459 Quotes by Ransom Riggs

It was strange to think that one day I might have my own stack of yellowed photos to show skeptical grandchildren – and my own fantastic stories to share.

In a cruel twist of irony, they achieved the immortality they’d been seeking. It’s believed that the hollows can live thousands of years, but it is a life of constant physical torment, of humiliating debasement – feeding on stray animals, living in isolation – and of insatiable hunger for the flesh of their former kin, because our blood is their only hope for salvation. If a hollow gorges itself on enough peculiars, it becomes a wight.

But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around-they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.

They were the gods of this strange little heaven, and I was their guest.

When I was a kid, Granpa Portman’s fantastic stories meant it was possible to live a magical life. Even after I stopped believing them, there was still something magical about my grandfather. To have endured all the horrors he did, to have seen the worst of humanity and to have your life made unrecognised by it, to come out of all that the honorable and good and brave person I knew him to be – THAT was magical.

I thought I’d never understand boys,” said Bronwyn, shaking her head. “But now I think I’ve got it. They’re all idiots!

It was a strange and sour thing to know that such hatred had been directed at me.

If even outcasts and downtrodden folk like yourselves can’t muster a bit of compassion for others, then there’s no hope for this world.

But Emma. There was Emma. Maybe it wasn’t so strange, what we could have. Maybe I could stay for a while and love her and then go home. But no. By the time I wanted to leave, it would be too late. She was a siren. I had to be strong.