Linda Sue Park · 128 pages
Rating: (29.3K votes)
“One step at a time, one day at a time, just today, just this day to get through.”
“Reading for writers is like training for athletes.”
“If he were older and stronger, would he have given water to those men? Or would he, like most of the group, have kept his water for himself?”
“He was floating with his head down, blood streaming from a bullet hole in the back of his neck.”
“One step at a time . . . one day at a time. Just today—just this day to get through . . .”
“Salva shouldered his way through the crowd until he was standing in front of the list. He raised his head slowly and began reading through the names. There it was. Salva Dut—Rochester, New York. Salva was going to New York. He was going to America!”
“Her sickness came from the water,” the nurse explained. “She should drink only good clean water. If the water is dirty, you should boil it for a count of two hundred before she drinks”
“More than twelve hundred boys arrived safely. It took them a year and a half.”
“The bag sprang a leak. The leak had to be patched. The patch sprang a leak. The crew patched the patch. Then the bag sprang another leak. The drilling could not go on.”
“They patched the bag again. The drilling went on.”
“It was not the brutality of what occurred next that changed my mind and brought home to me the full meaning of fear. It was the brilliance of it.”
“What's it like then?" asked Old Bailey. "Being dead?"
The marquis sighed. And then he twisted his lips up into a smile, and with a glitter of his old self, he replied, "Live long enough, Old Bailey, and you can find out for yourself.”
“It's easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.”
“And the money came rolling into the pockets of the two greedy aunts. But while all this excitement was going on outside, poor James was forced to stay locked in his bedroom, peeping through the bars of his window at the crowds below. “The disgusting little brute will only get in everyone’s way if we let him wander about,” Aunt Spiker had said early that morning. “Oh, please!” he had begged. “I haven’t met any other children for years and years and there are going to be lots of them down there for me to play with. And perhaps I could help you with the tickets.” “Cut it out!” Aunt Sponge had snapped. “Your Aunt Spiker and I are about to become millionaires, and the last thing we want is the likes of you messing things up and getting in the way.” Later, when the evening of the first day came and the people had all gone home, the aunts unlocked James’s door and ordered him to go outside and pick up all the banana skins and orange peel and bits of paper that the crowd had left behind. “Could I please have something to eat first?” he asked. “I haven’t had a thing all day.” “No!” they shouted, kicking him out the door. “We’re too busy to make food! We are counting our money!”
“Really, these wizards! You'd think no one had ever had a cold before! Well, what is it?" she asked, hobbling through the bedroom door onto the filthy carpet.
"I'm dying of boredom," Howl said pathetically. "Or maybe just dying.”
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