o's and c's become perfectly clear again and it isn't a struggle, even to read the bottom-most line...His voice touches places inside me like someone moving through a house, flicking light switches...No peering into corners for what's been said.

Further and further afield he travelled. Taking ship, he sailed to a hot and passionate country where gypsy women dressed in scarlet, and their dark skin sweated as they danced tarantellas under a tambourine moon.

Lord bless us! I never would have believed it! said the friar, startled out of his usual cynicism. 'An honest man!

Lord bless us! I never would have believed it!' said the friar, startled out of his usual cynicism. 'An honest man!

The friar organized a hunt. But the Alchemist was long gone -- lost among the townspeople like one bad penny melting into a puddle of lead.

These things happen. It is not the end of the world.