Quotes from Caroline B. Cooney

To be believed, you had to have the support of the Somebodies

She could eat a salad without worrying about diarrhea.

Since her porch had south, east, and west windows, Harriett had become a sunrise and sunset collector. She gathered colors in her heart: magenta and grape one evening, surpassed by sparkly gold or fluffy pink the next. Would there be color in Heaven? Would she hear the laughter of children there?

Brian and Lizzie were both really smart. Really quick. Plain basic types like Janie and Reeve could always get cornered.

You must love teaching', one mother said to Mr. Shevvington. 'Yes indeed. I think of each class as a zoo.' He laughed..'Twenty-six to a cage.

How can you be somebody else's savior, when you can't be your own?

In a civil war," he said gently, "people forget that they are people. Next they forget anyone else is a person. They forget how to be kind. They learn to hurt. In our wars, they might execute you, but usually they chop hands off, so that you suffer before you die. If you live, you are helpless and must depend on others.

Did he think Brendan planned to snatch the laptop and throw it down a crevasse in a glacier?

He felt enormously tired, as if he were an autumn leaf and his season were over. He felt ready to fall from the branch.

Kahnawake April 20, 1704 Temperature 56 degrees Mercy's only hope for friendship was Nistenha's cousin's daughter, Snow Walker, who was a frequent visitor and pleasant enough. But Indians were less likely to talk for the sake of talk and Snow Walker hardly talked at all. Snow Walker for a friend would be like a fence post for a friend.

Sometimes, when he was older, and especially after he became taller than his mother, he would put his arms around her and silently hold her, and feel her pain right through the fold of his embrace.

I must remember that. Things become what you expect them to become. But I am granite. Nothing can shatter me.

Eben would rather have had that knife pierce his chest and kill him than live to acquire an Indian vocabulary, but it was something to do and it kept Mercy cheerful.

There were no Middle Ages in America, dumb-o," said his sister. "White people hadn't gotten here yet. Only Europe had Middle Ages.

Foster children could pack quickly. Every move Matt had ever made took only minutes, whereas when real people moved, they spent weeks getting ready, filling huge vans and leaving a trail of cardboard cartons across an entire yard. One suitcase, one box, one duffel bag, one bookbag, and Matt would be done.

Montreal November 1704 Temperature 34 degrees It was the work of a warrior to enter the cave, jab the bear awake and tempt him, grumpy and stuporous, to come out where he could be shot. No fur was so warm, no meat so good, no claws better ornaments. Of course, one swipe of that great paw could break a man's jaw or rip off an arm, but that was why it was so admired and why the warrior who goaded the bear got the claws: such impressive risk.

Perhaps nobody knows anybody.

Barbies are warm and tan and always the same, thought Janie, but real people are not always the same.

Stop being picky!" yelled Mandy. "You're down to twelve minutes and you still have to swipe your credit card!

Lord, it's only been six months since the last time I was a total jerk, thought Reeve. Am I going to be a total jerk again?

No boy to swagger down the hall with his arm around her, boasting with his walk that he dated this girl.

Perhaps nobody knows anybody..It was a terrifying thought: like the alone. That you could know people well, and know them again the following year, and then know them more...and yet remain strangers forever.

People could not accept the presence of Evil. They had to laugh, or shrug. Walk away, or look elsewhere.

Pretty dresses, desperate hearts.