JDJennifer Donnelly

85 collected words

Jennifer Donnelly

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

▷ Play this voice Search these words ↗Place in time ↗life happiness faith love knowledge justice time death

Quotations and sayings

01Undated

What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. Books. Not just one or two dozen, but hundreds of them. In crates. In piles on the floor. In bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling and lined the entire room. I turned around and around in a slow circle, feeling as if I'd just stumbled into Ali Baba's cave. I was breathless, close to tears, and positively dizzy with greed.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

02Undated

I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

03Undated

French Louis Seymour of the West Canada Creek, who knew how to survive all alone in a treacherous wilderness, and Mr. Alfred G. Vanderbilt of New York City and Raquette Lake, who was richer than God and traveled in his very own Pullman car, and Emmie Hubbard of the Uncas Road, who painted the most beautiful pictures when she was drunk and burned them in her woodstove when she was sober, were all ten times more interesting to me than Milton's devil or Austen's boy-crazy girls or that twitchy fool of Poe's who couldn't think of any place better to bury a body than under his own damn floor.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

04Undated

But eating was the last thing on my mind. And I didn't see how Miss Wilcox could eat, or teach, or sleep or ever find any reason to leave this room. Not with all these books in it, just begging to be read.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

05Undated

You fear you will fail at the very thing you were born for. And your fear torments you...instead of shunning your fear, you must let it speak and listen carefully to what it's trying to tell you. It will give you good counsel.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

06Undated

Her fear was strong, but her need for the truth was stronger.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

07Undated

Serafina, Ava, Ling, and Becca swam inside. Neela followed them, but at the very last second, shield. “I can’t,” she said. “Once I go in, there’s no way out again. This is real. You’re real. All this time, a part of me was hoping you were only a dream.”The witch cocked her head. “Only a dream?” she said mockingly. “Long ago, a great mage dreamed of stealing the gods’ powers. Abbadon was born of that dream. Atlantis died because of it. Now, because of a new dreamer, all the waters of the world may fall. There is nothing more real than a dream.” She nodded at the waters behind Neela. Silt was rising in the distance, a great deal of it. “The merman Traho knows this. He’s coming. If you do not believe me, perhaps he can convince you.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

08Undated

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

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

09Undated

Had you but seen it, I promise you, your high-minded principles would have melted like candle wax. Never would you have wished such beauty away.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

10Undated

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.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

11Undated

It's a good thing you and your pills weren't around a few hundred years ago or there never would have been a Vermeer or a Caravaggio. You'd have drugged "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "The Taking of Christ" right the hell out of them.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

12Undated

I grew up on a mixed diet of mass and class, and I still read that way. I hate it when people apologize for what they read. Some bestsellers aren't exactly literary. So what? They're fun and rip-roaring, Who instituted the book police and why do we have to answer them? Grrrrr!

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

13Undated

History is a Rorschach test, people. What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

14Undated

Most of the mess that is called history comes about because kings and presidents cannot be satisfied with a nice chicken and a good loaf of bread.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

15Undated

History is fiction.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

16Undated

One expects decent people to stand up for the good of all. Decent people shut their doors and hide behind them as decent people do. Massacres could never happen if it weren't for decent people.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

17Undated

I play until my fingers are blue and stiff from the cold, and then I keep on playing. Until I'm lost in the music. Until I am the music--notes and chords, the melody and harmony. It hurts, but it's okay because when I'm the music, I'm not me. Not sad. Not afraid. Not desperate. Not guilty.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

18Undated

It has an L on it. L for love. See? It's the key to the universe, Dad. You said you were looking for it. You told Mom you were. I found it for you so you don't have to look anymore. So you can come home at night.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

19Undated

Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

20Undated

I have done this—made the sad prince laugh. Made his grieving parents smile. None but me. Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands. Make them laugh with a gesture, cry with a word. Make them love you. And you will know what power is.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

21Undated

Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands. Make them laugh with a gesture, cry with a word. Make them love you. And you will know what power is.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

22Undated

Fac quod faciendum est,' " Jo read aloud. "Do what must be done.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

23Undated

Cry your grief to God. Howl to the heavens. Tear your shirt. Your hair. Your flesh. Gouge your eyes. Carve out your heart. And what will you get from Him? Only Silence. Indifference.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote

24Undated

Life, Rose well knew, could throw some hard punches at you, but nothing hurt as much as losing a child, or seeing one of your children hurt and suffering. Becoming a parent changed you forever, as nothing else could. Not good or bad fortune. Not friendships. Not even a man or a woman.

Jennifer Donnelly / quote