Jennifer Donnelly Quotes
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...Listen to your own thoughts and feelings very carefully, be aware of your observations, and learn to value them. When you're a teenager—and even when you're older—lots of people will try to tell you what to think and feel. Try to stand still inside all of that and hear your own voice. It's yours and only yours, it's unique and worth of your attention, and if you cultivate it properly, it might just make you a writer.
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Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.
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There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I. The memory of it makes me laugh now, but not from happiness. Be careful what you show the world. You never know when the wolf is watching.
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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.
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There is a ghost here. A lonely, heartbroken spirit. The ghost of everything that could've been and never was.
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Because in a small dark room, a broken child lies on a filthy bed and stares up at a high window. He waits for me, too. And I—I who have failed at everything and have failed everyone—I must not, I cannot, I will not fail him.
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Stop yelling. If everyone’s yelling, no one can be heard.
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They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled under a bed. And sometimes they leave other sorts of things. Things you can't see. A sigh trapped in a corner. Memories tangled in the curtains. A sob fluttering against the windowpane like a bird that flew in and can't get back out. I can feel these things. They dart and crouch and whisper.
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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.
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The rain comes down harder as I write. It sheets off the roof in torrents. I wish it would pound against me. Pound the life from my body. The flesh from my bones. The pain from my heart.
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I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.
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Namaste. It was a Nepalese greeting. It meant: The light within me bows to the light within you.
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The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.
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Men are the weak ones, luv. Didn't you know? Oh, you make a lot of noise, but its the women who are strong. Where it counts. In 'ere.
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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.
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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.
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Sometimes, when you catch someone unaware at just the right time and in just the right light, you can catch sight of what they will be.
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Every heart is made of stories.
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I was only glad to be saved and never once thought to ask why.
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Bravery is feeling fear but doing the thing anyway.
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A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping.
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And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn't have written even one poem if she'd had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for. I knew then why they didn't marry. Emily and Jane and Louisa. I knew and it scared me. I also knew what being lonely was and I didn't want to be lonely my whole life. I didn't want to give up on my words. I didn't want to choose one over the other. Mark Twain didn't have to. Charles Dickens didn't.
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Little by little, the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him.
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Meet me where the sky touches the sea. Wait for me where the world begins.
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Never take what's offered, always ask for more.
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My father had put these things on the table. I looked at him standing by the sink. He was washing his hands, splashing water on his face. My mamma left us. My brother, too. And now my feckless, reckless uncle had as well. My pa stayed, though. My pa always stayed. I looked at him. And saw the sweat stains on his shirt. And his big, scarred hands. And his dirty, weary face. I remembered how, lying in my bed a few nights before, I had looked forward to showing him my uncle's money. To telling him I was leaving. And I was so ashamed.
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Writers are damned liars. Every single one of them.
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I need a boy who thinks with his big head, not his little one. Since they do not exist, I have fashioned my own.
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There is an advantage to be found in most everything that happens to you, even if it is not immediately apparent.
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We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them.
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