Quotes from Jennifer Donnelly

Never take what's offered, always ask for more.

The skin-and-bones dog who shows up at your door. The broken-winged bird you nurse back to health. The kitten you find crying at the side of the road. You think you're saving them, don't you? Ah, child. Can't you see? They're saving you.

There is magic in this sad, hard world. A magic stronger than fate, stronger than chance. And it is seen in the unlikeliest of places....It lives inside every human being ready to redeem us. To transform us. To save us. If we can only find the courage to listen to it. It is the magic of the human heart.

There was a basket at her feet. She reached into it and lifted out the head of a young woman, a marquise. She wore Bourbon white to her death, but wears the tricolor now - white cheeks, blue lips, red dripping from her neck. Long live the revolution.

The rain comes down harder, darkness falls. We don't care. Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.

Mortals aren't born strong, they become strong.

Can't you see that the courage to risk, to dare, to toss that gold coin up in the air over and over again, win or lose, is what makes humans human? They are fragile, doomed creatures, blinder than worms yet braver than the gods.

Keep being the author of your own story. Never let anyone else write it for you again.

Namaste. It was a Nepalese greeting. It meant: The light within me bows to the light within you.

The rain comes down harder as I write. It sheets off the roof in torrents. I wish it would pound against me. Pound the life from my body. The flesh from my bones. The pain from my heart.

It is hope, not despair, that undoes us all.

Should you ever decide, in those small dark hours, to hang yourself, well, that is your choice. But don't hunt for the rope until morning. By then you'll find a much better use for it.

There is an advantage to be found in most everything that happens to you, even if it is not immediately apparent.

Sir, no amount of money, no matter how vast, could induce me to stroll, perambulate, promenade, or engage in any form of locomotion with you whatsoever. Good evening.

Love is not for cowards.

Because in a small dark room, a broken child lies on a filthy bed and stares up at a high window. He waits for me, too. And I—I who have failed at everything and have failed everyone—I must not, I cannot, I will not fail him.

That's what we do with our pain," she said, watching the butterfly rise. "We make it into something beautiful." "We make it into something meaningful," said the diva. "We make it matter," whispered the actress.

Writers are damned liars. Every single one of them.

Headstrong is just a word, Katie - a word others call you when you don't do what they want.

Funny, 'ow you can 'old a jewel in your 'and, and toss it away, and not even know what you 'ad until it's gone.

The worst day above ground is better than any day under it.

I need a name for this ink ... A name for the feeling you get when you see someone again. After many years. Someone lost to you. Or so you thought. And you remember them a certain way. In your mind, they never age. But then suddenly, there they are. Older. Changed by time. Different, but exactly the same.

Her grey eyes sparkled with passion as she spoke. Sid looked into them and for a second he glimpsed her soul. He saw what she was - fierce and brave. Upright. Impatient. And good. So good that she would sit covered in gore, shout at dangerous men, and keep a long, lonely vigil - all to save the likes of him. He realized she was a rare creature, as rare as a rose in winter.

Lots of things are impossible," she said softly. "Until they're not.