336 Quotes by Jennifer Donnelly

I just love historical fiction.

Lots of things are impossible,” she said softly. “Until they’re not.

Why is it, she wondered now, that boys get to do things and be things and girls only get to watch?

There is magic in this sad, hard world. A magic stronger than fate, stronger than chance. And it is seen in the unlikeliest of places... It is the magic of a frail and falliable creature, one capable of both unspeakable cruelty and immense kindness. It lives inside every human being ready to redeem us. To transform us. To save us. If we can only find the courage to listen to it. It is the magic of the human heart.

As a child, she’d thought all the noise and commotion was the most wild, wonderful game, but as she’d grown older, she understood why everyone rushed around so: they were chasing a story.

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.

Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.

Kindness is many things,” he said. “It is gentle. Tender. Tolerant. It is born of patience and faith. And sometimes, yes, it’s dangerous. Helping a wounded animal that’s likely to lash out, standing up for someone who’s being taunted by bullies... these things are all dangerous. But to try to understand another creature, to put ourselves in their place, to help them – even when it costs us – that shows strength, Sophie, not weakness.

I need a name for this ink... A name for the feeling you get when you see someone again. After many years. Someone lost to you. Or so you thought. And you remember them a certain way. In your mind, they never age. But then suddenly, there they are. Older. Changed by time. Different, but exactly the same.