Quotes from Ann Rinaldi

You're too young. I've met Miss Dix. She wants women who are matronly and not pretty. You fail on both requirements.

Ebie, dear child. And he took me in his strong arms. You aren't angry with me? I couldn't believe it. Angry? Of course not. Courage is shown in different ways, Ebie. If others don't always recognize it, that's their fault, not ours.

War takes a terrible toll on people, on families. And if war doesn't, then just ordinary life does. It changes them forever.

We both have a lot of things to work on.

There was something regal about her. She carried herself like she was wearing pink moire. And that powerless complexion glowed. Watching her, it came to me that she must have some Yankee strength that didn't need frippery.

I thanked him and said goodnight. I left him there and went into the house. Maria was playing 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

And in that moment I possessed and lost the whole world and everything in it and was left with the feeling and the knowledge, which is love, that no matter how we give ourselves we always end up losing. That to love is to lose, the moment we agree to the bargain. And that, being human, we keep standing there wanting to lose more.

The house was so quiet, as if everyone had been spirited out of sight. I had a feeling of moving through time itself. I saw myself as a small, scurrying animal rushing into my future. But I was not afraid.

I bit down a saucy reply. This man was genuinely concerned about me. He did not deserve sauciness.

I'm a patient man, Ebie. I had to learn that in prison. But I learned other things, too. That there is so much trouble in this world, we need to do everything we can, every day of our lives, to stop trouble from happening. Not cause it.

He knows the most important language of all. Human compassion.

Children, the river is so beautiful. Come look at it…. It's a moving, breathing, living thing," he said reverently. "It gives life to our town. It is deep in secrets and rich in dreams, and if we could know those secrets and dreams, we'd be a wiser people.

I understood now that you could be as soft as the silken draperies, shine like the copper candle holders, and have something tick quietly inside you and never miss a beat, even if you lived in a rude sod hut in the wilderness.

Your uncle Lawrence is a very moral man. He knows, in his heart, what is right. And he'll do it, no matter what people say of him. I nodded. But how do we know when we're doing the right thing, Father? He drew up the horse's reins in front of our house. We don't always, Ebie. Answers don't come easily. At least they never have, to me. I've done many a wrong thing in my time. But I've always tried to make up for it.

I have dark forebodings, I said. Always. Know them for what they are, he said. What are they, Richard? The shadowy side of your father, who never sees good in anything. The side you must learn to contain.

As a child growing up in World War II, I was very moved and stirred by what was going on, but I distanced myself from history. I regarded history as just one more subject.

A person doesn't ask permission to fall in love; not even of themselves.

Because I had already resolved that if you're afraid of love, your heart will break anyway, only in not half so nice a fashion as it does when you let somebody love you.

The people who founded America, who fought for its freedom, did not look to anyone else to get them out of their troubles. They took matters into their own hands and answered only to God and their peers. In today's world, sacrifice and hardship are not in the everyday language, and instant gratification is foremost.

Sometimes it take courage to leave.