Quotes from Irene Hunt

I was especially perceptive to all things beautiful that morning-raspberries in blue china bowls were enough to make the heart sing.

No matter how hard times are, people still want music.

I don't know if anyone ever 'wins' a war.

Children are not created fully equipped with such values as courage, compassion, integrity, and insights into the motives and needs of themselves and of others.

It happens the world over - we love ourselves more than we do the one we say we love. We all want to be Number One, we've got to be Number One or nothing! We can't see that we could make ourselves loved and needed in the Number Two, or Three, or Four spot. No sir, we've got to be Number One, and if we can't make it, we'll rip and tear at the loved one till we've ruined every smidgin of love that was ever there.

Beautiful hours move so quickly.

We mustn't give trouble a shape before it throws its shadow.

I wondered why so much had been written about love's pain and so little about the glorious relief of being delivered from love's pain.

I had sparkle that morning, sparkle that originated somewhere deep inside me and spread outward to my cheeks and eyes, even it seemed, to the gleam of my hair.

I was especially perceptive to all things beautiful that morning—raspberries in blue china bowls were enough to make the heart sing.

One never stops climbing, Julie, unless he wants to stop and vegetate. There's always something just ahead.

And then suddenly Danny's arms were around me, and his lips were on mine, and the crazy windshield wipers commenced singing our names together.

I found lines that mirrored an ache and longing I had so often felt when the beauty around my woods cathedral was too intense, when the need to grasp and keep loveliness left me with a sense of desolate frustration.

From my window I watched the full moon—a moon that reminded me of Brett—become shadowed, little by little until there was only a deep blackness in the woods at night. I would sit there wakeful, hour after hour, and wonder if this aching around my heart, this sense of being alone, forlorn and unwanted in a world where there was gayety and love for others of my age, was going to continue for all of my days.

On such a night,' I thought, 'were ill and good, Bright and unlovely; precious, tawdry, All mingled into one And pressed against my heart.

That was the way it was that beautiful evening of cold November rain and muddy country roads and crazy windshield wipers. That was the moment of my greatest security and confidence; it was the time when I realized that love makes one a better person, a kinder gentler one.

I don't know if anyone ever "wins" a war, Jeth.

Accept the fact that this is a man's world and learn how to play the game gracefully, my sweet.

Once again, both Chris and I were manipulated like small puppets in our world of adults. We didn't like it, and we suffered, but the tall ones around us said that we would soon get over our sadness, that we would "adapt" in a matter of weeks.

that old Mrs. Bishop was lacking in the qualities that make a good mother. And saying it that way makes her sound a good deal better than she really was.

Then a skeleton came out from among the trees. It was the skeleton of a Union soldier, though the uniform it wore was so ragged and filthy it was difficult to identify. The sunken cheeks were covered with a thin scattering of fuzz; the hair was lank and matted. It fell over the skeleton's forehead and down into its eyes

I had lived with Aunt Cordelia too long to enjoy being called "Julie, baby" or "Honeybun" or "Sugar." They were foolish in the first place and rather revoltingly sticky for someone who was strictly a high protein girl.

preoccupied and troubled. Upstairs they heard Jenny in her

It was a frightening thing to do, but if one did nothing -- well, that was frightening too.