Jennifer Donnelly Quotes

I'm safer with the Tailor and Pretty Will and every thief and cutthroat in the bend than I am with Miss Josephine Montfort of Gramecy Park.
Jennifer Donnelly
I need a boy who thinks with his big head, not his little one. Since they do not exist, I have fashioned my own.
Jennifer Donnelly
And besides, I couldn't stay at the party. It was too dangerous. I nearly died.""From what?""Boredom.
Jennifer Donnelly
I will go out again this very night with my rockets and fuses. I will blow them straight out of their comfortable beds. Blow the rooftops off their houses. Blow the black, wretched night to bits. I will not stop. For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.
Jennifer Donnelly
Who knew that listening to a guy sleep could be so much deeper than sleeping with a guy.
Jennifer Donnelly
But you are a different sort of girl. Not at all what I expected you to be. And this is a different sort of time. And so I am hopeful for all the things you may yet find.
Jennifer Donnelly
The thing is, you can't ever really know how rotten someone will turn out to be.
Jennifer Donnelly
Sometimes you have to do wrong to do right.
Jennifer Donnelly
The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.
Jennifer Donnelly
Voice is not just the sound that comes from your throat, but the feelings that come from your words.
Jennifer Donnelly
Murder is not a suitable topic of conversation for a young lady.
Jennifer Donnelly
Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras keeping them warm.
Jennifer Donnelly
Happiness was useless to me. It was heartache that filled my purse. What happy man has need of Shakespeare?
Jennifer Donnelly
And Robespierre, the Incorruptible, who loved us so much he cut off our heads so we would not be troubled by too many thoughts.
Jennifer Donnelly
She's got a big belt around her hips. It has a shiny buckle with PRADA on it, which is Italian for insecure.
Jennifer Donnelly
Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.
Jennifer Donnelly
Because I'm on the phone, Mom!""Fooling around with your friends again! Who is that?""Ahmadinejad.""Oh, my goodness! What is he saying?""That he wants to see Jeezy at the Beacon tonight. Putin's going too. He scalped a ticket from Kim Jong Il. All tha gangstas are going.""Don't be so fresh, young man!""Gotta go," he says to me. "Enemy forces have dropped a Momshell.""Fall back, solider. Over and out.
Jennifer Donnelly
They sat quietly together for a few minutes, Joe holding Fiona's hand, Fiona sniffling. No flowery words, no platitudes passed between them. Joe would have done anything to ease her suffering, but he knew nothing he might do, or say, could. Her grief would run its course, like a fever, and release her when it was spent. He would not shush her or tell her it was God's will and that her da was better off. That was rubbish and they both knew it. When something hurt as bad as this, you had to let it hurt. There were no shortcuts.
Jennifer Donnelly
But words are more powerful than anything.
Jennifer Donnelly
It goes on, this world, stupid and brutal.But I do not.I do not.
Jennifer Donnelly
I'd wish you good luck, but you won't need it. You get to write your own story now. Nothing's luckier than that.
Jennifer Donnelly
Keep being the author of your own story. Never let anyone else write it for you again.
Jennifer Donnelly
Because just for a few seconds, someone else hurts, too. For just a few seconds, I'm not alone.
Jennifer Donnelly
The truth costs.Lies cost more.
Jennifer Donnelly
You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible?
Jennifer Donnelly
She smells of her cooking and the perfume Eau d'Hadrien. My mother wore it, too. She used to cook, like Lili. Our house smelled of garlic and thyme instead of sadness.
Jennifer Donnelly
Ambition and poverty are powerful motivators...
Jennifer Donnelly
Don't let the darkness that's been visited upon this family pull you in so deeply, you cannot get out. Turn back from it, darling Jo... he'd warned her. He didn't seem to understand that turning your back on the darkness didn't mean the darkness would turn its back on you.
Jennifer Donnelly
No. I meant stay with me today. And tomorrow. And every day after.
Jennifer Donnelly
For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.
Jennifer Donnelly
Sir, no amount of money, no matter how vast, could induce me to stroll, perambulate, promenade, or engage in any form of locomotion with you whatsoever. Good evening.
Jennifer Donnelly
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.
Jennifer Donnelly
On those nights, the words were for me alone. They came up unbidden from my heart. They spilled over my tongue and spilled out my mouth. And because of them, I, who was nothing and nobody, was a prince of Denmark, a maid of Verona, a queen of Egypt. I was a sour misanthrope, a beetling hypocrite, a conjurer's daughter, a mad and murderous king.
Jennifer Donnelly
No sunrises that stop you dead with their unspeakable beuaty, either, he thought. No whales breaching only yards away from the ship, showering your awestruck self with a cold ocean rain. No songs and whiskey belowdecks at night while the wind plucks at the ship's rigging and the ice beats against her hull.
Jennifer Donnelly
Namaste. It was a Nepalese greeting. It meant: The light within me bows to the light within you.
Jennifer Donnelly
Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, either
Jennifer Donnelly
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
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
Fac quod faciendum est,' " Jo read aloud. "Do what must be done.
Jennifer Donnelly
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
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
Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.
Jennifer Donnelly
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
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
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
History is fiction.
Jennifer Donnelly
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Headstrong is just a word, Katie - a word others call you when you don't do what they want.
Jennifer Donnelly
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
Her fear was strong, but her need for the truth was stronger.
Jennifer Donnelly
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
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
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