138 Quotes by Trenton Lee Stewart

Mr. Furrow jerked a thumb toward the mule in the back of the barn. “Rabbit’ll kill anything comes near his carrot if he hasn’t done with it. And he’ll kick you if you make him go too fast in the field. I’d whip him, but he’s so old a whipping might kill him, and he’s our last and only mule. So we just keep away from his carrot and we keep it slow. That’s the rules with Rabbit.

At this, Constance sat down on a rock and covered her face. She seemed smaller than ever now – so small the harbor breeze might catch her up like a scrap of paper and carry her away, carry her into nowhere.

The third question, thankfully, was less emotional. It read: “What is wrong with this statement?” How funny, Reynie thought, and marking down his answer he felt somewhat cheered. “It isn’t a statement at all,” he wrote. “It’s a question.

Milligan now acted as if he were the happiest man alive – and perhaps he was. Having so long ago exited his life as a father, he had now, at long last, entered it again.

And yet, in certain ways, the Institute did remind them of other schools: Rote memorization of lessons was discouraged but required; class participation was encouraged but rarely permitted; and although quizzes were given every day, in every class, there was always at least one student who groaned, another who acted surprised, and another who begged the teacher, in vain, not to give it.

It’s not going to be over,” Kate said firmly, “until we say so.

He’d been about to make a joke, but he kept it to himself.

With perfect clarity he remembered Reynie saying, “I need you here as a friend.” The effect of those words, and of all his friendships, had grown stronger and stronger, until – though he couldn’t say why he didn’t feel mixed up now – at the most desperate moment yet, he knew it to be true. There was bravery in him. It only had to be drawn out.

Go on, Kate. I don’t want to have fallen four stories for nothing.” – Milligan.