206 Quotes by Christina Baker Kline

Mrs. Scatcherd raps Dutchy's knuckles several times with a long wooden ruler, though it seems to me a halfhearted penalty. He barely winces, then shakes his hands twice in the air and winks at me. Truly , there isn't much more she can do. Stripped of family and identity, fed meager rations, consigned to hard wooden seats until we are to be, as Slobbery Jack suggested, sold into slavery — our mere existence is punishment enough.

...that the quickest relief will come in forgetting.

And I know, with the newfuond clarity of being in a relationship myself, that my own parents were never happy together, and probably never would have been, whatever the circumstances

You must also keep your faith in God to guide you forward if the way is not clear. Whether the journey is long or short, He will help you as long as you place your trust in Him.

I'll play your fucking game. But I don't have to play by your rules.

We are headed toward the unknown, and we have no choice but to sit quietly in our hard seats and let ourselves be taken there.

She should be grateful. Without Vivian she'd be sliding down a dark path toward nowhere good . But it kind of feels nice to nurture her resentment, to foster it. It's something she can savor and control, this feeling of having been wronged by the world. That she has fulfilled her role as a thieving member of the underclass, now indentured to this genteel midwestern white lady, is too perfect for words.

Fairy tales end happily ever after because children crave certainly and resolution; they need to know how things turn out. But if my experiences in the past three months have shown me anything, it's that I am comfortable living with more questions than answers. My own story will always be a work in progress.

Mamey said that in her day a woman who had not married by the age of thirty was called a thornback, named after a flat, spiny, prehistoric-looking fish.