Jodi Lynn Anderson Quotes

He tousled Baby's hair, then looked up at Tiger Lily. "The woods have rules." He put Baby down gingerly in his trough with his bottle. "But the rules are ugly.""It's nature," she said, thoughtfully."I have a lot of disagreements with nature," he said, looking confused, and his downy brow wrinkled over his eyes.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
To not do what you can to protect someone, that's cowardly.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
It's the injustice that I hate, more than anything," he'd said to Smee one night, his eyes red and glassy, slurring his words, his head lolling as he tried to focus. He'd vomited, and then promptly passed out on a bush. "I hate the world that does not work out fair.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
It was like this sometimes, and I felt I should look away, but I couldn't. I wanted to be there, having my face touched, defeating a heart like Peter's, but the next best thing was seeing it for Tiger Lily.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
You looked strange climbing in the tree like that."Tiger Lily pulled her braids between her fingers, her sudden self-consciousness feeling foreign and strange to her. "I didn't do it to look nice," she said."But you do care."Tiger Lily studied the tree and decided if she did care, she would now choose not to. "I don't," she said."All girls do," he added, pushing the point."You must not know many girls.""I know a million," Peter said, dark and serious. There was a long awkward silence, but if Peter regretted his words, I couldn't tell.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Something about you makes me feel like I can tell you things like that. You’re so still. It’s like, you’ll just hear it.” He smiled wryly. “I can’t even hear what I’m thinking most of the time,” he said, his brow wrinkling. “My brain’s noisy.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
And always, I could see that, despite his weakness for her or because of it, he seemed uncatchable, as if he might slip away at any moment.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
You may think my jealousy would have been enormous during those days after Peter gave Tiger Lily the smallest kiss on the neck. And you would be right. But these moments were swallowed by a bigger emotion, my tenderness for Tiger Lily, which had grown to take up most of the space in my body, without me knowing it. I can't say I didn't dream that this was a passing moment of infatuation, and that eventually Peter would notice and pick me-as impossible as that might have seemed considering my size. But I felt protective of Tiger Lily. I felt that just by watching over her, I could somehow keep her safe. And I wanted to keep Peter safe too.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
She let the jealousy slip out of her fingertips.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
People say I'm not much of a girl either," Tiger Lily said.She thought of Tik Tok, who was fond of saying that people were all bits of each thing, boy and girl.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
When Peter made mistakes, Wendy cheered for him anyway. One afternoon he beat her and everyone else in a race organized by Slightly. She only laughed and squeezed his wrist with easy affection and told him how fast he was. She was so undeterred by losing that it made the boys wonder if winning was exactly what they’d thought it was or if in England it was different.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
She guarded herself like a secret.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Peter sank. "I'd give anything to see time.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I'll teach you," Tiger Lily offered with a shrug of her shoulders."Did your mother teach you?" he asked."I don't have a mother," she said. "Like you."For some reason, Peter was glad to hear it.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
You never could tell when someone would stop growing old in Neverland. For Tik Tok, it had been after wrinkles had walked long deep tracks across his face, but for many people, it was much younger. Some people said it occurred when the most important thing that would ever happen to you triggered something inside that stopped you from moving forward.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
And to Tiger Lily he suddenly, inexplicably, seemed older than her, and wiser, and the thought hit her hard that it wasn't fair, because she'd suffered, and there he was, looking like he knew so much more than she ever would.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
For the next couple of weeks she held Peter like a secret in her heart, lying right under her necklace. I could see him written on her face, and Tik Tok, too, seemed to catch shadows of him, because he'd stop to stare at her, puzzled, as if he'd just seen the boy flit across her eyes-seen the ghost of the kiss lingering for a second on the skin of her neck before disappearing.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
It's shocking, isn't it, that a kiss could have led to something so big and violent and full of light as a human being? It makes me dizzy to think of all the things that start that way. Whole families, whole countries, whole worlds. Isn't it strange how a whole life can begin with a little spark?
Jodi Lynn Anderson
That is what all creatures great and small are made of. Leftover stardust. An atom exploded, and all the dust became the planets, the stars...and us. That's all anything amounts to.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Tiger Lily made an attempt at a smile. After having felt the need to glower at other children for most of her life, smiles never came easily to her face. But this one was half all right."I miss you already," he said.Tiger Lily wanted to say it back. But she held on to the words greedily, too caught in the habit of keeping herself a secret. And Peter-half sadly, half-expectantly-let her go.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Earth," Alexa finally said. "It's not that great anyway." And they all smiled sadly. Because, of course, it was everything.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
You love me," she said. "That's enough. We love each other.""Yes. Yes, that's true." He smiled. "We are a love story.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Things hurt, and don't hurt, and hurt again.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
P.S. Please give my love to Tink, she always was such a funny little bug
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn’t happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn’t seem broken at all.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
It was almost as if he was giving her his silence, so that all of her anger had a place to go.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
As they grew sloppier and less alert, the twins argued too loudly about whether Tiger Lily was ugly or beautiful, and finally agreed that she was "ugly beautiful".Tiger Lily pretended she hadn't heard, but her heart slowed to absorb the blow.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
So many lights you’d think we were living in a constellation
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Everyone will think I'm ugly."Tik Tok smiled. "That's true. But we are a small village. We have narrow tastes. There's no telling who else in the world would think you're beautiful.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
One by one they dissapeared Pumpkin last of all. The last May saw of himwas his sad face under his waving tuft of hair and then his long fingers,reaching out toward her for a hug that would never happen now as they turned around the bend.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
. . . And as fall turned to winter, the Darlington peach trees started dropping their leaves again, gently, like they were letting them go. It wasnt the same as giving them up. It wasnt the same as losing them.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
What mattered was stil there. That was what they all felt, and what surprised them all. What mattered couldnt be shaken.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I'm not myself," she offered, guiltily. She softened around Tik Tok, and when she did she was, for those rare moments, girlish.He smiled. "You can never say that. You're just a piece of yourself right now that you don't like.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
And though, truly, she sometimes felt like something inside her had disappeared, it seemed that must be a natural part of growing up. Standing out too much made one feel too alone to do it forever.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Do you think magic exists if it can be explained?
