Quotes from Eva Ibbotson

It was too much... the gods would not permit such joy.

There had, of course, been no golden-haired boys; there hadn't been any boys at all. What there had been was a leper colony, run by the Brothers of Saint Patrick, a group of Irish missionaries to whom the crows had been sent.

People who've suffered don't have time to grumble.

When we're grown up I'll come back for you, I promise. No one can stop us then.

They're a jolly lot, the lepers," said Father Liam. "People who've suffered don't have time to grumble.

If you want something enough you usually get it. But you have to take what goes with it.

For whether a place is a heaven or a hell rests in yourself, and those who go with courage may find themselves in paradise.

Now the old woman who had known him since his birth saw in the new lines round his eyes, the skin stretched tight across the cheekbones, the price paid by those who force themselves against their deepest nature, to excel in war.

It was his time with the Xanti which had changed him. They thought that everyone's life was like a river; you had to flow with the current and not struggle, which wasted breath and made you more likely to drown.

Lord Byrne looked at his wife. He'd married her blind, knowing nothing about her except that she had a quiet voice, a sensible manner and some spare cash. Now, eight years later, he would have died for her without a moment's hesitation. To dress up as a hussar in Wellington's army would be harder, but he would do it.

A countess, eh?" Mr. Cameron, into whose ear trumpet the news had duly been shouted, had begun to wheeze with unaccustomed and silent laughter. He knew, now, what to call his new rose, and the joke—obscure, private, pointless—was just the kind he particularly enjoyed.

She wanted to make him swear; to have a kind of ceremony-- but then she saw his face as he looked out over the Island and saw that he loved it as she did, and she knew for certain they would both be back.

Kidnapping children is not a good idea. All the same, sometimes it has to be done.

It was only when the light in her eyes was extinguished, at the mention of her father, that Rupert realized how brightly it had burned.

To this largesse had been added waist-length golden, curling hair which, had she chosen to sit on a rock brushing it, must have sent every sailor within miles plunging to his doom.

And lying there, her hair in damp strands across her crumpled face, Harriet gave up the long, long struggle to love her father and her aunt. "It was for this loss above all that she wept. She had learned, during the long years of her childhood, to live without receiving love. To live without giving it seemed more than she could bear.

If this is the 'Green Hell' of the Amazon, then hell is where I belong," said Maia.

Aware that she was on the edge of the abyss, that he must call her back very gently, he laid only the lightest of hands on her hair.

After all, Betty was ill and she was her sister, and she wouldn't be able to shave her legs for weeks because of the plaster.

He was just drifting off to sleep when it occurred to him that perhaps the dog was not so ordinary after all. Perhaps he was someone the ogre had changed, and Ivo was going to spend the night hugging a headmaster or a tax inspector

Mr. Murray had no doubt about Miss Minton's honesty. It was her sanity he was not sure about.

And when Finn complained at the end of a day that they had not come very far, she said, "What does it matter? We've got all the time in the world." Which is not always a clever thing to say.

She made life… big for me

It's impossible. It's madness." There was a long pause. "Or is it?" the old man said.