Emma M. > Emma's Quotes

“Sometimes I think high school is one long hazy activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become an adult. I hope it's worth it.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“Who cares what the color means? How do you know what he meant to say? I mean, did he leave another book called "Symbolism in My Books?" If he didn't, then you could just be making all of this up. Does anyone really think this guy sat down and stuck all kinds of hidden meanings into his story? It's just a story.... But I think you are making all of this symbolism stuff up. I don't believe any of it.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside—walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy -- old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“The same boys who got detention in elementary school for beating the crap out of people are now rewarded for it. They call it football.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“The one good thing about being kind of shy is that nobody bugs you when you want to be left alone.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“Don't expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“The world was hers for the reading.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be... safe. At least she knows she's living.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it'll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It's like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.”
― A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.”
― Roald Dahl

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
― Roald Dahl, The Twits

“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony.”
― Roald Dahl, Danny the Champion of the World

“I cannot for the life of me understand why small children take so long to grow up. I think they do it deliberately, just to annoy me.”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“Don't gobblefunk around with words.”
― Roald Dahl, The BFG

“Some things stay a little bit broken forever—even after they’ve been fixed.”
― Josephine Angelini, Goddess

“I chose love—I chose you over everything that was offered to me.”
― Josephine Angelini, Goddess

“But you're the only one, Scarlet. You'll always be the only one.”
― Marissa Meyer, Scarlet

“Or maybe it was the soul that worked that way, seeking out warmth and touch, needing to prove that we were still in the world of living.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, Pure

“What does your bed smell like? Regret and bad taste?”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, Pure

“Sometimes, son," my father said, prying my fingers free, "you have to help the heroes along.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Steelheart

“I know, better than anyone else, that there are no heroes coming to save us. There are no good Epics. None of them protect us. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Steelheart

“I just can’t believe that life would give us to each other,’ he said, ‘and then take it back.’

‘I can,’ she said. ‘Life’s a bastard.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park