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I think we could be friends," he said, falling into step with her. "It's perfect because I wouldn't fall in love with you, like I do with the mermaids. Girls always seem so exotic. But it would be okay with you, because you're more like...you know. Not like a girl." He shrugged.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
We are here to take chances, and fail, and keep trying.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I've made a discovery, and it's that grief isn't like sadness at all. Sadness is only something that's part of you. Grief becomes you, it wraps you up and changes you and makes everything--every little thing--different than it was before. I remember the me before we got the telegram saying he was gone, but it's like I'm remembering someone else. It feels like an earthquake has gone through me...
Jodi Lynn Anderson
She hated his need to always win and he hated her coldness during their arguments. They fought about the exact color of the sky and which path they should take on a hunt. They disagreed passionately about whose fish was the best tasting. They could work up extreme hatred for each other at a moment's notice.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
But Tik Tok believes everything's circular, including men and women. He says nature seems to go around and around, and that we all have bits of everything.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I began to see that Wendy had something Tiger Lily hadn't even known she was supposed to have. Of all the things Tiger Lily had thought she might have to be for Peter-strong, brave; to be big and to keep up-she had never thought that the one thing he wanted most from her was simply to show that she believed in him, always and without fail.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
life's better with girls. boys need girls.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I think we carry home on our backs.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
The universe gets more disorderly all the time.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
So many stars are popping out above us it seems you could almost dip your fingers up there and come out with a handful of stars.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
It never occurred to me before, but there could have easily been a world with no buses, no horns honking, no red lights, no shopping carts, no gum stick to the bottom of benches downtown. For that matter I guess there also could have been no sun, no trees, and no ocean. None of those things had to exist, I guess. It makes me feel lucky that they do.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
We don't know where Millie went, and we don't know if we'll see her again, but there's no reason not to hope. We don't know the answers, and maybe that's a nice thing.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Because I think people must be the same everywhere. Only these people are in my bones.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
A faerie heart is different from a human heart. Human hearts are elastic. They have room for all sorts of passions, and they can break and heal and love again and again. Faerie hearts are evolutionarily less sophisticated. They are small and hard, like tiny grains of sand. Our hearts are too small to love more than one person in a lifetime...I tried to talk sense into my hard little heart. But it had landed on Peter, a creature two hundred times my size and barely aware of me, and there was no prying it loose.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Look," Peter said.To the north was a series of vast grassy plains, and there, just looking like specks at first, was a herd of horses, a species that in Neverland had never been tamed. They were beautiful, flashes of brown and black and tan, their coats gleaming. There was no reason for them to be running that Tiger Lily could see. It was likely that they just loved to run."That's what I want my life to be," Peter said, staring down at the horses.Tiger Lily sank against him and watched the herd, and thought that was what she wanted too.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I could never leave,' Pine Sap said. 'Why?' she asked.Pine Sap shrugged, and gestured in the direction of the village. 'Because I think people must be the same everywhere. Only these people are my bones.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Leeda knew friends never turned out to be what you expected. They came and went in waves, pulling away and coming back, leaving you feeling safe one minute and lost the next.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Books are the way to stretch out people's souls, and I won't have children with small souls.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
And age was just a trait, like the color of your hair, or the amount of freckles on your skin.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
And age was just a trait, like the color of your hair, or the amount of freckles on your skin.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I wonder that if you keep growing and changing like you're supposed to, if you always end up embarrassed about how stupid you used to be. Every year I realize how dumb I was the year before.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I think the rest of the world is not as cold and lonely a place as you think. At least I have to hope.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I think that's what you say when you can't have something you want, isn't it? You say you don't want it in the first place.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Did you know I always thought you were braver than me? Did you ever guess that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn't that I only loved some of you. But I wondered if you could ever love more than some of me. I knew I'd miss you. But the surprising thing is, you never leave me. I never forget a thing. Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn't happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all. I know young people look at me and think my youth seems so far away, but it's all around me, and you're all around me. Tiger Lily, do you think magic exists if it can be explained? I can explain why I loved you, I can explain the theory of evolution that tells me why mermaids live in Neverland and nowhere else. But it still feels magic. The lost boys all stood at our wedding. Does it seem odd to you that they could have stood at a wedding that wasn't yours and mine? It does to me. and I'm sorry for it, and for a lot, and I also wouldn't change it. It is so quiet here. Even with all the trains and the streets and the people. It's nothing like the jungle. The boys have grown. Everything has grown. Do you think you will ever grow? I hope not. I like to think that even if I change and fade away, some other people won't. I like to think that one day after I die, at least one small particle of me - of all the particles that will spread everywhere - will float all the way to Neverland, and be part of a flower or something like that, like that poet said, the one that your Tik Tok loved. I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I'll see you sometime again, even if it's not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the way things go after all - that all things end happy. Even for you and Tik Tok. and for you and me.Always, Your PeterP.S. Please give my love to Tink. She was always such a funny little bug.
Jodi Lynn Anderson