Quotes from Jennifer Donnelly

Isabelle had cut off her toes, but sometimes she could still feel them. Maman had cut out her heart. Sometimes, she could still feel that, too.

I'd wish you good luck, but you won't need it. You get to write your own story now. Nothing's luckier than that.

I think your vision gets better as you get older.

He's wearing boots, a kilt, and a long-sleeve tee. No coat, even though it's December. Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.

He pressed himself into me and kissed my neck, and it was as if everything strong and solid inside me, heart and bones and muscle and gut, softened and melted from the heat of him.

You are a ghost, Andi," she says. "Almost gone." I look at her. I want to say something but I can't get the words out. She squeezes my hands. "Come back to us," she says. And she's gone.

And besides, I couldn't stay at the party. It was too dangerous. I nearly died." "From what?" "Boredom.

Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine...

Airports should all belong to the same country. The country of Crappacia. Or Bleakovania. Or Suckitan.

God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.

But his words fall away. He looks confused. He looks flustered and sorry. Like you do when you run up to someone you think you know and take her arm and she turns around and you were wrong.

Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.

No. I meant stay with me today. And tomorrow. And every day after.

She'd long ago learned that only those with something to lose were afraid of dying.

As a child, she'd thought all the noise and commotion was the most wild, wonderful game, but as she'd grown older, she understood why everyone rushed around so: they were chasing a story.

What had I seen? Too much. What did I know? Only that knowledge carries a damned high price. Miss Wilcox, my teacher, had taught me so much. Why had she never taught me that?

Be careful what you show the world. You never know when the wolf is watching.

One is not born knowing how to lead, one learns.

Elizabeth walked through the path they'd cleared and up to the towering book. She kicked the cover with a well-shod foot. It slammed shut. Then she dipped her brush into the bucket, crossed out the word history, dipped the brush again, and wrote HER STORY in its place.

Love isn't idiotic. It's hard and messy, confusing and wonderful. But to love and be loved... that's all that matters.

we woke as if from a nightmare only to find that the ugly are still not beautiful and the dull still do not sparkle.

The King walks. He nods. His glance is like God's touch - under it all things spring to life. A wave of his hand and a hundred musicians tear into the Handel, making a sound you've never heard before, and never will again. A sound that goes through you, through flesh and bone, and reorders the very beat of your heart.

I'm always doing things I can't do. Otherwise, I'd never get to do them.

For the first time in a long time, he didn't think of the past. And of all the things he'd lost. He thought only of the present, and what he had. And how it was so much more than he deserved. And he prayed then that he would never, ever lose it.