Quotes from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Rule #1: You may bring only what fits in your backpack. Don’t try to fake it with a purse or a carry-on.

Rule #2: You may not bring guidebooks, phrase books, or any kind of foreign language aid. And no journals.

Rule #3: You cannot bring extra money or credit/debit cards, travelers’ checks, etc. I’ll take care of all that.

Rule #4: No electronic crutches. This means no laptop, no cell phone, no music, and no camera. You can’t call home or communicate with people in the U.S. by Internet or telephone. Postcards and letters are acceptable and encouraged.

That’s all you need to know for now. ”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I'm Keith," he said, "and you're . . . clearly mad, but what's your name?”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“She was standing in the airport of Copenhagen, staring at a doorway, trying to figure out if it was (a) a bathroom and (b) what kind of bathroom it was. The door merely said H.
Was she an H? Was H "hers"? It could just as easily be "his". Or "Helicopter Room: Not a Bathroom at All”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I am a mass of contradictions.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I like you because you were mad. And you're pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Go see old virgins! Now ask a strange boy out, you shy, Retarded thing!”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“When she emerged, Keith was watching the tiny round window of the under-the-counter washing machine.
"Put your clothes in for a wash," he said. "They were disgusting."
Ginny always thought that the only way of getting clothes clean was by drowning them in scalding water and then whipping them around in a violent centrifugal motion that caused the entire washing machine to vibrate and the floor to shake. You beat them clean. You made them suffer. This machine used about half a cup of water and was about as violent as a toaster, plus it stopped every few minutes, as if it were exhausted from the effort of turning itself.
Sluff, sluff, sluff sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest.
Click.
Sluff, sluff, sluff, sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest.
"Who thought to put a window on a washing machine?" Keith asked. "Does anyone just sit and watch their wash?"
You mean, besides us?"
"Well," he said, "yeah. Is there any coffee?”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked.
It was a good question.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Nothing was quite like it was supposed to be. ”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“because talent alone doesn't make an artist”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Sometimes artist like to catch themselves looking out, let the world see them for once. It's a signature. This one is a very bold one. But this is also a witnessing. We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That's why we paint.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Why Paris? Paris needs no reason. Paris is its own reason.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“i miss you so much it's giving me a pain in my pancreas.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“i get a little romantic about the old Empire State. Just looking at it makes me want to play some Frank Sinatra tunes and sway a little. I have a crush on a building. I'd been in there several times but never to work. I always knew there were offices in there but the face never penetrated, really. You don't work in the Empire State Building. You propose in the Empire State Building. You sneak a flask up there and raise a toast to the whole city of New York.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Sometimes, life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you just have to pick a direction and run like hell.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“She had always thought applying to college would be exciting. Living away from home, meeting so many new people, Learning new things, making a few poor life desicisons....”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Her kung fu is that powerful.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“The locker at the end of her bed had no lock, and one of the hinges was busted. She opened it up.
There was a thing in it.
The thing might have been a sandwich at some point, or an animal, or a human hand...but what it was now was fuzzy and putrid.
A minute later, Ginny was down the stairs, out the door, and gone.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“She didn't even notice right away that a small animal had come out from behind a nearby car and was slowly making its way toward the trash can she was standing near. She flipped through some old files in her mind, trying to come up with what this thing might be, and after a few seconds decided that--impossible as it seemed--it was a fox.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I still have a whopping bad case of what you call scag magnetism. I thought i had gotten rid of it there, but it looks like scary guys still materialize from thin air in my presence. They are drawn to me. I am the North Pole, and they are the explorers of love.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“People don't change . . . You just sort of have to take them like they are.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Sometimes, Gin, life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you just have to pick a direction and run like hell.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I'll go to Venice and drown my sorrows.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Ginny had seen enough shows in her lifetime to know that this wasn’t a very good show. It didn’t actually make any sense. There were a lot of random things going on, like a guy who sometimes rode through the scene on a bike for no reason that Ginny could figure. And at one point, there was a shooting in the background, but the guy who got shot just kept on singing, so his injuries obviously weren’t that bad.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you just have to pick a direction and run like hell.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Early the next morning, they were on a tram out to the far edge of Amsterdam. Ginny liked the tram. It was like an overgrown toy train that had gotten loose on the streets. She looked out and saw the Netherlands wobbling by - its ancient houses and constant canals and people in practical shoes.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Before she could answer, the waiter sprang at his chance to brush some crumbs from David's chair. He had been hanging around their table like a vulture, waiting for them to eat the last papadum crumb so he could take away the basket. He eyed the last piece sadly, as if it were the barrier between him and eternal happiness. Ginny grabbed it and shoved it in her mouth. The man looked relieved and took the basket but immediately returned to stare mournfully at their water glasses.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“I live alone," Knud said, "and I work alone, but I am never truly alone. I do my ancestor's work. I live the entire history of my country and people.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes

About the author

Popular quotes

“Writer's Resolution
Enough's Enough! No more shall I
Pursue the Muse and scorch the pie
Or dream of Authoring a book
When I (unhappy soul) must cook;
Or burn the steak while I wool-gather,
And stir my spouse into a lather
Invoking words like "Darn!" and such
And others that are worse (Oh, much!)
Concerning culinary knack
Which I (HE says) completely lack.
I'll keep my mind upon my work;
I'll learn each boresome cooking quirk;
This day shall mark a new leaf's turning...
That smell! Oh Hell! The beans are burning!”
― quote from The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less

“He speaks to Klamm, but is it Klamm? Isn’t it rather someone who merely resembles Klamm? Perhaps at the very most a secretary who is a little like Klamm and goes to great lengths to be even more like him and tries to seem important by affecting Klamm’s drowsy, dreamlike manner. That part of his being is easiest to imitate, many try to do so; as for the rest of his being, though, they wisely steer clear of it. And a man such as Klamm, who is so often the object of yearning and yet so rarely attained, easily takes on a variety of shapes in the imagination of people. For instance, Klamm has a village secretary here called Momus. Really? You know him? He too keeps to himself but I have seen him a couple of times. A powerful young gentleman, isn’t he? And so he probably doesn’t look at all like Klamm? And yet you can find people in the village who would swear that Momus is Klamm and none other than he. That’s how people create confusion for themselves. And why should it be any different at the Castle?”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Slottet

“The story tells that water has a consciousness, that it carries in its memory everything that’s ever happened in this world, from the time before humans until this moment, which draws itself in its memory even as it passes.”
― Emmi Itäranta, quote from Memory of Water

“Often there is no dramatic reason for discontent in marriages. It seeps in slowly over the years. You don’t even notice it creeping up. It happens, trickle by trickle. You do not realise when or how the easy familiarity gets replaced by a ‘taken-for-granted’ attitude over the years. By the time you do, it is often too late. Habits have been formed, patterns have been set. And a comfort-zone has been established. A zone that is hard to get out of.”
― Preeti Shenoy, quote from The Secret Wish List

“The Culture gives us so much, but in fact it’s only taking things away from us, lobotimizings everybody in it, taking away their choices, their potential for being really good or even slightly bad.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The State of the Art

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.